On May 17, 8:40*am, wrote:

Except for the part that says it's still ok when it's not squirting.... unless severe damage occurs lol! I think Salty said it best ... "Truly bizarre".

I don't recall that statement (...it's still ok when it's not
squirting.... unless severe damage occurs...) being in the manual.

I think I would call a Suzuki mechanic (not a salesman) and get an explanation that makes sense.. And pin him down if necessary. That owners manual is as ambiguous as any I've heard about.

I already did contact a Suzuki mechanic and he confirmed that
Suzuki calls them pilot holes, not pee or tell-tale holes and that
they serve the same purpose as pee holes and/or tell-tale holes. I
agree that sometimes things appear "bizarre" but sometimes they do
simply because some are not aware of them, not because they are
necessarily in error.

The manual states, "Cooling water is intermittently discharged from
the pilot water holes at medium engine speeds. Water is not normally
discharged at other speeds even when the engine is operating
properly. However, cooling system operation can be confirmed as
follows:

1---Place the shift selector lever in the NEUTRAL position with the
motor idling.
2---Increase and decrease the engine speed five or six times in
succession by opening and closing the throttle smoothly and without
stopping in any one throttle position.
3---If water is discharged from the pilot water holes under this
operating condition, the cooling system is working properly. If
water
is not discharged, stop the engine as soon as possible and consult
your authorized Suzuki Marine dealer."

It then states: CAUTION Never OPERATE (perhaps they are referring to
having the motor in GEAR, not NEUTRAL as stated above) your outboard
motor when there is no water coming out of the pilot water holes or
severe damage can
result. Before setting off, be sure that emergency stop switch
operates properly.

Perhaps there's a difference between having the motor idling in
neutral and operating the motor under stress in gear in regards to the
functionality and/or creating possible damage in regards to the
cooling system?

-Jay

On May 17 Phantman wrote:
Except for the part that says it's still ok when it's not squirting.... unless severe damage occurs lol! I think Salty said it best ... "Truly bizarre".

On Sat, 17 May 08, Jay wrote:
I don't recall that statement (...it's still ok when it's not
squirting.... unless severe damage occurs...) being in the manual.

I wasn't quoting directly, I was combining what it stated in two
separate paragraphs.

Paragraph 1. "Cooling water is intermittently discharged from
the pilot water holes at medium engine speeds. Water is not normally
discharged at other speeds even when the engine is operating
properly"

Paragraph 2.."CAUTION Never operate your outboard
motor when there is no water coming out of the pilot water holes or
severe damage can result".

First it says water isn't always discharged, that's normal, then it
tells you to not operate your motor "when there is no water coming out
of the pilot holes". That looks like a conflict to me. You may be
right that they may mean "in gear" or whatever, but it's still
ambiguous to say the least.

The "bizarre" part, is, when nothing is being discharged, how are you
supposed to KNOW the water pump is working? THAT's what I would ask
the mechanic. Surely you're not supposed to go through that whole
"water pump check" routine every time it stops discharging if that's
supposed to happen intermittantly during normal operation. All I'm
saying is that would make no sense. Not that anything is wrong with
your water pump at the moment. But if you're getting no pilot hole
stream..... how are you supposed to know before the thing overheats?

I'm not knockin' your motor. Suzuki has a good reputation. But there's
something here that makes no sense to me and I'm just trying to
understand what it is.

I already did contact a Suzuki mechanic and he confirmed that
Suzuki calls them pilot holes, not pee or tell-tale holes and that
they serve the same purpose as pee holes and/or tell-tale holes. I
agree that sometimes things appear "bizarre" but sometimes they do
simply because some are not aware of them, not because they are
necessarily in error.

I didn't mean to suggest that there's anything bizarre about calling
them Pilot holes.

Perhaps there's a difference between having the motor idling in
neutral and operating the motor under stress in gear in regards to the
functionality and/or creating possible damage in regards to the
cooling system?

Possibly. But I think you may have missed my point. Probably my fault
for not communicating clearly and I hope I haven't muddied the water
even more with what I've tried to get across here.

Rick

On Sat, 17 May 2008 22:13:49 -0500, lid wrote:



The "bizarre" part, is, when nothing is being discharged, how are you
supposed to KNOW the water pump is working? THAT's what I would ask
the mechanic. Surely you're not supposed to go through that whole
"water pump check" routine every time it stops discharging if that's
supposed to happen intermittantly during normal operation. All I'm
saying is that would make no sense. Not that anything is wrong with
your water pump at the moment. But if you're getting no pilot hole
stream..... how are you supposed to know before the thing overheats?

Not knowing anything about OB cooling systems, a couple questions.
1. If the OB has a thermostat, can it be fully closed?
2. With the OB's you are familiar with, can the engine overheat even
when the pee hole has a stream?
I'm thinking Jay's new OB is designed to discharge all cooling water
through the thermostat, and if it's shut, no stream.
Electronic controls might make that a good way to manage engine
efficiency. It might also have an overheat shutdown.
Though I know OB owners basically worship that peehole stream as the
Holy Grail of engine heat control, it may not so important with this
small engine.
Yeah, I know,
"Paragraph 2.."CAUTION Never operate your outboard
motor when there is no water coming out of the pilot water holes or
severe damage can result".

