Outboard impeller

[lustyd]

Hi all I changed my outboard impeller today as I was in a maintenance sort of mood having fitted a new fuel tap and spark plug to the engine. The old impeller had only 2 teeth (or flaps or whatever you call them) left out of 6, and one of those was damaged!

There was still water coming out of the tell tale, although weaker than it is now, and everything was running just fine so I had no reason to even look at it apart from having seen a magazine article. The reason I'm posting this is that it was only £15 for the part and it's pretty easy to do so I would recommend checking even if you think it's ok. Also, I think for the cost I'm going to swap it out yearly and keep a spare on board just in case.
In case it's of any interest, to check mine I have to undo 2 bolts on the bottom of the leg which hold the prop section to the leg section. This part then pulls away along with the driveshaft. On the driveshaft was a little black box which had some bolts holding it down, I removed these and the impeller was inside which I swapped out before reassembling everything with grease on all the bolts.
Cheers
Dave

 

[VicS]

or flaps or whatever you call them

Vanes!

The question now is where are the missing/broken bits. What are they going to block?

Note its only outboards with a fixed drive that have the water pump behind the prop driven by the propeller shaft and not all of those do.

Anything with a clutch or FNR gears will have the pump on top of the gearcase driven by the drive shaft requiring removal of the gearcase to access it.

 

[lustyd]

Vic you are very good at this. Gear case was what I meant by prop section ( I have FNR)
The vanes are in the cockpit floor at the moment but will be transferred to the bin shortly.
I was absolutely shocked at how damaged the impeller could be and still apparently be functional!
Cheers
Dave