Changing impeller on 2009 PCM Excalibur

[gride]

Maxwell is my middle name. And thanks. I wouldn't appreciate my nauti as much without all the help I've received here. Kinda like owning my mc and in tight with a high up who couldn't or wouldn't help me resolve a simple expensive screw up. Adds to the pride factor

[huntwerner]

Great post Airtool! Even on a v drive 211 it was not that bad. Definitely better than the $190 the deal wanted to charge?

I agree about the fuel filter thread, that would be great.

2006 SV 211
1999 Super Sport

[gride]

Impeller-38$ average price.
Time to change-10-20minutes
Labor cost-100$ hour
Should cost about 60$.

What an fn rip off

[teamseal]

Shop Rates and service charges.

Having now owned and operated a small service shop dedicated to restoration and repairs of inboards I learned real quick that as hard as you may try you can not please "ALL" your customers. Their are those out their that believe your investment as a shop owner's is worth less then their time.
Just for an example Their are Three of us running this shop, First their is the monthly overhead, you know property morgage! Monthly Property maintance! Monthy utilities bill and toilet paper! Next is the investment into equipment and tools! It seems yearly I have to upgrade my diagnostic equipment. Also their is the Bog-Me down over the top enviormental rules,laws and inspection. Then their is the education and certification needed to be competitive and properly service the products that are coming into your shop. Shop supplies? Then their is the weekly wages you have to pay your employees.
Now back to this "simple" impeller change, and we will use a V-drive for instance. First the boat gets backed into the service bay. Most of the time the customer does not remove the ski,wake,ropes safety gear from the storage area that the tech needs access too just to get close to the pump to service it. Then after that the tech now can do the "10 min" impeller change. so now after the impeller is installed the boat then needs to get hooked up to some sort of water supply and run, Why? To check for leaks.
After all this then the service tech does a final inspection and wipe down of the areas that he has intruded into. If all goes well this can be done in roughly 30 min! We get $85 an hour along with the price of the impeller the cost for this service with tax is $85.74.
Same service from a large overhead dealer /service center at $135 and hour around $111.00.

Just thought I would give a little insite of what the overall picture looks like from our world.

[Nautiquehunter]

$85 seems reasonable to me. However it looks like the larger overhead dealers are passing off their costs of having such a large dealer to their customers. So a service that is fairly priced at $85 could go for $140 or more because the dealer chose to go with a bigger building. Using that senario Walmart should sell for more not less. It is the job of the dealer to choose the correct size to service their customers at a fair competitive price. If not they will be tagged as a ripoff and surely loose a lot of repeat customer pay work.

[aublaise]

thanks AirTool

Maybe, just maybe one day I'll put this up as a stand-alone post in the how to:

15mm or adjustable wrench for the idler pully.
10mm socket with extension for the pump cover bolts. (see pic)

1. Take the serp belt off. (If you can't figure out how to do this, stop and take your boat to the dealer.)
2. Take the three cover bolts off - bolts stay with cover due to tiny o-rings.
3. Carefully twist the pulley and slightly mis-align the pump as you pull it out and the impeller will come out with it. Otherwise the impeller stays in the cavity.
4. Change out the four o-rings. One for the cover, three for the bolts. Some oil or soap as lube is handy but not required.
5. Squirt some dish soap on the impeller and lather it up with a bit of water.
6. Place the impeller on the shaft.
7. Then line up the impeller with casing and "top" at the top. Then rotate the pulley in the running direction and the impeller will slip right in.
8. Snug the three bolts.
9. Torque to 9 ft-lbs
10. Put the belt back on.
11. Get 'er back in the water.

Disclaimer: this is a guide only. YOU are responsible for your work...not me.

AirTool: Thanks for the post, instructions and directions. I must admit that I could have used a little more help with Step #1. However, I considered your advise in the parens as a challenge. After turning the pulley nut clockwise about 4-5 revolutions the pulley popped off with conviction. "That was easy" I thought. I changed the impeller pretty easily and then started to reinstall the belt. For the life of me I could not put the pulley on with the belt on it. Instead I reinstalled the pulley and then could not figure out how to stretch the belt around the pulleys. I sat there stumped for several minutes that then decided to turn the pulley nut clockwise and suprise, the pulley moved to the right and down allowing me to easily reinstall the belt. All in all and easy job that was past due. The impeller I removed was chewed up pretty good and probably would not have lasted much longer.

[AirTool]

AirTool: Thanks for the post, instructions and directions. I must admit that I could have used a little more help with Step #1. However, I considered your advise in the parens as a challenge. After turning the pulley nut clockwise about 4-5 revolutions the pulley popped off with conviction. "That was easy" I thought. I changed the impeller pretty easily and then started to reinstall the belt. For the life of me I could not put the pulley on with the belt on it. Instead I reinstalled the pulley and then could not figure out how to stretch the belt around the pulleys. I sat there stumped for several minutes that then decided to turn the pulley nut clockwise and suprise, the pulley moved to the right and down allowing me to easily reinstall the belt. All in all and easy job that was past due. The impeller I removed was chewed up pretty good and probably would not have lasted much longer.

