Posted: 04 November 2009 at 10:45pm | IP Logged

I'm a new boat owner.  Thankfully, I learned in my Coast Guard class to always check for the small water stream coming out of the engine or I might never have noticed that there wasn't one on my starboard engine.  (I have Suzuki 115 hp four strokes.)  I stuck a toothpick in to see if there was dirt that needed to be cleared from the tell tale, but that didn't help.   A few people asked if I flushed the engine.  Pardon the newby question, but is that difficult to do?  If doing it could clear the system and get the cooling function working again, I'm sure it would save me money over having a marine mechanic come out.

Posted: 05 November 2009 at 7:19am | IP Logged

How long has it been since you had the impellers changed? Out of the thousands of outboards i have worked on i can only remember one time the problem was a clog and not either an impeller or some other cooling failure. Is this a trailer boat? If so is there water coming out the prop when you run it on muffs?

Posted: 05 November 2009 at 8:41am | IP Logged

If you are going to try and resolve this via the flush method do yourself a favor and get a Salt Away kit and flush it properly.  In true salt you should flush with freshwater fairly often.  Just plain water will not dissolve salt deposits.  No way related to salt away, just a happy customer..