No Water Out of Outdrive? Not Circulating Water? Impeller? GLE 5.0

[enginesilo]

I'm helping a friend who is trying to trouble shoot a cooling issue. The engine is a 2004 Volvo GLE 5.0.

The issue is when the boat is run on the muffs, water does not come out of the back of the outdrive when he ran on land.
Water may have been coming out the middle of the prop but was hard to tell since the muffs were throwing a lot of water. A question, does the water usually come out of the outdrive housing like it does on a Mercruiser, or is the Volvo different and the water comes out of the exhaust mainly?

He said the temperature seemed fine but he didn't want to take any chances since it didn't seem like the water was flowing like he remember.

Things done so far:
-Changed the impeller
-Took the hose off of the impeller housing and put a hose inside that goes to the starting point where the engine sucks the water. He said from the impeller to the outdrive the water flowed fine.
-The impeller exit, he put a hose on this and removed the tube up to the manifold and water was coming out, so this is not clogged.
-Temperature gauge is not working so I suggested an IR gun, and to get a new gauge hooked up which he is trying to do

I suggested trying to put the muffs on and pull the tube that goes into the manifold to see if water is reaching all the way up to that point. That in theory can then help determine if there is an issue before the manifold, or between the manifold and the exit in case an exhaust flapper is clogging the exit.

What is the proper way for him to test if the water is circulating properly to figure out where a clog may be if there is one?

I'm not local to the boat so I'm not able to check it myself now, but any tips are appreciated so I can help him troubleshoot.

 

[Lewis1111]

How does the boat operate in the water?. Does it overheat? Yes water will come out similar to that of cruiser..out the exhaust on either side of the transom and some out the prop.

 

[Scott Danforth]

on the muffs, the water will normally come out of the idle relief ports

if the old impeller was missing pieces, find them

which drive is on the boat?

 

[enginesilo]

on the muffs, the water will normally come out of the idle relief ports

if the old impeller was missing pieces, find them

which drive is on the boat?

Thanks to you both for the posts.

Water test is coming next, he was waiting on the marina to drop it in, he just noticed the difference that no water was exiting so he's starting the troubleshooting on land, and will then water test with an IR gun.

The drive is the SX Drive. The old impeller looked perfectly fine he said, no fins broken or anything like that. So water should be coming out of those idle relief ports then, so that confirms he's not getting water through the entire circulation system.

Any tips on what he should test first as a process of elimination to try to narrow down his search? Do the circulation pumps ever go bad? What if he put a hose on the hose that exits the impeller housing, should water spray straight out the idle relief ports?

 

[Silverbullet555]

Some of the VP drives have an exhaust bellows that directs the majority of the water out the prop hub. Some allow more water to come out the back of the outdrive.

Friend can pull the inlet hose from the water pump, put a clear hose from the pump to a bucket and pull water from there to inspect. Also, can put a piece of clear hose inline to see flow.

 

[Lou C]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ysj65t93un..._2520.MOV?dl=0

This is a Cobra but it should look like this, since the transom mount is pretty much the same...
At idle most of the water will come out of the idle relief ports on the underside of the transom mount....very little out of the prop,,

 

[enginesilo]

Some of the VP drives have an exhaust bellows that directs the majority of the water out the prop hub. Some allow more water to come out the back of the outdrive.

Friend can pull the inlet hose from the water pump, put a clear hose from the pump to a bucket and pull water from there to inspect. Also, can put a piece of clear hose inline to see flow.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ysj65t93un..._2520.MOV?dl=0

This is a Cobra but it should look like this, since the transom mount is pretty much the same...
At idle most of the water will come out of the idle relief ports on the underside of the transom mount....very little out of the prop,,

Good visual with that video, that's how he said he remembers the water flowing so something is definitely up. Do the water circulation pumps ever fail or is that a rare part to go bad, and do they have a type of impeller that wears and needs to be changed over time like the raw water impeller does? Open to any other ideas.

Next step is to pull some hoses and see if water is flowing, do some IR thermometer reads, and try to get that water to flow out of those idle relief ports. A water test is next but he's hoping to try to troubleshoot as much as he can while its on land. We all know water flows MUCH better when the boat is in the water so that's definitely on the list of next tries but hopefully he gets it flowing beforehand so he has a visual that its working as it should as well.

If anyone has any other ideas please share.

 

[Scott Danforth]

rare for a circulating pump to go bad

 

[Silverbullet555]

And circulating pump going bad won't impact what is coming out of the exhaust. Raw water pumps do good bad through wear though. So, backflushing the system and then testing at certain places can help to isolate where the problem is

 

[Bt Doctur]

Funny you should mention this, currently have a customer with the ocean x drives doing the same thing . Wont get any water using muffs but water will freely back flow using a hose.
.In the water one motor acts normally, the other is overheating .Removing the inlet hose from the crank mounted pump has no water free flowing in?
Stay tuned, we will get it figured out.