outdrive shower

[iconracing]

how do these work and are they worth it?

 

[ziggy]

Re: outdrive shower

first, i don't have one. but i've considered one. still am. looks pretty plain and simple to me for operation. they suck up water and divert it to on top of the drive. cooling it.

i've no idea if there worth it. i do know that i get hard water deposits on my drive after the water boils off. it leaves a white deposit on my drive. leads me to think that the drive is getting petty hot, likely when i'm on plane. a drive shower could help me out for the cooling it provides. on the other hand. if it's such a great idea, why didn't mercruiser put it out from the oem?

 

[Fireman431]

Re: outdrive shower

Seems to me that you could build one pretty inexpensively with a 250 GPH bilge pump and some tubing...

 

[45Auto]

Re: outdrive shower

Why use a bilge pump? Hard to beat the simplicity of a couple of feet of 1/2" stainless tubing with some holes in it that you don't even need to drill a hole to install ....

http://www.driveshowers.com/

There have been many tests of drive showers that show that they significantly reduce the oil temperature in the outdrive upper.

When your boats on plane, the outdrive upper is out of the water. The only thing cooling it is the oil flow between the upper and lower. This is a 1/8" diameter hole, so there is essentially no oil flow between the upper and lower.

That's why you'll see white calcium deposits on the outdrive upper of boats used in water with calcium in it. After prolonged cruising on plane, the outdrive upper is extremely hot, somewhere in the neighborhood of 240-260 degrees. When you drop off plane and it goes back into the water, it boils the water and forms calcium deposits on the hot upper.

A drive shower will keep your upper at around 200 degrees. Kind of like having a transmission oil cooler on your tow truck.

I've had a Simrek on my Bravo 3 for several years now, seems to work great!

 

[fastercat]

Re: outdrive shower

ive had drive showers on my 2003 since new and the drive still looks new, it keeps the drive cool so that calcium deposits dont burn on the drive, my dad has the same year and his drive looks like s#$t, i will never go without them, some guys say you will lose 1-2mph, i dont care about that.

 

[Thajeffski]

Re: outdrive shower

I think it depends on where you boat.

This guy is in Detroit. Def not needed up there where the water hardly ever hits 75degrees.

Here in CT nobody uses them at all. Then again we also struggle to get water temps of 70.

Now I was down in Palm Beach FL on a 30 ft boat and the water temp was 87or so. That might be reason to use them.

 

[skargo]

Re: outdrive shower

I think it depends on where you boat.

This guy is in Detroit. Def not needed up there where the water hardly ever hits 75degrees.

Here in CT nobody uses them at all. Then again we also struggle to get water temps of 70.

Now I was down in Palm Beach FL on a 30 ft boat and the water temp was 87or so. That might be reason to use them.

I don't think water temp makes that much of a difference, once the upper is up out of the water. A drive shower can't hurt anyway. There are guys on another forum I go to who use them on lakes in NY.

 

[Fireman431]

Re: outdrive shower

Why use a bilge pump? Hard to beat the simplicity of a couple of feet of 1/2" stainless tubing with some holes in it that you don't even need to drill a hole to install ....

I was thinking of something that would work at an idle as well.

 

[nlain]

Re: outdrive shower

The main place I have seen them run is on the Bravo III drive, it apparently runs extremely hot and needs the cooling where the single prop drives do not need it.

 

[H20Rat]

Re: outdrive shower

I was thinking of something that would work at an idle as well.

why? when you are idle the outdrive is deep in the water...

 

[skargo]

Re: outdrive shower

I'm putting one on my Alpha one next season, can't run them too cool IMO.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: outdrive shower

I put one on my outdrive for our powell trip. We normally boat at smaller lakes in Colorado but in going to Big Mac in Nebraska I was developing the deposits on my upper so before I went to powell I got a shower from Simrek, took all of 10 minutes to install and was less then $200 shipped. Made our trip to powell over 4th of july weekend and I loaded 12 people onto my boat and we made the run from Bullfrog to rainbow bridge about 45 miles one way I think at about 45 or 50 mph. Looked at my drive when we arrived and I could actually put my hand on the upper, it was hot but not uncomfortable. I'm sold on it

 

[45Auto]

Re: outdrive shower

Looked at my drive when we arrived and I could actually put my hand on the upper

Hopefully you stopped when you arrived at your destination, which means the boat dropped off plane and the whole drive was submerged until you got around to putting your hand on it. Wouldn't have made any difference in temp at that point whether you had an outdrive cooler or not.

