Submerged Engine

[wolfe]

Guys,

once an engine has been under water, how realistic is it to expect it to ever work properly again?

My brother's older boat literally sunk in the boathouse overnight; he is beside himself. He got the boat out, but everything was underwater....boat, gear, but worst of all, the engine.

Any advice is welcome.

Thx,

W.

[Bass assassin]

We fetched ours out a week later and pulled the plugs cleaned out the carb and it started up no problem.
Hope his experience is as good!

[troutnmuskiehunter]

Wolfe,

Get him to remove the plugs and crank the engine several times to get the water out of the cylinder head ...then I'd put some oil down each cylinder for lubrication purposes and then just leave the motor dry out naturally in the sun...he should also check the lower gear oil but if it has a good seal it should be ok!!

[Hookup]

I was told that you replace or dry the sparkplugs and try to get it started right away... the heat from it running will dry it out...

I know from experience, if you do nothing for 2 or 3 days it will rust and your father-in-law who loaned you the engine will be really upset...

[mblaney]

Pull plugs, spin it over to get most of the water out (ground your plug wires so you don't stress the ignition). Use good gas and get it running as soon as possible. A little extra oil wouldn't hurt (as suggested) but get it running ASAP!

Also works for snowmobiles (I didn't sink it )

Please don't reply back and say it's a touring boat with twin 5.0L Mercruisers!

[lifeisfun]

No doubt, the sooner you start it the better.

[joco]

i second what TroutnMuskieHunter said.

the sooner the better.

joco..it should be ok after that few litte things to do.

[beachburger]

My tinny sunk a few years back and my mechanic told me to leave it in the water until he could come and pick it up. It was in the water for 4 full days. Kind of a weird feeling looking at your boat underwater. He picked it up, took it to his shop and went to work on it right away. The motor still starts first pull.

HTH,
Doug

[jayg]

If it's an older engine then usually they can be dried out but if it's newer alot of the electrical could be shot, as well as alot of other things, just rebuilt a 250 merc that had sunk and we used all new computers, had to polish and clean everything, was basically a full rebuild

[wolfe]

Was away the last few days, so checking back in on this now. Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply and offer some advice and instruction on how to handle this situation.

As I was telling TLunge, my brother managed to get the boat out of the water himself, quickly got it to the marina (as he wasn't sure how best to handle this himself) and was fortunate enough to have it looked at / worked on ASAP. It is now running well again, but I will forward all your comments to him to keep on hand. He's got a long summer of plans for this boat on the waters around Manitoulin Island, so it's got to be in good running order.

Thx again.

W.

[Out4trout]

Margie
That's great news. Of course, we are ALL wondering how the mishap occurred? Was there a livewell pump hose that came undone or ????
I'm sure that gravity likely had something to do with it -

[wolfe]

I think it was some kind of ice damage in the livewell area of the boat from over the winter........where a little water had dripped in from the tarp and then froze and cracked something......? A small enough crack that the leak wasn't noticed upon put in, but over night it filled up the old boat enough to bring the whole thing down. My brother about killed himself getting it up by himself with some kind of come-along / winch system he rigged up like MacGiver. Luckily, it was right in the boathouse and he used the beams for support and then bailed it once it was up high enough. He said that was one bad feeling coming down to the boathouse for a morning fish and discovering the boat under water like that.

W.