I purchased a 1987-88 (at work right now can't remember) Wellcraft Classic 190 from my brother-in-law last season. He stepped up to a 28foot SeaRay and give me a pretty good deal on the Wellcraft. It has a 6 cylinder I/O merc. 160hp if I recall correctly. Any way last season when I bought it, it was already in use for the year so I just used it. I never ran it on muffs prior to taking it out because I didn't think to (I have learned a lot from these forums since then). Yesterday I cut off the shrink wrap for the summer, cleaned it etc and I put my muffs on it and started it in my driveway to flush out all of the winterization chemicals the marina put in it last fall. After running rough for a few min it started to smooth out and then I noticed that no water was being pumped out of the outdrive. I quickly killed the motor (it ran for about 4 minutes). I thought maybe the impeller had gone bad. I called my brother-in-law to ask where the water expelled from and he kind laughed and told me to take off the engine cover. So I did and he said you see that metal tank on top? Read the sticker. So I did and it said something to the effect of "Factory installed enclosed cooling system, filled 50/50 with water and something else, it started with an e". He explained that it carries it's own coolant like a car engine, that it doesn't use lake water to cool itself. I said ok but it still has the intake vents on the outdrive. He said that they are standard on all outdrives, they just are not used on my boat because the original owner purchased the enclosed cooling option and had it installed to run in salt water. I said so does this mean that I can run the boat on land without muffs because it doesn't suck in any water at all? He said that that is correct.
Does this all sound possible to any of you? It still concerns me that the outdrive was not expelling any water (other that was was leaking out around the muffs) and that even the lower unit is cooled by the internal system. Thoughts?
Does this all sound possible to any of you? It still concerns me that the outdrive was not expelling any water (other that was was leaking out around the muffs) and that even the lower unit is cooled by the internal system. Thoughts?
