"Chris" wrote in message
om...
OK, I am a new boat owner and am learning the hard way. I am pretty
sure that I have fried the water impeller in the stern drive. I have
an '81 Glastron SX-190 with a Mercruiser 228hp 305. I didn't know,
until now, that the boat should never be started even for a few
seconds without water supply at the stern drive.

Yep, true, never ever run the engine without a flow of water!

Of course, this is a "do as I say, not as I do" thing. I always hit the
starter before I get to the ramp just to make sure that the boat will start
when I get it to the water. Crank, Start, shut off! Not a good idea, but I
do it anyway. I get three or four years out on a water pump impeller.

Your boat is an '81. Any idea when the impeller was changed last? How many
hours it has on it?

It was possible, indeed likely that the impeller was on its last legs when
you bought the boat. There are two approaches to changing your impeller:
one is wait until it fails, the other is preventative.

On my ski boat, I can change the impeller with only a screw driver in about
10 minutes with the boat in the water. I carry a spare impeller at all
times, just in case (I have also sucked up weeds that chocked off the water
supply and caused the impeller to burn out). For me, running it until it
fails is not a big deal.

Not sure about Mercruisers, but some I/Os and all outboards the water pump
is in the lower unit. You don't want to be changing the impeller with the
boat in the water. Having the impeller fail can ruin your day, weekend or
even life if you happen to be off shore when the water pump fails and you
can't fix it. In such a case, changing the water pump impeller every year
or two is a good idea.

Rod