Hi!
New here on the forum. Never had any dealing with boats before, but am trying to learn everything slowly.
Just acquired recently this boat from someone I know after it sat unused for few years; cleaned up carbs, got it running, bought all the rest of necessary equipment, and put it in the water. First 2 times it ran really nice & strong; yesterday went fishing with my friends, and I'm pretty sure we went into some really shallow waters. When leaving the place my friend took off pretty fast, and I could totally see a lot of dirt in the water behind us. We went full speed across a lake, and by the time we got to a canal "HOT" light came on. We slowed down, let it cool down while moving only in idle. After light was off for few minutes we took off again, and light was back on pretty quickly.
We stopped for a longer time then, took a swim, and let the engine cool down for about 30 minutes; on the way back though light was coming any time if we would go past half throttle for a little while. It was a long ride back.
Every time when it gets hot you can actually some some steam coming out of the back; not a whole lot (not under pressure), but noticeable.
Obviously my thought is we picked something up while going through shallow water, and it's not cooling enough. Logical, right?
Coincidentally our battery died right before we went through shallow stuff.... But that shouldn't affect anything because pump is mechanically driven, correct?
What's my next step? How do I make sure water is flowing through at a good rate? There is no pee-hole in this engine as far as I can tell.
Do I need to take the take off the lower unit?
Any help & tips are greatly appreciated. I'm looking for easier ways to check/fix first; if there isn't an easy way, then we'll move on to harder ones.
New here on the forum. Never had any dealing with boats before, but am trying to learn everything slowly.
Just acquired recently this boat from someone I know after it sat unused for few years; cleaned up carbs, got it running, bought all the rest of necessary equipment, and put it in the water. First 2 times it ran really nice & strong; yesterday went fishing with my friends, and I'm pretty sure we went into some really shallow waters. When leaving the place my friend took off pretty fast, and I could totally see a lot of dirt in the water behind us. We went full speed across a lake, and by the time we got to a canal "HOT" light came on. We slowed down, let it cool down while moving only in idle. After light was off for few minutes we took off again, and light was back on pretty quickly.
We stopped for a longer time then, took a swim, and let the engine cool down for about 30 minutes; on the way back though light was coming any time if we would go past half throttle for a little while. It was a long ride back.
Every time when it gets hot you can actually some some steam coming out of the back; not a whole lot (not under pressure), but noticeable.
Obviously my thought is we picked something up while going through shallow water, and it's not cooling enough. Logical, right?
Coincidentally our battery died right before we went through shallow stuff.... But that shouldn't affect anything because pump is mechanically driven, correct?
What's my next step? How do I make sure water is flowing through at a good rate? There is no pee-hole in this engine as far as I can tell.
Do I need to take the take off the lower unit?
Any help & tips are greatly appreciated. I'm looking for easier ways to check/fix first; if there isn't an easy way, then we'll move on to harder ones.