RAW WATER PUMP IMPELLER INSTALL
I put this right up on the 320 thread but I thought it might help to also place it in the maintenace section too.
Let me start out by saying I’ve been doing a lot of work on my boats for years and this is the first time I’ve done the newer style water pump impeller replacement on the fuel injected engines. I’ve done a bunch of the old style pumps on the old carburetor equipped motors before. By no means am I saying this is the only way to do the job; in other words I’m not a mechanic or an authority. The reason I’m putting this out on the site is that I had asked about some quick tips for doing this on the site and never got a complete answer on start to finish. I know, maybe I didn’t search the site long enough for this information. With that being said enjoy my painful tale about spending the weekend in the bilge of my 2006 Sea Ray 320 with 6.2L v-drives.
Access is the first thing to address to do this job. I’ve done them before (the old style pumps) by laying on the motor reaching down but the wonderful fuel coolers block your access from the top. I decided to remove the port muffler (drain it first since I ran antifreeze through my motors when winterizing), both hoses from the risers and the large hose going to the thru hull exhaust from the muffler. A helpful tool to use on the hose clamps is a 5/16” socket to stay on the clamps when you turn them. I also removed the inboard exhaust hose on the starboard motor from the riser to the muffler. It took about 45 minutes to remove all of these items. This positively was the right thing to do for the required access. The reason I did the port side removal was to also gain access to the starboard water pump that is close to the port side engine.
I started with the port WP and decided to remove the pump with the bracket since a few people had said it would be tight but you could do it even if you had to grind a little on the pump bracket and housing. Long story short is don’t do it this way; you’ll see why as the saga continues. First step is to remove the serpentine belt. That requires a 16 MM wrench to loosen the nut on the belt tensioner. I then took the two blue drain plugs out of the pump body to reduce any potential vacuum when removing the hoses. I loosened both hose clamps and pulled the hoses off. You might need to use a flat screw driver to get on the edge of the hoses to free them up. I then took the lower bolt out of the WP bracket with a 14MM socket. Next I removed the nut from the stud of the top of the WP bracket with the same 14 MM deep socket. As I pulled the WP forward it would not clear the harmonic balancer and fuel cooler unit. There is a small piece of casting on the back side of the WP bracket that hits the harmonic balancer. I got a die grinder and removed some metal off of the WP and bracket. It still would not come out. I thought about removing the fuel cooler but this is a waste of time for a couple of reasons. It is mounted on two metal brackets. The front bracket would come off easy; there are two 10MM bolts on the front holding the fuel cooler on and one 14 MM bolt at the engine for this bracket. The rear bracket is next to impossible to access. I decided to remove the front two 10MM bolts at the front bracket and push on the fuel cooler. Under much strain and pain it moved enough to let the WP and bracket come out. Believe me this is not the way to do it. I got it back to the bench and removed all of the 10MM bolts and removed and replaced the impeller and o-ring. The Merc part number is 47-862232A 2 for this kit that includes the impeller and o-ring. My impeller was cracked so the job was needed. I was able to remove the impeller with needle nose pliers; I know they make a tool to do this but I’ve never needed it. I also choose to use petroleum jelly to lube and protect the impeller on the initial start up. This also helps it to slide in the housing. You can also use dish detergent but I don’t plan on starting the motors for another month and I’m not sure the detergent would be a good idea sitting for this period of time. I reassembled the pump, touched up the black paint, and re-installed the two blue drain plugs with the o-rings on them. I re-installed the pump on the motor. You can also put a little dish detergent on the hoses to help them slide back on the WP. You will also notice the hoses are different diameters so you won’t mess that up. I put the serpentine belt back on and adjusted the belt tension. The way to tighten the tensioner is to first put a box end 16 MM wrench on the nut and then use an 8 MM socket on the shaft of the tensioner. I think it is a clockwise turn with the 8 MM socket to tighten the belt and then snug it tight with the 16 MM nut.
Now on to some more pain with the starboard WP. This is where the learning curve pays off. This time I decided to remove the three 10 MM bolts that hold the WP to the bracket. I first removed the 14 MM WP bracket bolt and then the nut on the stud. This allows the WP to pivot on the stud to get some access to the two 10 MM bolts on the backside of the bracket that secure the WP. The top 10 MM WP bracket bolt is easy to access. After these bolts are removed, let the WP lay on the hull so that you can get access to remove the two hoses. Use the same process on the bench for the impeller install. Now for the re-install of the WP to the bracket on the engine. I tried it two ways and one way worked. I first tried to put the hoses on the WP and install it to the WP bracket. No go on this effort since you are fighting the hoses and the weight. I took the hoses back off and put the WP on the bracket and then installed the hoses. See the serpentine belt install as listed above.