So it is contradictory. Might have cribbed that from the manual of a
bigger engine. In any case bad manual writing.
And if it doesn't shut down automatically when overheated, a bit
of a dangerous system.

--Vic

On May 17, 9:04*pm, Vic Smith wrote:

Not knowing anything about OB cooling systems, a couple questions.
1. If the OB has a thermostat, can it be fully closed?
2. With the OB's you are familiar with, can the engine overheat even
when the pee hole has a stream?
I'm thinking Jay's new OB is designed to discharge all cooling water
through the thermostat, and if it's shut, no stream.
Electronic controls might make that a good way to manage engine
efficiency. *It might also have an overheat shutdown.
Though I know OB owners basically worship that peehole stream as the
Holy Grail of engine heat control, it may not so important with this
small engine. *

Yeah, I know,
"Paragraph 2.."CAUTION *Never operate your outboard
motor when there is no water coming out of the pilot water holes or
severe damage can result".

So it is contradictory. *Might have cribbed that from the manual of a
bigger engine. *In any case bad manual writing.
--Vic

Vic, thanks for a possible alternate explanation. I will ask my
Suzuki mechanic about that. And that bit about the "one-size-fits-
all" manual, I've run into that before where it seems like they got
the pages mixed up between two products and what you read doesn't even
apply to one. Thanks.

-Jay

On May 17, 10:45*pm, Jay wrote:
On May 17, 9:04*pm, Vic Smith wrote:
Not knowing anything about OB cooling systems, a couple questions.
1. If the OB has a thermostat, can it be fully closed?
2. With the OB's you are familiar with, can the engine overheat even
when the pee hole has a stream?
I'm thinking Jay's new OB is designed to discharge all cooling water
through the thermostat, and if it's shut, no stream.
Though I know OB owners basically worship that peehole stream as the
Holy Grail of engine heat control, it may not so important with this
small engine. *


Vic, I think you may have the answer to the way the Suzuki 2.5
works and
the other confusion is just the result of a crappily-written manual.
From what I've gathered about this little OB, the water does not begin
to squirt out the "holes" until the motor reached a certain operating
temperature and the thermostat opens and releases the water to be
squirted out of the holes.

Being both an outboard motor rookie and a non-mechanic, I'm sure there
are many out there who can look at these diagrams of the inner
workings of my new Suzuki DF2.5 outboard and perhaps get a better idea
on why it seems to operate against the norm. Let me know what you
think after perusing the link.
-Jay

http://store.brownspoint.com/df2.5/2_50607.asp

What a cute little motor :-)
Having perused the parts breakdown, I do believe I could take it
completely apart and put it back together again. But I'm still not
sure I see the advantage of designing the cooling system monitor the
way it is. As long as it warns you in advance though, to shut down
before you burn up, I say what the hey. Run with it. Looks like a
spiffy litte motor to me.
Rick

On Tue, 27 May 08, Jay wrote:
Being both an outboard motor rookie and a non-mechanic, I'm sure there
are many out there who can look at these diagrams of the inner
workings of my new Suzuki DF2.5 outboard and perhaps get a better idea
on why it seems to operate against the norm. Let me know what you
think after perusing the link.
-Jay

http://store.brownspoint.com/df2.5/2_50607.asp

On May 28, 3:33*am, wrote:
Those diagrams don't have the information you would need to answer the question intelligently or correctly.

Actually, the diagrams of the motor components were presented
primarily so Rick could get a look at the inner workings of the little
OB. They weren't meant to be a definitive problem-solver of any sort.


It wouldn't matter if it did. Simple logic alone says that if a
cooling telltale operates intermittantly when the engine is running
fine, it is completely useless as a telltale to warn you when there is
trouble.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Only if one is putting all of one's marbles in the "tell-tale"
basket and assuming (perhaps correctly, perhaps incorrectly) there is
no other warning system that the motor is overheating. Perhaps there
could be a loud alarm when the temperature reaches critical levels or
maybe a microchip inside connected to an artificial voice device talks
to you in a very loud voice warning the operator of the imminent
danger or maybe there's an "idiot light" like on cars or (gasp) even
an gauge to monitor internal motor temps.

Is the following a fair analogy? In an automobile engine, when the
thermostat opens (indicating the water in the 'jacket' around the
engine is getting too hot and it's time to be cooled), it "pees" the
hot water back into the radiator to be cooled anew whereas, when the
outboard gets too hot, the thermostat opens and "pees" the water back
into the lake and the water pump of the outboard brings in new cool
water from the lake (in essence, the outboard motor's "radiator"),
just like the radiator sends cooled water to the engine jacket to
replace the water "peed" out by the thermostat, to keep the outboard
running at a normal operating temperature and preventing damage.

