impellor

[1957evinrude]

What is the expected life of an impellor with little use ?

[chris-p]

I change mine every 3 to 5 years. Depends on use, and soil type in the water I boat. Example, sandy shallow bottoms may tear up an impeller quicker than deeper rocky bottoms.

[1957evinrude]

quote Chris_P:

I change mine every 3 to 5 years. Depends on use, and soil type in the water I boat. Example, sandy shallow bottoms may tear up an impeller quicker than deeper rocky bottoms.

I have motors that I only run once a year but turn them over occasionally. Trying to get an estimate for when I should replace them.

[chris-p]

Pull on the recoil every so often to keep the vanes from setting. When you pull out the recoil, hold it for a few seconds until the compression bleeds off, then SLOWLY let it recoil. The reason for this is that if you let it recoil right away, and the motor is not in the correct position in its compression stroke, it will spin in reverse at the very last second. Then a vane will flip. That will be the vane that breaks.

[david-bartlett]

This is one of those topics like fuel mix ratio’s. Everybody does something a bit different. When I get a new to me motor, I open it up and "Usually" change the impeller. I have opened up 60 year old motors that have had better impellers than 10 year old motors. Go figure.

Once I change one that I am going to keep, I figure I won’t be in there again unless it shows it is not pumping. I run in fresh water only and stay out of the sand/silt.

If I was working offshore and depended on the motor for safety, I might be inclined to change them more often.

I ALSO DON’T USE CHEAP IMPELLERS!!!!

[1957evinrude]

Thanks for that information !!

[fisherman6]

The long-vane style impellers like the classic OMCs use seem to have a much longer life than the small short-vane impellers that are common in later motors, Mercs, and several other brands.
-Ben

OldJohnnyRude on YouTube

[joecb]

Chris- p’s good suggestion reminded me of a recent "impeller" experience. Pulled the lower apart on a found 12HP Gale Buccaneer to replace the pump impeller. When re- installing the lower unit, you know the drill, line up the water tube, line up the shift rod and engage the drive shaft spline into the power head. Doing this by myself, I couldn’t get to the flywheel to do the slight rotation to align the shaft splines…. so I gave prop shaft a slight turn, and bolted it home. Latter that evening, recounting my procedure the thought occurred that I may have inadvertently rotated the pump impeller in the wrong direction. Next day I pulled the unit again and opened the pump… sure enough, two of the vanes were wrapped around backwards. Lesson learned… keep ALL rotation going in the correct (usually clock-wise) direction.
Joe B

[opposedtwin]

I have been told many guys pull the impellers in the fall when winterizing, particularly the short vaned mercury impellers. Good impellers are not cheap! Maybe we should be pulling them out of all the motors we winterize in the fall.

[Mumbles]

Some manuals recommend changing the impeller annually if the motor sees a lot of run time or is operated in silty water. For occasional use this might be a bit too often but it does give the owner peace of mind. Most of my motors get little if any use but they always get a fresh impeller and wear plate or housing when bringing them back to life.

Some of these impellers were in motors I had running for maybe ten minutes before checking them. The motors had sat for years and the impellers weren’t in bad condition except for taking a set and breaking up on startup but they probably worked great the last time they were used.

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