G23 Overheating and Taking On Water

[Devodad]

What a day. We bought a 2013 G23 with a 450 from Marine Max just over a year ago. They winterized it last fall which included servicing the water pump/impeller. Put the boat in today for the first time this season. The boat quickly over heated. We were stranded in the middle of the lake until we were able to arrange a tow. At that point the boat began to take on water....Obviously we are all now in panick mode.
We were able to get the boat towed to our lift to keep the entire thing from sinking. Will give Marine Max a call in the morning. Not sure how we are going to get the boat off of our lift back to the boat ramp.

[shag]

Sounds like a water line was not properly re-connected. Thus when the engine was running it may have been pumping water into the bilge instead circulating to cool the engine. Just my .02

[nyryan2001]

Sounds like a hose maybe wasn't reattached from winterization. That would explain the overheat and the water in the bilge. Step 3 or 4 in winterization has the hose/clamp after the tranny cooler being disconnected ..... That would pump water in to your bilge bigtime and starve the engine of its cooling water if it were not reconnected.

[Devodad]

We took on about a foot of water before we were able to get on the lift. Not sure what damage that caused or if the engine is still OK.

[nyryan2001]

Did you ever find the source of the leak? If you had the plug in... You have a very high chance if was a hose not attached pumping water into the bilge. Very simple fix.

[NautiqueJeff]

Yep, I agree with Ryan. That hose that connects to the transmission cooler was likely never reconnected. It will do exactly what you described.

Item #4 below is my guess. This hose is normally left disconnected during winterization, assuming there was no RV antifreeze pumped into the system.

For future reference, closing the cooling water seacock would have stopped the flow of water. It is located in the compartment behind the in-floor cooler (with the ballast seacocks, etc). The cooling water seacock is bigger and has a different color handle though.

[nyryan2001]

Yep #4. I know a guy on a G that did that a year or so ago lol. Its an absolute PITA to remove and a PITA to get back on. I actually removed my water after the tube tranny cooler, not on the clamp before.

And the thing about that location... is when that #4 hose is laying down in the bilge, and not connected, partially under the engine on the starboard side... it dumps a ton of water fast in there without splashing or making a scene....from what Ive heard of course.

So remove the starboard trunk engine panel... contort and get yourself down in there and trace the line coming from the sea strainer. You'll have you answer in under a minute.... THEN track down who supposedly did the winterization, springerization and water test before you bought the boat, get eyeball to eyeball and get a free service or someone out of it.

And as outlier.... if that hose is connected.... next stop would be to check the impellor.

[Dandy21]

Devodad - Sorry to hear about this, I cannot imagine how pissed off I would be on the water. Was this MM Rogers? Did you store it with them and have them do a Spring runout, or just the winterization. I am picking up our boat from there next week, I may have to keep an eye out for this. This will be my first spring working with MM and had high hopes/expectations as they have been great so far. I always request that my dealers perform a spring run out on their test tanks and if they did, I would like to think they would have caught this.

Given the situation, I am willing to guess that MM will possibly come out to your place and check it out on the lift.

Fingers crossed for you!

[Devodad]

I did buy the boat through Marine Max of Rogers just over a year ago. We put 110 or so hrs on it last summer and they winterized it last fall and I stored it over the winter. Last fall they said it should be good to put right in the water this spring after I charged the batteries.
I spoke with them today and they said thier are 4 valves to turn off and that should shut off all of the water intake into the boat....
They then want me to tow it back to the boat ramp and trailer it back to them.
I haven't had enough experience with Marine Max to make a comment but it looks like I will in the near future.

[NautiqueJeff]

Those four valves are the three ballast seacocks and the cooling water seacock I mentioned above. If it is as simple as a disconnected transmission cooler hose, I would just reconnect it. It is very easy. Reconnecting the hose is way easier than towing the boat to the ramp, winching it up onto the trailer, and towing it to the dealer.

Believe me though, I get that you shouldn't have to do that if they told you that it was water-ready, but in this case it might be easier to just reconnect it and then take the issue up with them after the fact.

[Devodad]

My concern is also how hot the engine became while trying to keep the boat from crashing into shore. It was a windy day so we had to restart the thing a few times until a tow could come. The linc screen read extrem heat and the engine smelled very hot.

[Jeb1974]

My concern is also how hot the engine became while trying to keep the boat from crashing into shore. It was a windy day so we had to restart the thing a few times until a tow could come. The linc screen read extrem heat and the engine smelled very hot.

No matter what the cause I'd be worried about a melted impeller and it's probably a good idea to have it changed......at their cost, not yours of course.

[JoeA]

Devo,

Make sure you document all of this with the dealer. Hopefully it all works out well.

[justhavinfun]

Devodad, like JoeA said document and get photos. Sorry to hear about your problem. I had a couple of issues with MM in Rogers with service. Their upfront sales and customer service is great, but I really feel like the service department must be overwhelmed and push stuff out in a hurry. I e-mailed photos and dealt with service manager prior to bringing boat in and had good luck, but then they didn't do something right when correcting problem. I ended up fixing it myself figuring I didn't want them working on my boat anymore. We are now thinking about purchasing a Nautique and one of the things that worries me is their service and my distance from them. Problem is they are the only dealer in the state.

[nyryan2001]

A great dealer 6 hours away is better than a sloppy dealer next door.