Good point. The obvious is shown in Pic 2. It took me a moment or two to figure it out.

I'll add more detail on a few steps and start a clean how to post. (righty tighty pulls back the tensioner....lefty loosy takes it off)

[krt]

great instruction in post #2, did my impleller today!

[TxHr]

Used AirTool's instructions last night and it was a breeze. Thank you so much for your straightforward directions.

[AirTool]

great instruction in post #2, did my impleller today!

Awesome.

Used AirTool's instructions last night and it was a breeze. Thank you so much for your straightforward directions.

Double Awesome.

[TechBeer]

AirTool is correct that changing the impeller on a direct drive boat is trivial, while changing it on a V-Drive is MUCH more challenging. Changing the impeller on my '86 Ski Nautique (direct drive) took about 15 minutes, but I just got done with my 2006 SV-211 (V-Drive) and it's all of 1 hour end to end. For those that want to take it on I figured I'd provide a few pointers. I would have taken some pictures but most of the work you will do by "feel" so pictures will do you no good :-)

• 15mm socket on Idler pully, first pulley on port side of the boat (V-drive). Rotate CLOCKWISE to loosen pulley to get belt off. It takes some leverage to release the idler pulley enough to get the belt off.
• Take out “partition panels” on starboard side of boat to gain access. 11mm socket to remove the retaining bar on top of panels (for SV-211)
• 10mm socket with extension to remove 3 bolts from impeller cover through access holes. Bolts will be retained by rubber O-rings. Make sure that you loosen bolts enough to release cover fully or you will be frustrated.
• Remove cover by pushing pulley downward to avoid exhaust resonator. Impeller will likely be retained on pulley shaft. I could only get the pulley/cover out by maneuvering it downward and towards the stern of the boat. Getting the pulley/cover out and back into position is the hardest part of this procedure. On my boat there is a piece of carpet in the starboard storage area that was in the way so I removed it. On some boats it may be possible to remove the pulley/cover out the top.
• Once the pulley/cover is out of the boat then replacing the impeller is easy. Replace 3 small O-rings for the bolts and large O-ring for the cover. Slide new impeller onto the shaft. From what I could tell the new impeller is completely symmetrical meaning it could go on the shaft either way. I did not use soap on the O-rings, but did soap up the ends of the impeller blades.
• Putting the new assembly back in the housing is not trivial. Note that on the cover there is the word “TOP” which obviously goes up when it’s in the boat. Unfortunately, you will not be able to read this once it’s positioned towards the housing. Fortunately there is a “slot” in the bottom of the cover centered on one of the bolts. Look for this BEFORE you put the pulley/cover back in the boat. If all else fails you can feel for this slot and rotate it so that it’s pointed down. Again I had to maneuver the pulley/cover from the bottom to get it into the housing. Do not sweat the orientation of the impeller blades, you will be doing well just to get the blades in the housing and the cover rotated in the proper orientation. Using the 10mm socket on the end of an extension focus on the top 2 bolts first. If you get these 2 bolts threaded the 3^rd one on the bottom will be aligned properly. I could not get a torque wrench on these 3 bolts so I just snugged them up by “feel”.
• At this point the serpentine belt is likely at the bottom of the bilge. Retrieve it and put it back on again rotating the idler bolt CLOCKWISE to release the tension.

If you can get someone to do this for <$100, including the part, then it's worth every penny.........

[charlesml3]

> Why is the direction of the impeller important?

It isn't at all. Put it in with the vanes going in either direction and if they're backwards, they'll flip right over. They're designed to do this. If you look at how the pump is designed, the pump face isn't circular. It has a flat side on the output side. The vanes on the impeller "sweep" past these pushing out raw water. If you replace the impeller annually, it's unlikely you'll see any visible wear on the impeller. What you don't see is how the vanes have lost some of their elasticity. When that happens, they don't make a good seal against the outlet face and therefore push less raw water.

Putting it in "backwards" will not "stress the impeller." New ones have plenty of elasticity to handle that.

[chopp]

exellent info , just did mine and it was easy thanks to this info. although i did end up taking the pulley off the pump as it was a bit flakey with the paint so i gave it some rust converter , primer and fresh gloss black enamel.

Does anyone know what i should torque the 3 allen key pulley bolts back up too, can't find this info anywhere.

thanks.

[charlesml3]

exellent info , just did mine and it was easy thanks to this info. although i did end up taking the pulley off the pump as it was a bit flakey with the paint so i gave it some rust converter , primer and fresh gloss black enamel.

Does anyone know what i should torque the 3 allen key pulley bolts back up too, can't find this info anywhere.

thanks.

Just get them down tight with an allen wrench and you'll be fine. This isn't a critical connection point that needs to be torqued to a specific value.

-Charles

[MTRBTR]

This thread is still helping people. Did my impeller on my Sv 211 using it as a guide. Would have taken near as long if it wasn’t a v drive.