As if this wasn’t enough pain for the weekend, I went on to replace the impeller on the Kohler 5E generator. This was an easy job as long as you leave one of the four 11 MM bolts on the cover assembly (4 total). My exhaust muffler was in the way and required one of the bolts to stay in the pump anyway. This is a good thing since the WP housing could slide off of the shaft. I installed the new impeller and o-ring with some petroleum jelly. My impeller was missing one blade so I took the raw water hose off of the heat exchanger and found the missing blade. The Kohler part number is 359978 for the impeller and o-ring.
Required tools: 5/16”, 8 MM, 10 MM, 11 MM (for generator), 14 MM, 16MM – sockets and wrenches. flat and phillips tipped screw drivers, and lots of band aids. One last item not to forget- a large hammer is required for the completion of this job. Use the hammer to knock yourself unconscious to avoid the pain signals you are getting from every joint and muscle in your body.
Please guys, “no that’s not the right way to do it stuff”. This is a sincere effort on my part in trying to help anybody that has been thinking about doing this job on their own and un-familiar with what it would take from start to finish. I know everybody has a different skill level and this posting identifies what it would take to do the job. Yep, I’m sure there are many ways to do it, but this way worked for me and you can do it yourself. I was also trying to help you with the tools required to avoid what I had to do by bringing multiple metric and standard wrenches and sockets on board. I looked like a Snap on tool dealer going to the boat.
I’m sure the top question remaining is how long should it take to do this if you didn’t have to trial and error what you needed to do on this job. There are way too many variables to address the real time to complete the job due to many things. Some of the things to factor in : how long can you stand the pain without a break, how many beverage breaks, how many medical breaks for band aids, etc…….
Here would be my guess for the time involved: About 45 minutes to get the area open for access, a little less than an hour to remove the pump, about 30 minutes to rebuild the pump on the bench, and a little less than an hour to install the pump back on the motor. Figure the same amount of time to do the second motor less the time to get the area ready for access. Then you need about another 45 minutes to put the port muffler and all of the exhaust hoses you removed back on. I really think these time estimates as listed are somewhat on the conservative side and realistic.
I hope you enjoyed the write up and it will help at least one person.
Al
I put this right up on the 320 thread but I thought it might help to also place it in the maintenace section too.
Let me start out by saying I’ve been doing a lot of work on my boats for years and this is the first time I’ve done the newer style water pump impeller replacement on the fuel injected engines. I’ve done a bunch of the old style pumps on the old carburetor equipped motors before. By no means am I saying this is the only way to do the job; in other words I’m not a mechanic or an authority. The reason I’m putting this out on the site is that I had asked about some quick tips for doing this on the site and never got a complete answer on start to finish. I know, maybe I didn’t search the site long enough for this information. With that being said enjoy my painful tale about spending the weekend in the bilge of my 2006 Sea Ray 320 with 6.2L v-drives.
Access is the first thing to address to do this job. I’ve done them before (the old style pumps) by laying on the motor reaching down but the wonderful fuel coolers block your access from the top. I decided to remove the port muffler (drain it first since I ran antifreeze through my motors when winterizing), both hoses from the risers and the large hose going to the thru hull exhaust from the muffler. A helpful tool to use on the hose clamps is a 5/16” socket to stay on the clamps when you turn them. I also removed the inboard exhaust hose on the starboard motor from the riser to the muffler. It took about 45 minutes to remove all of these items. This positively was the right thing to do for the required access. The reason I did the port side removal was to also gain access to the starboard water pump that is close to the port side engine.
