Brand New Boat Overheated! Smoke from engine compartment! Alarms Blaring!! HELP.

bushway9172

bushway9172

New Member
Apr 11, 2009
490
Cape Cod, MA
Boat Info
270 Select EX 2009
Engines
496 Mag DTS
375 Horsepower
Bravo III
Went to Martha's Vineyard for dinner. It was just a normal night on the island... until we were ready to come home. We tried to strategically leave before dark (around 7:30pm).

Untied the lines, left the dock, and we were underway. Just got past the breakwater, ready to accelerate to get out of the way of a sailboat approaching, off my starboard bow. Throttle had limited power, and would not exceed 3 or 4mph. Alarms started to sound. SmartCraft indicated that our engine was overheating (496 MAG BravoIII). Checked the engine temp gauge and it was reading at about 220 degrees, instead of the normal 170 that we run at typically. 170 would still be high, considering we just started the boat after being on the island for a few hours... Strange. Boat was lightly smoking and smelled like some serious burning of rubber maybe? We almost definitely did not run over anything (did not suck up anything).

We limped back to the dock, barely getting out of the way of the sailboat in time. Tied up. Opened the hatch and ran the blower. When we opened the hatch, it was like sticking your head in an oven. We left the boat there and took the ferry home. Hopefully Sea Ray will take a look at it in the morning. Maybe it is just a cooling impeller or something? :huh:

Very weird. Anyone have similar issues?
 
You mentioned island - how shallow of water was the drive in? If you got in shallow water - you may have packed sand into the water pump and destroyed the impeller. Did you hear any squealing like a loose belt or was it the impeller burning up?
 
Thats gonna hurt - probably a lot of collateral damage - exaust flappers, maybe head gaskets etc not good - hopefully its all covered under warantee
 
skolbe said:
You mentioned island - how shallow of water was the drive in? If you got in shallow water - you may have packed sand into the water pump and destroyed the impeller. Did you hear any squealing like a loose belt or was it the impeller burning up?
Click to expand...

No noises. It's a big island. We were docked in about 8 ft of water.
 
Could've been as simple as a plastic bag being sucked over the water intake on the drive.

Good luck. I hope you get lucky and it turns out OK.
 
Possibly a stuck thermostat....
 
I vote for something sucked up too. I hope it's something simple, but as Ididntdoit said there's probably quite a few other things that will require replacement.
Flappers, exhaust boots, impeller, pump housing?

Best of luck, keep us informed of what they find.
 
Seems to have fixed itself, strange enough...

Boat ran fine, we went and retrieved it this morning. The mechanic took a look at the drive and suspected barnacles got sucked up.. but cleared themselves out. Won't be doing our 30 mile trip that we planned on tomorrow... We'll stick around the area.
 
Now wait a minute people. There was a very knowledgeable person around these parts some time ago that said you should wait for impellers to fail before replacing them and sucking stuff up and smoking impellers never happened (even though I've had my share of sucking up stuff).

If I were you, I would check the impeller (i.e. change it) as well as the thermostat... I hate it when that crap happens...
 
Four Suns said:
If I were you, I would check the impeller (i.e. change it) as well as the thermostat... I hate it when that crap happens...
Click to expand...

100% absolutely on the impeller. 95% on the t-stat...:smt001

If it got that hot that you smelled rubber... I'm sure you know what the impeller is made of. Seriously, I wouldn't chance it.
 
probably a plastic bag. It's happened to me more than I would like when I was closer to NYC. If you ever see a spike in temp like that for no apparent reason, put the boat in reverse and give it a quick blast to blow anything you might have caught, off the drive. If after a couple of seconds the temp doesn't drop, shut the engine off and throw the anchor.
 
TurtleTone said:
probably a plastic bag. It's happened to me more than I would like when I was closer to NYC. If you ever see a spike in temp like that for no apparent reason, put the boat in reverse and give it a quick blast to blow anything you might have caught, off the drive. If after a couple of seconds the temp doesn't drop, shut the engine off and throw the anchor.
Click to expand...

I thought the BIII water intake was on a thru-hull and not on the drive like an Alpha drive...
 
No - its on the drive - a lot of people convert it to a thru-hull (some manufacturers even rig the boats that way)
 
Four Suns said:
I thought the BIII water intake was on a thru-hull and not on the drive like an Alpha drive...
Click to expand...

Yeah mine's through the O/D. I've seen it both ways.

bushway9172 said:
Not if you saw our harbor :lol:

But thanks for the input everyone. It seems to have cleared itself out... whatever it was.
Click to expand...

What other damage did they find?
 
I would also double and triple check all of the hoses.
 
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