 

[shrew]

Re: outdrive shower

To my knowledge (and I love beign corrected), the only real purpose for the drive shower is when you bypass the raw water intake through the drive with a through hull pickup. At that point, the raw water is being pulled through a running pickup in the hull near the stern and is connected to a seacock which should route through a seawater strainer to the engine.

When the impellor is drawing water through the drive, it keeps the drive cool as well. By passing the drive pickups requires an alternate means to keep the drive cool. One of the reasons you see it in a Bravo III more frequently is the BIII has the impellor on the motor, not in the lower unit, so it is easier to go with this type of configuration.

Otherwise, performance boats do use them as well due to the temps. generated at sustained high speeds.

 

[skargo]

Re: outdrive shower

To my knowledge (and I love beign corrected), the only real purpose for the drive shower is when you bypass the raw water intake through the drive with a through hull pickup. At that point, the raw water is being pulled through a running pickup in the hull near the stern and is connected to a seacock which should route through a seawater strainer to the engine.

When the impellor is drawing water through the drive, it keeps the drive cool as well. By passing the drive pickups requires an alternate means to keep the drive cool. One of the reasons you see it in a Bravo III more frequently is the BIII has the impellor on the motor, not in the lower unit, so it is easier to go with this type of configuration.

Otherwise, performance boats do use them as well due to the temps. generated at sustained high speeds.

I have an Alpha one, gen one with a Bravo type setup.
I have a thru hull water pickup that feeds an engine mounted raw water pump. I have no impeller in my Alpha one. It's my understanding the oil does the cooling, but I want a drive shower for the reasons you mention. However, i tend to believe the oil cools the drives as Mercruiser doesn't offer drive showers themselves.

These are all my own conclusions, and like you I love being corrected! Life is about learning from our mistakes and/or misconceptions.

 

[dsiekman]

Re: outdrive shower

Everyone here seems to be talking about Merc drives. Can/should they be used on Volvos? I've never noticed calcium deposits on my drives...other than those housing barnacles...

 

[642mx]

Re: outdrive shower

I've had drive showers on both my previous boat (Alpha) and my current boat (Bravo). Before the showers, both had the white crap all over them from long runs. After I installed the showers, they always come out clean with no white junk.

I won't run without one.

 

[dbkerley]

Re: outdrive shower

first, i don't have one. but i've considered one. still am. looks pretty plain and simple to me for operation. they suck up water and divert it to on top of the drive. cooling it.

i've no idea if there worth it. i do know that i get hard water deposits on my drive after the water boils off. it leaves a white deposit on my drive. leads me to think that the drive is getting petty hot, likely when i'm on plane. a drive shower could help me out for the cooling it provides. on the other hand. if it's such a great idea, why didn't mercruiser put it out from the oem?

Ours are the same and mine is still the way they made it. Where are these deposits? I've run mine for a pretty good while (hour+) hard and never noticed it being too hot to touch.

 

[shrew]

Re: outdrive shower

I have an Alpha one, gen one with a Bravo type setup.
I have a thru hull water pickup that feeds an engine mounted raw water pump. I have no impeller in my Alpha one. It's my understanding the oil does the cooling, but I want a drive shower for the reasons you mention. However, i tend to believe the oil cools the drives as Mercruiser doesn't offer drive showers themselves.

These are all my own conclusions, and like you I love being corrected! Life is about learning from our mistakes and/or misconceptions.

You could very well be right. When i discussed options with my Mercruiser mechanic for going to a through hull pickup and bypassing the drive pickups his first comment was, "Sure, but you're going to need a drive shower if you want to do that".

My boat is wet slipped and my drive is painted with anti-fouing paint so I don't have any issues with deposits on the drive itself. While it's called a drive shower, I don't think it's meant to keep the drive clean, but I could be wrong.

 

[skargo]

Re: outdrive shower

You could very well be right. When i discussed options with my Mercruiser mechanic for going to a through hull pickup and bypassing the drive pickups his first comment was, "Sure, but you're going to need a drive shower if you want to do that".

My boat is wet slipped and my drive is painted with anti-fouing paint so I don't have any issues with deposits on the drive itself. While it's called a drive shower, I don't think it's meant to keep the drive clean, but I could be wrong.

I agree 100% that a drive shower is to keep a drive cool, rather than to clean it.