Hunter 49 - Impeller changing

[SEMPERAVANTI41]

MitchM
I have had luck using :
Long Reach Hose Grip Pliers 3 Pc

Pittsburgh® - item#37909

I have the impeller puller but there was not enough room to use it. With these pliers I was able to remove the impeller in 30 seconds! (once I got the cover off which took over an hour)

 

[RWSlater]

Art, first sentence... "As you know, on the previous 4JH engines (they have since fixed this)"
Do you know what year they fixed this issue? I am in the process of buying a '07 45CC and haven't looked close yet, but my 96 42CC had a very accessible impeller and was pretty quick to change.
Thanks for the work
Ron

 

[artboas]

Art, first sentence... "As you know, on the previous 4JH engines (they have since fixed this)"
Do you know what year they fixed this issue? I am in the process of buying a '07 45CC and haven't looked close yet, but my 96 42CC had a very accessible impeller and was pretty quick to change.
Thanks for the work
Ron

I really don't know the answer to this.
You'll just need to get photos of the boat, and it will be pretty obvious.

 

[artboas]

Art, do you have Doug's email address?

Here is his email. Doug is a great guy to deal with

dsdykens@mastry.com

 

[artboas]

Ok, here it is. Finally !!!!
If you recall in this project, I ran into a big problem.
The F5B-9 pump is a crankshaft water pump.
As you all saw in the rather lengthy documentation, the base of the pump rotates, while the pump body remains stationary.
Now, Johnson puts a female threaded (5/16) post on the side of the pump, to which you are supposed to attach a stabilizer arm.
As the pump is connected to the engine, the stabilizer arm must effectively be attached to the engine frame somehow. But, this is basically impossible in this installation.
The pump us mounted way in front of the engine, and trying to fabricate a stiff bracket that somehow weaves its way around the flywheel, etc was way above my pay grade.
So, to reiterate, I basically cheated to get this thing up and running.
I installed an aluminum angle bracket across the engine bed, and mounted a small "L" bracket. The bracket had a fair sized hole in it, which allowed a shoulder screw, (which I installed in the pump body threaded post) to basically bang around inside of it.
It kept the pump from rotation, but it wasn't a great solution. The shoulder screw started munching away at the aluminum bracket, and there was another problem.
When you shut the engine off, the back pressure wanted to swing the pump in the other direction, making a scary banging sound. Not good.
So, I am pleased to report I now have the perfect solution

What we have here is a compression spring mounted between the pump anti-rotation post, and the aluminum bar across the engine bed.
The spring keeps the pump from rotation by simply compressing, plus it allows movement in all directions while the engine in running & vibrating.
BONUS!! When the engine shuts down, the pump will try and run in the opposite direction. At this point, the compression spring turns into an extension spring, and gently oscillates the pump back to centre.

I cannot tell you how well this works.
Little tricky attaching bolts to the ends of a spring. If you need more detail, pm me

 

[SEMPERAVANTI41]

Art
Looks good. Can you post how you attached to the end of the spring? How about a picture showing the side of the spring?
Thanks,
Andy

 

[Jeff Jellick]

Art, first sentence... "As you know, on the previous 4JH engines (they have since fixed this)"
Do you know what year they fixed this issue? I am in the process of buying a '07 45CC and haven't looked close yet, but my 96 42CC had a very accessible impeller and was pretty quick to change.
Thanks for the work
Ron

We have a 2005 Hunter 45 CC, and the water pump and impeller are relatively easy to get access to and change. They are located on the port side of the engine, and access is made by removing the very large engine room cover also on the port side. I feel that after reading the accounts posted by Artboas and others that I have it very good.

 

[artboas]

Ok
I'll do a whole write/up with photos
Please be s tinybit patient

Arthur

 

[artboas]

Ok, I have now got an excellent solution that can be easily implemented.
In my follow-up article, I showed how to implement the anti-rotation using a very clever use of a compression spring.
I was contacted by a few folks asking his on earth I managed to attach the threaded studs to the compression spring, as shown in the photos.
Well, to be 100% honest Witt you, it wasn't easy, and required some "fiddly" work.
I was trying to document how to duplicate what I did, but (frankly) it was just too difficult to explain.
Furthermore, it was something that required an above average level of "handiness" to accomplish.
So,,,
I went back to the drawing board.
I figured out a super-easy way to attach the threaded bolts to the springs.
Here is what I'm going to do:
In the next day or 2, I'm going to photo & document this.
Now, as mentioned before, I found the perfect compression spring for this application. And believe me, I spent a ton of time looking for it.
The methodology of connecting the screw studs to the spring relies on using specific parts. They are really cheap, but must be exact.
So, if anyone is tackling this water pump upgrade, I would be fine with sending these out for my cost plus postage.
I have to say that this water pump upgrade was probably the best project I've done to the boat in a long time. It got to the point where I was reluctant to go out for long sails on days where the weather was choppy.,
It was always in the back of my mind that if the impeller blew out, I'd have a real tough time getting back to my slip.
As mentioned, when I finally tackled the project & got the original impeller out, it was more than half destroyed

 

[Semper Sailor]

Hello all,
Artboas developed an interesting technique to overcome the ~2 hr headache of getting into the water pump impeller. I gave compiled a bunch of material and assembled a document out of it. Please take a look and feel free to comment!

thanks
Jim

Nice work, Bizbat!

 

[Semper Sailor]

on my boat, i had to cut an access hole in the battery box wall to use the Jabsco 'impeller puller ' tool to get the water pump impeller out of my 3JH4E. this event of course occurred 120 miles from home on a rolling lake with an overheating engine at dusk. we had sea room and also a good anchor. we waited till morning. then i spent 2 more hours trying to find 2 of the little bitty undersized bolts that hold the cover on , which of course had fallen into the engine bilge. having extras of those little weird bolts is important because if you don't fasten the cover on with ALLLLLLL the bolts, the raw water leaks out and your engine over heats. (ask me how i know this.) then once back at the dock i had to disassemble the heat exchanger to find the pieces of impeller vane that were stuck inside the ht ex, screwing up coolant flow and making the engine run hot....of course when you t take off the ht ex end caps you lose most of the antifreeze in your system. then i had to go out to buy form a gasket because the ht ex gasket weird thin shape completely tore when i was removing it, and i did not have enough Dexcool on board to properly top off the antifreeze system....Rx: buy yourself a Speed Seal yan mar water pump cover kit . it is beautiful. (but still it wouldn't have avoided cutting a hole in the battery box...) i blame YANMAR for a stupid pump cover design. I blame the boat manufacturer for not cutting an access hole in the battery box cover in the 1st place.....

Mitch, you are spot on! Hunter should have known better than to install an engine that cannot be easily serviced. Or, they should have made a service port in the bulkhead once they realized the configuration. Events like that make sailing less fun...but, more of a challenge