water pump issue - on hose

You can install it with the vanes facing the wrong way but they won't stay that way for long.

As soon as you crank the engine over, being flexible they'll orient themselves the right way

I change my impeller every year..and my temps are always 130F-140F depending on skiers, and weight I am pulling. I don't think I've ever hit 160F.

Thanks Ken! that is a cool video as well.

I can't remember if the video in the link was just posted here on CCF but it's pretty good

link

Jonny Quest wrote: It is very easy to install the raw water pump upside-down (backward). That would be my first guess. The plagiarized picture below can help: JQ

After clearing up all the confusion and testing.....are the vanes in the 454 pump oriented correctly in the above picture? In my small mind this picture makes sense as to how the vanes would pull and push water. In the other two pictures the vanes seem to be oriented (flipping water) opposite of the 454 pump. Just a bit curious as to why the vanes would work one way and not the other.

Thanks for going to the trouble, that does make me feel better haha. Except for where you were able to change out the impeller in no time, painlessly. Nothing I can do about that unless I go back to a direct drive. Maybe when my kids commandeer the SAN I'll get a Paragon. I can dream.

Cheers

Mark

Since I was the one who questioned your post originally, let me be the first one to give you all the credit in the world for listening, having a questioning attitude and going out and retesting things.

I figure you're getting some forced pressure through the hull intake from the forward motion of the boat to give a little bit of water to the pump.

I think if it's a simple edit to say "keep reading to get the rest of the story" , that would be good for the next guy.

I think I'd just blame any confusion on eating some hallucinogenic mushrooms on your pizza or something like that

So you get a big as far as I'm concerned

And.......you got to test your hi temp switch and make sure the limp mode worked as it should

Well, I had to do it. I inverted the pump today and headed out to the lake, I took tools and had an extra impeller just in case.
Since I launched alone the boat sat at the dock while I parked the car.
I fired up the boat at the dock, had my IR gun handy, Idled out of the 5 MPH zone and I had a timer running.
At 1:30 the engine was near 160 and I was now on the open lake so I ran it up to 2,500 RPM and held it. Temp was at 160, all good. At 2:30 I ran the RPM up to 3,500 and the boat was running really smooth and sounding great. I had no concerns. Now cruising at 3,500 I was just thinking I would open a cold beer and enjoy my cruise.   Just past the 3:30 mark the engine suddenly sputtered and I reached down and killed it with the key.   In this minute it went from 160 to over 180 and the computer kicked in to protect it from overheat.
Dang, this is hard to swallow but I want to be honest and report as it happened.

I was in the middle of the lake, lots of room so I popped the cover and took the next 10 minutes to remove and invert the Raw Water Pump to the proper posistion.
I did not take time to IR it at this point as I knew it was done and I had to be all wet with my prior notes.   
The RWP was more than warm, I could hold it in my hand but it was not comfortable.   I dipped it in the lake and cooled it. Now cool I rotated it to see if I should install my spare impeller at this point. The pump felt 100% normal.   Made the normal suction noise as I rotated. Looking at the blades as I rotated it all looked good, none torn or damaged that I could see through the inlet port.
Hooked everything up, tensioned the belt and fired it up.   I let it run for about 30 seconds to introduce some cooling water than shut it down for a few minutes to let the heat mix with the cold water. Put away the tools, fired it up and it was at 160 in about 1 minute and stayed there no matter what I did after this.   
So there you have it.   I fully agree these boat will not run with the RWP inverted.
Several of you knew this to be fact already based on the notes above.

Looking back, the boat ran well all last year but my buddy that skied with me in September last year said the boat was running a little warm and we had talked about this in September.
I had forgotten that conversation so I am thinking a little warm might have been 170 in September when we skied. I live in CA so winter prep to me is put the cover on and roll it into my garage where it never see's any temp below 58 degrees.
When I rolled it out last week for first start using my IR gun I found temps climbing and no water out the exhaust.   Due to this I shut down and replaced the impeller right away.
At this point I must have inverted the RWP.   I better add new marks on the impeller showing not just assembly but also mounting location. On second start I had the same issue with no water out the exhaust but this time the heat was caused by the inverted pump..   This is when I visited this Posting and inverted the RWP and fixed the water flow issue.
I must have also found and fixed the previous water flow issue. That would mean it probably had a vacuum leak on the intake hose at the pump.   I was using the Timmy T which is installed after the water filter so everything on the lake side of the Timmy T would not be in play.   When I pulled the hoses and replaced them I must have fixed a leak I was not even aware of on the pump side.   Nothing else makes sense to me.
For a final wrap, enough water comes in to lightly lubricate the RWP while inverted but not nearly enough to begin cooling the engine. A dry impeller will tear up very quickly and make noise doing it. This inverted impeller never did either.

