Sucked in Mud

[Philip]

I have 2013 sundeck 30 with 8.2 engine. Living on Long Island south shore low water and mud bottoms. 2 times I had to have mechanic come to dock to flush out heat exchanger. Alarm code 157 was registered. Once I suck in the mud the boat temp goes to 186 and goes into protect mode. It happened in Aug 2018, Aug 2020, and today. I called mechanic who said he does about 50 of these each summer. The question. Is this hard to fix? Can I do this myself? They come and it takes like 45 minutes. Anyone else have to deal with this? Dealer explained that this engine is much more finicky than my 2001 SeaRay 24 where this never happened in 13 years. Any input is appreciated.

 

[Espos4]

Did you watch what he did?

Maybe he just removed the end caps, flushed out some crap and reinstalled the caps with new gaskets.

Not too difficult in theory, but access to the caps and catching the salt water may be an issue.

 

[Philip]

Fixed by Mechanic. They said the heat exchanger was full of mud. They used a hose to flush it out. Took about 25 minutes in total. Engine temps are back to normal.

172 degrees at 3000 rpm

 

[km1125]

Are you still pulling the engine cooling water through the lower unit? Have you considered switching over to a through-hull?

 

[Korkie]

If you are still pulling in sea water from the drives and getting mud, you are in to shallow water. We live on a creek and it has soft muddy bottom that can easily get stirred up on a low tide. Some of what we do to combat it: Raise drives up 30% to decrease stirring up the mud. Installed 2 thru hulls with block-offs to the drives and drive showers, with strainers (this has helped tremendously), try not to back up through any stirred up mud, installed fresh water flushes so we can flush the bad water (and mud) after use. The hookups are in the rope locker with quick connects. Only takes a few minutes. When I check the heat exchangers when we tuck her away for the winter, they are clean.