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