So, (just speculating here), if the little Suzuki operates the same
way, then water would NOT be coming out of the "pee holes" all the
time, would it? It would only be expelled when necessary (i.e., when
the internal thermostat said the water currently cooling the motor was
too hot to properly do its job and fresh, cooler water was needed.
Therefore, it would "pee" out the old and bring in fresh, cooler water
from the lake to replace it --- ONLY when necessary...thus the
"intermittent" ejection of water.

Just my attempt at "simple logic" as stated by the previous
author. Am I way off here in this stab at deductive reasoning?

-Jay

On Mon, 26 May 2008 23:02:07 -0700 (PDT), Jay
wrote:


Vic, I think you may have the answer to the way the Suzuki 2.5
works and
the other confusion is just the result of a crappily-written manual.
From what I've gathered about this little OB, the water does not begin
to squirt out the "holes" until the motor reached a certain operating
temperature and the thermostat opens and releases the water to be
squirted out of the holes.

Poor telltales are probably more common than peehole gazers think.
http://www.thehulltruth.com/forums/t...91970&posts=10
I've seen it mentioned with OB's other than Mercs too.
IMO, that telltale is of limited use anyway, slightly better than
nothing.
Mostly when starting up - in some cases waiting a couple minutes until
the thermostat opens to see the flow.
Then what? When I was running small OB's I would sometimes run wide
open for 1/2 an hour or more - looking where I was going and for
overtakers, not all twisted up backwards like a pretzel around the
motor staring at a telltale.
In all the years I've fished on many different boats with many
different engines and owners, I never saw anybody pay any attention to
the telltale after the initial warmup and on subsequent restarts, when
you're backwards cranking the rope anyway.
Maybe half a minute after a pump failure before it starts affecting
operation. Some designs might give you time to shut it down before
any harm is done, others might not be so forgiving.
Never happened to me, so that's speculation.
I suspect the newer big ones have a temp sensor to throw an alarm or
do a shutdown.
Follow the impeller/thermostat maintenance schedule, check the
telltale when you start it up, then forget about it or you'll get a
twisted neck and maybe run into something.
That's my take on it.
The only owner experience I found was
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php?Number=1163278 which basically
says the same thing you've been saying.
And this
http://macgregor26x.com/phpBB/viewto...ad0c a9faf140
Where the owner says the 1800 rpm idle is to meet the emissions target
Suzuki was aiming at, and that he monkeyed with the idle to lower it,
but then has to choke it to run smooth. Doesn't mention telltale.
This motor has been around a while, and to find so little about it is
probably a good thing.

--Vic

On May 17, 8:13*pm, wrote:
On May 17 Phantman wrote:

Except for the part that says it's still ok when it's not squirting.... unless severe damage occurs lol! *I think Salty said it best ... "Truly bizarre".
On Sat, 17 May 08, Jay wrote:
I don't recall that statement (...it's still ok when it's not
squirting.... unless severe damage occurs...) being in the manual.

I wasn't quoting directly, I was combining what it stated in two
separate paragraphs.

Paragraph 1. "Cooling water is intermittently discharged from
the pilot water holes at medium engine speeds. *Water is not normally
discharged at other speeds even when the engine is operating
properly"

Paragraph 2.."CAUTION *Never operate your outboard
motor when there is no water coming out of the pilot water holes or
severe damage can result".

First it says water isn't always discharged, that's normal, then it
tells you to not operate your motor "when there is no water coming out
of the pilot holes". That looks like a conflict to me. You may be
right that they may mean "in gear" or whatever, but it's still
ambiguous to say the least.

The "bizarre" part, is, when nothing is being discharged, how are you
supposed to KNOW the water pump is working? THAT's what I would ask
the mechanic. Surely you're not supposed to go through that whole
"water pump check" routine every time it stops discharging if that's
supposed to happen intermittantly during normal operation. All I'm
saying is that would make no sense. Not that anything is wrong with
your water pump at the moment. But if you're getting no pilot hole
stream..... how are you supposed to know before the thing overheats?

I'm not knockin' your motor. Suzuki has a good reputation. But there's
something here that makes no sense to me and I'm just trying to
understand what it is.

I already did contact a Suzuki mechanic and he confirmed that
Suzuki calls them pilot holes, not pee or tell-tale holes and that
they serve the same purpose as pee holes and/or tell-tale holes. *I
agree that sometimes things appear "bizarre" but sometimes they do
simply because some are not aware of them, not because they are
necessarily in error.

I didn't mean to suggest that there's anything bizarre about calling
them Pilot holes.

Perhaps there's a difference between having the motor idling in
neutral and operating the motor under stress in gear in regards to the
functionality and/or creating possible damage in regards to the
cooling system?

Possibly. But I think you may have missed my point. Probably my fault
for not communicating clearly and I hope I haven't muddied the water
even more with what I've tried to get across here.

Rick

Rick, I agree there is some ambiguity in the manual (as in many
manuals translated from another language into English) and I'd like to
get this cleared up ASAP. I fully understand the logic regarding the
need to see that water squirting out of the pilot holes at all times
the motor is running and still trying to ascertain why THIS motor,
according to it's poorly-written manual, doesn't find that necessary.

-Jay