I started with the port WP and decided to remove the pump with the bracket since a few people had said it would be tight but you could do it even if you had to grind a little on the pump bracket and housing. Long story short is don’t do it this way; you’ll see why as the saga continues. First step is to remove the serpentine belt. That requires a 16 MM wrench to loosen the nut on the belt tensioner. I then took the two blue drain plugs out of the pump body to reduce any potential vacuum when removing the hoses. I loosened both hose clamps and pulled the hoses off. You might need to use a flat screw driver to get on the edge of the hoses to free them up. I then took the lower bolt out of the WP bracket with a 14MM socket. Next I removed the nut from the stud of the top of the WP bracket with the same 14 MM deep socket. As I pulled the WP forward it would not clear the harmonic balancer and fuel cooler unit. There is a small piece of casting on the back side of the WP bracket that hits the harmonic balancer. I got a die grinder and removed some metal off of the WP and bracket. It still would not come out. I thought about removing the fuel cooler but this is a waste of time for a couple of reasons. It is mounted on two metal brackets. The front bracket would come off easy; there are two 10MM bolts on the front holding the fuel cooler on and one 14 MM bolt at the engine for this bracket. The rear bracket is next to impossible to access. I decided to remove the front two 10MM bolts at the front bracket and push on the fuel cooler. Under much strain and pain it moved enough to let the WP and bracket come out. Believe me this is not the way to do it. I got it back to the bench and removed all of the 10MM bolts and removed and replaced the impeller and o-ring. The Merc part number is 47-862232A 2 for this kit that includes the impeller and o-ring. My impeller was cracked so the job was needed. I was able to remove the impeller with needle nose pliers; I know they make a tool to do this but I’ve never needed it. I also choose to use petroleum jelly to lube and protect the impeller on the initial start up. This also helps it to slide in the housing. You can also use dish detergent but I don’t plan on starting the motors for another month and I’m not sure the detergent would be a good idea sitting for this period of time. I reassembled the pump, touched up the black paint, and re-installed the two blue drain plugs with the o-rings on them. I re-installed the pump on the motor. You can also put a little dish detergent on the hoses to help them slide back on the WP. You will also notice the hoses are different diameters so you won’t mess that up. I put the serpentine belt back on and adjusted the belt tension. The way to tighten the tensioner is to first put a box end 16 MM wrench on the nut and then use an 8 MM socket on the shaft of the tensioner. I think it is a clockwise turn with the 8 MM socket to tighten the belt and then snug it tight with the 16 MM nut.
Now on to some more pain with the starboard WP. This is where the learning curve pays off. This time I decided to remove the three 10 MM bolts that hold the WP to the bracket. I first removed the 14 MM WP bracket bolt and then the nut on the stud. This allows the WP to pivot on the stud to get some access to the two 10 MM bolts on the backside of the bracket that secure the WP. The top 10 MM WP bracket bolt is easy to access. After these bolts are removed, let the WP lay on the hull so that you can get access to remove the two hoses. Use the same process on the bench for the impeller install. Now for the re-install of the WP to the bracket on the engine. I tried it two ways and one way worked. I first tried to put the hoses on the WP and install it to the WP bracket. No go on this effort since you are fighting the hoses and the weight. I took the hoses back off and put the WP on the bracket and then installed the hoses. See the serpentine belt install as listed above.
As if this wasn’t enough pain for the weekend, I went on to replace the impeller on the Kohler 5E generator. This was an easy job as long as you leave one of the four 11 MM bolts on the cover assembly (4 total). My exhaust muffler was in the way and required one of the bolts to stay in the pump anyway. This is a good thing since the WP housing could slide off of the shaft. I installed the new impeller and o-ring with some petroleum jelly. My impeller was missing one blade so I took the raw water hose off of the heat exchanger and found the missing blade. The Kohler part number is 359978 for the impeller and o-ring.
Required tools: 5/16”, 8 MM, 10 MM, 11 MM (for generator), 14 MM, 16MM – sockets and wrenches. flat and phillips tipped screw drivers, and lots of band aids. One last item not to forget- a large hammer is required for the completion of this job. Use the hammer to knock yourself unconscious to avoid the pain signals you are getting from every joint and muscle in your body.
Please guys, “no that’s not the right way to do it stuff”. This is a sincere effort on my part in trying to help anybody that has been thinking about doing this job on their own and un-familiar with what it would take from start to finish. I know everybody has a different skill level and this posting identifies what it would take to do the job. Yep, I’m sure there are many ways to do it, but this way worked for me and you can do it yourself. I was also trying to help you with the tools required to avoid what I had to do by bringing multiple metric and standard wrenches and sockets on board. I looked like a Snap on tool dealer going to the boat.
I’m sure the top question remaining is how long should it take to do this if you didn’t have to trial and error what you needed to do on this job. There are way too many variables to address the real time to complete the job due to many things. Some of the things to factor in : how long can you stand the pain without a break, how many beverage breaks, how many medical breaks for band aids, etc…….
Here would be my guess for the time involved: About 45 minutes to get the area open for access, a little less than an hour to remove the pump, about 30 minutes to rebuild the pump on the bench, and a little less than an hour to install the pump back on the motor. Figure the same amount of time to do the second motor less the time to get the area ready for access. Then you need about another 45 minutes to put the port muffler and all of the exhaust hoses you removed back on. I really think these time estimates as listed are somewhat on the conservative side and realistic.
I hope you enjoyed the write up and it will help at least one person.
Al