This has been quite the ordeal!! Back in May, I was on the Tombigbee River in Alabama and idled into a creek, fished a bit. On the way out, I was idling back out and got stuck on a mud/sand bar…thought I was in the same place I went in, but must have been over a couple of feet. Water was dingy so could not see it. Sucked sand/mud into the engine…175 SHO on a 2017 Sabre FTD AE. Noticed a drop in my normal water pressure when I got off the bar, but pee hole was still OK, though it did spit out some sand particles and mud. Pressure has been inconsistent ever since. Replaced entire water pump assembly…no love. Had flow, but pressure trimmed under would not go above 15psi, and if I trimmed up, it would drop below 10. If I idled 15-20 minutes graphing an area, the overheat buzzer would go off, even though the engine temp never got above 145, according to the ECM signal to the NMEA2K and HB Mega 10 gauge display. I learned that there is an on/off sensor located elsewhere that closes at approximately 180 and sets off buzzer. Flushed engine to DEATH. Some improvement, but still not the same pressure as it had prior to this incident. Pee hole would stop up occasionally, but I could run a piece of weed eater line in and clear it. A small bit of sand would come out when that happened. So it then became an Insurance Claim. Long story short…Had to remove the power head and take parts off, blow passages out, etc. Basically disassembled the entire thing. Did not find one single spot that was clogged, but a few places that had grains of sand stuck in small passages…not enough to BLOCK, but enough to slow the water flow, particularly at idle. At speed, the flow was good enough to never set the alarm off, but not enough to make me feel comfortable with it. No damage to engine, thank goodness. Thumbs up to Brech Marine for fitting me into their busy schedule and getting it done. Ran the boat and water pressure is now a minimum of 15 and will go up to 20, depending on trim. Now I can FINALLY tweak the engine height with the Bravo 1 FS prop.
Lesson: Don’t ever let the engine run more than a second or two when stuck on a sand bar or mud flat. Expensive lesson. Never had this happen to me in 40 years of owning boats. I’ve broken a skeg and dinged a prop or two, but never had anything like this happen.
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