Had an Accident

[FM_Mike]

While trying to avoid an on coming boat that wasn't watching where they were going, I found a sand bar in shallow water. After going through and sucking up sand, i found my motor was not pumping water. I am sure I sucked up a lot of sand. I turned the motor off and used my trolling motor to get back to the dock.

My question is: I got the boat back to the cabin and tried to flush the motor out to no avail. Any other ideas or do I need to replace the impellor and water pump. This is on a 50hp merc efi 2003. If I need to replace the impellor and pump is this a job that I can do myself? I am pretty mechanicly inclined and not afraid to give it a try or should I take it to the shop and let someone go through it to make sure it that it can not be flushed out? Any tricks to flushing these 4 strokes or it it pretty cut and dry?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Mike

[Valv]

Mike, you have to replace the impeller.

Best way is getting a manual for it, and you don't have to replace pump, I am sure it's just fine.

You will have to flush motor very well, to get rid of all the sand.

It is not a very tough job, once you do it you'll find out next time will be easier.

[DTro]

If it hasn't been changed since new it probably doesn't matter if it's damaged now. It's probably a good idea to change it either way.

I never done it myself, but from what I've read and been told, it's pretty straight forward.

Get yourself a good repair manual and go for it. If you do a search here, I know it's been described in detail. I think the trickiest part is getting the lower unit lined up when reassembling.

I'm sure there a plenty of people here that can be more specific as they have probably done it many times.