On the positive side, I had three different people ask me if this boat was brand new, that really makes you feel great when it is 24 years old! The trailer Master Cylinder overhaul last week worked out great, the boat trailers really well and the brakes seem to work perfectly.
The 422 ACME installed last year is smooth as glass, quiet and really strong acceleration.

My Tach if accurate maxed out at 4,800-4,900 with a full tank of gas and one person on board with smooth water.   MPH was right at 48-49, I did not have my GPS today but I set the speedos with GPS last year and they read very close to itentical to each other today.
At 36 MPH the Tach was at 33-3400 which seems like a nice prop for cruising.
When I had the Acme 224 prop on this boat I did have a little more top speed, 2-3 MPH and it tached up a little higher, 5,100 - 5,200. I can't say I feel any differance between the two props both were quiet and good props on this boat.

I will finish with, I was taking pictures of my dashboard and the IR gun and looking forward to posting positive results from this inverted pump test but instead I hold my hat in my hand and say all you guys were right, you can't run one of these on an inverted pump it will burn up.
I hope this at least entertained you.

Now should I go back and edit the earlier posts so some poor owner does not read part of this post and think it is OK to invert his RWP?
Have a great weekend.
Mark

Something smells burny

MrMcD wrote: Based on the looks of the May 2018 impeller as removed it was moving some water just not enough as it should. There was a big difference when it was corrected. I had no engine warning light and the temp never went high enough to concern me last year. 5 years ago when I initially had overheat issues I removed every connection on the inlet side. I used a film of silicone around each hose bib before sliding each hose on and then clamping. I wanted to make sure I had all vacuum leaks sealed. New O'ring for the water filter also.   The inlet side is tight but I am still shocked it did not at least burn up the exhaust hoses, it never even smelled hot last year so some water was moving through the block and exhaust.

You're livin' in a dream world   

Flop it around and do the test mentioned earlier

I don't know how your engine didn't overheat in 5 minutes with the pump on backwards. I mean, a loose strainer bowl can cause cooling issues. I burned through exhaust hoses on my old boat when the cooling system was otherwise operating perfectly, with no flow issues on the engine side of things at all. There was some minor restriction in a muffler causing JUST enough back pressure at idle (but not above 1000 rpm) that caused most of the water to go to one side. Standard exhaust hoses are rated only to ~250F - intermittent, not continuous - and they'll melt through.

I'm baffled.

MrMcD wrote: Ken, I ran it in the lake last year for 20-25 hours use. The engine is still alive. I called a ski buddy this morning. He told me I mentioned the temps were running a little high when we skied last September. I must not have been worried because I did not remember it at all. We were drinking while skiing, that might have had something to do with the memory issue. Because of your post I was tempted to flip it and give it another boat test just to confirm but that probably won't happen unless I get bored. I only caught this because I took the IR gun into the boat on first start just to trouble check and Wham, I found trouble.   I still think it should have melted down but so far it is solid. If it blows a head gasket early on this year at least I know why, it will be no surprise and that is an easy fix so no worries.

You need to get bored

Jonny Quest wrote: Roll Call: How many of us have installed a raw water pump upside-down /backward and didn't realize for a minute or 2 when first running on the hose? I'll come clean and raise my hand. JQ (Yes, KENO, that picture was blatantly hijacked from another thread)

I’ll admit to at one time learning about every possible
Combination and permutation of all parts of the water pump on a
V-drive. I have to admit the scars from that had something to do with going back to direct drive!

MrMcD wrote: Because of your post I was tempted to flip it and give it another boat test just to confirm but that probably won't happen unless I get bored.

You will overheat and peg the temp gauge a mile from the ramp.

I think you need to turn your pump back to the way you think you had it and suck from a bucket,( no Timmy T with garden hose pressure allowed) and run the discharge to another bucket and see how much water ends up in the discharge bucket.

The pump just plain won't work if you're trying to suck water into the discharge side and push it out the suction side with the impeller still spinning in the same direction