OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Went to take the boys for their maiden fishing voyage this year and the Honda, which has always been the pinnacle of reliability, kept randomly stalling at trolling speed. No warning noises of any kind and it appeared to be cooling based on the presence of the "pee stream", though it did strike me as a bit weaker than last year.
Finally, at the marina, I fired it up one day and there was no pee stream. Gave it a bit of gas and it reappeared. I figured it must be overheating at low speed.
Tore into the lower unit to swap out the impeller (which actually comes as a kit from Honda, including new housing, plate, bolts, O-ring, key and impeller) and found this:
Was definitely on the right track!
Put it back together and it was obvious that the impeller had been on its way out for a while as the pee stream was far stronger than it had ever been since we acquired the boat.
I also learned, through perusal of the Honda owners manual, that if you have a remote drive version of the same engine, you get a nice little overheat warning light, but the tiller-controlled version has no such feature, just the thermal cut-off, which we were experiencing.
Finally, at the marina, I fired it up one day and there was no pee stream. Gave it a bit of gas and it reappeared. I figured it must be overheating at low speed.
Tore into the lower unit to swap out the impeller (which actually comes as a kit from Honda, including new housing, plate, bolts, O-ring, key and impeller) and found this:
Was definitely on the right track!
Put it back together and it was obvious that the impeller had been on its way out for a while as the pee stream was far stronger than it had ever been since we acquired the boat.
I also learned, through perusal of the Honda owners manual, that if you have a remote drive version of the same engine, you get a nice little overheat warning light, but the tiller-controlled version has no such feature, just the thermal cut-off, which we were experiencing.