Impeller Service/Replace?

[viking]

As with everything, there are conflicting opinions on changing out impellers. Some say take it out every fall.
Some say take it out and coat in vasaline and put in zip lock bag.
Some say leave it in and no problem.
Some say change every 2 years.

What do you Recommend?

[sandm]

my dealer says to change in the fall and leave it in the housing ready to go next year, but they also try to get your boat winterized so that all you have to do is put on the battery connections and go.
that is the advice I am going with :)

my guess is you will get many different answers on this topic. go with what you feel comfortable with.

[cab13367]

viking,

I photocopied the page below from the Indmar manual that came with my boat. This is from Chapter 7 - Storage and Winter Lay-Up. See item 3 regarding the impeller.

In Chapter 6 under Maintenance, there is a Schedule Maintenance Chart and it says to replace the impeller every 100 hours or every two years. Sorry, I forgot to photocopy the chart.

Some service techs may try to talk you into leaving the impeller in and then just replace it every two years. This way, they don't have to spend the time to take it out and put it back in. Of course, if it fails, they are not the ones stuck on the water.

If you have pulled the impeller cover, you have seen that it's not round inside the water pump and that several of the impeller vanes are forced to bend to a 90 degree angle on one side of the housing. I'm no scientist but that does not seem like a good position to store an impeller, dry, for 5-6 months at a time.

Of course you are free to follow any recommendations you see fit. I am going to follow the Indmar manual.

Thanks,

Al

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg276/cab13367/Boat%20Pics/Winterizing/Impeller.jpg

[viking]

Thanks Cab. I was thinking along the same lines but wanted to throw it out there. The dealers try and get by with as little as possible for what they charge and like you said - they aren't the ones stuck on the water. And they want to charge to fix any damages :( Job security.....

Ed - I agree!
for $30/year it's a small price for a security blanket :)