Starting the Boat in the driveway

[HBjohnnyD]

Want to start the boat in the driveway. Was wondering if I must get an attachemnt for my hose or is there another way to get enough water in.

[foxfam312]

Pick up a fake a lake remember do not put in gear out of water

[kx250frider617]

I used to have a fake a lake but it disappeared. I just went and bought a cheap plunger, cut out a 1" hole to cement in my home-made pvc hose connection then used a long wood screw on the handle to adjust the height. Works just as good but $40 cheaper. I always to with the same truck and park in the same spot so i rarely have to adjust it.

[h2osk8er00]

Install a perko flush system so you can just use your hose and not worry about that plunger crap....aka fake-a-lake....

[whiteflash watersports]

Install a perko flush system so you can just use your hose and not worry about that plunger crap....aka fake-a-lake....

Thats what we have an it works great. I would never risk not getting enough water to the engine when in driveway.

[kasey200]

I made one similar to the one described above. I just use a floor jack under it to keep upward pressure. I've used it for 10 years and never had any issues . Works great!

[Ruger761]

I use a standard fake-a-lake. No matter which you use the fake a lake or the perko system, make sure your getting water out of your exhaust pretty quickly after you start it and it continues to come out.

[IDBoating]

make sure your getting water out of your exhaust pretty quickly after you start it and it continues to come out.

I use a Fake-a-Lake too, and once the engine is running I adjust the hose spigot until I have just a bit of "blowby" water coming out of the edges of the F-a-L. It's possible to supply TOO much water to the raw water intake on the hull. That would be an odd condition for the impeller. Normally the impeller draws a vacuum so it generates a positive pressure differential from intake to output, but if you have lots of water blowing past the F-a-L it means there's more water than the impeller can consume - which means you've reversed the pressure gradient and now there's more pressure on the INTAKE side than the output. I don't know if it matters, but I don't want to take a chance. Damaging the impeller and having to fish pieces of it out of the engine is one of the more unpleasant jobs I can imagine doing on a hard-to-access v-drive engine!

I don't know how you'd properly adjust the hose pressure using a closed "Perko" system, plus that's just more fittings in the all-important cooling system (read: more potential failure points).

[Ruger761]

WA,

You really dont have to worry about that as much as you are thinking. Almost every raw water intake is shaped so that when your boat is underway it is actually pushing water into your intake hose creating back pressure on the impeller to ensure its getting enough water.

[IDBoating]

Almost every raw water intake is shaped so that when your boat is underway it is actually pushing water into your intake hose creating back pressure on the impeller to ensure its getting enough water.

Yes, I'm aware of that, and indeed my boat has a mushroom intake. But that pressure varies with hull speed. At idle and low RPM's on the lake, the hull moves very slowly so the "mushroom pressure" is very low - and that's the condition on the trailer with a hose (I don't rev my engine real high when out of the water).

Standard neighborhood water pressure is 60 PSI. I'm not sure you could duplicate that by dragging a mushroom intake in the water, and it would only occur at higher speeds - definitely not at idle or low RPM's. So I think it's wise to modulate the water flow. Just my $0.02, of course, and while I may be wasting my time it certainly can't hurt anything.

(Side note: On freeflow cooling systems (i.e. engines that don't use an impeller to draw the water, such as jetskis and many two-stroke marine engines), you need to modulate the hose flow to allow the engine to warm up properly. Too much flow - excessive for the RPM's of the engine on the trailer - will overcool the engine and impair certain maintenance operations.)

[Ruger761]

Everyone has their own method. If it works and has worked for you then stick with it.

On a side note you can only build pressure if you have a good seal holding pressure. If you leaking around the fake-a-lake then you are not building full pressure on the system anyways. And unless you have just one heck of a fake-a-lake, whcih they dont make, you might see 3-10psi max before the fake-a-lake leaks due to the size of the areas and the material the cup is made out of. Once you leak the system will stay at that 3-10 psi not your 60psi that you can build against a closed system. The only thing you are regulating with your water flow is the flow not the pressure. Plus if you regulate your water down at idle where its not leaking and you rev it any then you could starve your pump and cause the intake hose to collapse under vacuum. On the perko system you could see the full 60 psi. Ive never used that system but there are many that do and probably never have an issue.


When cooling an engine down slower moving water will dissipate more heat than fast flowing water, that’s Heat Transfer 101 right there if you want to get into the technical side of things. Why do you think you have a thermostat vs an open flowing system? The old 40s and 50s models never had them and they developed hot spots in the blocks and heads. Sure with out a thermostat the temp gage will not move but its measuring the temp of the water or coolant not the actual block temperature.

[Timmy!]

I made a fake-a-lake with a plunger, a female garden hose repair piece and a hose clamp. The plunger handle wasn't long enough for my boat (trailer has 20's on it) so I used an old broom handle and it cut it to the right length. I also turn the water pressure down once the boat is running so that there is barely anything spilling out over the sides. I mostly do it because I don't want to waste the water since our state is in a pretty bad drought.

[mnpracing]

I use this. Just connect right to the vdrive. This way I don't have to climb in and out of the boat to run the water on and off




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[IDBoating]

I have a similar setup for my jetski engines. The order there is 1) engine on, then 2) water on, then 3) water off, then 4) engine off (i.e. you cannot run water when the engine isn't running). Since I don't want to leave the engine running while I run back and forth to the spigot, I built a rig very similar to yours. Great idea! {grin}

[efrickle]

hose fitting.jpg
Can I attach a garden hose to this fitting and be able to cool the motor or will it just run out the intake? Not sure what this fitting is for. Thanks for the help!