I'm IN

craigswardmtb

Well after a long week getting the boat ready last week she is in the water. Not without incident though. I installed a bow thruster last week and apparently when I hooked the joystick up to the ignition wire I had a stray wire strand touching the starter terminal wire which is right next to the ignition power on wire. The net of that was as they craned me down to the water I decided to turn on the electronics. The starboard engine fired when put in the on position while out of he water. I figured out what was wrong and fixed the issue. I finally go to fire the engine while in the water and sure enough I get an overheat condition on starboard. I thought for sure I tore the impellar up when the engine fired prior to being in water. Then I get an overheat on the port engine. Strange. It was too ironic for both to overheat within minutes of eachother. The mechanic comes down and runs the engines and all of a sudden they are running cool and perfect. Prior both were very hot on the risers. He tells me they must have been air locked and they have since purged themselves. Has anyone ever heard of this? Sure enough I run the engines for 20 minutes while sitting at the dock and they run perfectly. I then took off and solo captained 40 miles to my summer slip in mystic CT. The boat ran perfect, the sun was shining, and despite 25 knot winds I got into my slip just fine. I love that thruster already. Happy boat season to everyone. The boat is a 360 FV with merc 496's.

rinker312

Not exactly like your situation, I was out of the water.  I had just replaced my pump impellers.  Put the earmuffs on one engine and fired it up.  Sure enough, she started getting hot so I shut it down.  All sorts of stuff going through my mind on how I must have screwed it up.  I let the water run on the earmuffs while things cooled down, then fired it back up and all was fine.  So yes, I believe that it is possible to get air locked.  and I am guessing that just sitting in the water and a couple restarts should usually clear up the problem.