Opinions please

[dak]

"hi i am a newbie and have pur

"hi i am a newbie and have purchased my 1st boat. it is a 1987 imperial w/454 mercruiser. recently i took the boat and anchored at the beach to which i pulled out thru a sandbank, which came out of nowhere. anyways i noticed i kicked up a lot of sand during take off, and about 5 min. in to driving we started hereing what sounded like electrical sparks, it was really loud and obnoxious sounding. after shutting down and checking to make sure it wasnt electrical, we started back up to here and see where it was coming from. it sounded like it was coming from the front of the motor by the waterpump. checked fluids everything was fine, my brother thought that i maybe a little low on powersteering, but there was no indication while driving that steering was the problem. we decided to take her back in, and on our way back the sound stopped. we were going at very low speed about10, so i decided maybe i would drive around before i headed in, thinking maybe i kicked sand in to my cooling system, or whatever else sand may have entered, and maybe that was my problem. as i drove around for another 10min. i decided that the problem must be gone as the sound had disapeared, so i gave her more throttle, and as she was picking up speed the sound came back, but this time it was not that loud at all, and seemed to be correcting itself as the sound kept leaving and coming back.
i am very new to boating and am hoping that someone here could tell me what they would think. the sound is just like sand is shaking around in a container. i am assuming that it is sand. has anyone had this problem? the motor is running like a champ aside from this noise.
if anyone can help i would really apreciate your time to answer me.

Thank You very much in advance to anyone..."

 

[guyjg]

It's apparent that your en

It's apparent that your engine has injested a mouthfull of sand. I assume that the engine uses RAW seawater to directly cool the engine. You would be doing it a favor by back flushing the water inlet from the T'stat housing. Drop the lower water circ. pump hose and flush out any sand in the hose. You could remove the circ. pump and flush it out. Also flush the block thru the circ. pump holes; open all the petcocks in the block and exhaust mans.

Reassemble and then flush the engine with a garden hose and muffs while making sure there is a steady stream of water out of the PCs.; probe with a wire if it is a trickle. Sand injestion can damage the OD impeller if equipped or the raw water pump. It is a good maint. service to change the impeller at season end if it is not O/heating now.