Hello folks.

[MStanley]

New member here. We just bought a 1995 maximum 2300 SC. It's in pretty good shape and has a aluminum salt water trailer. We took this boat out last week for our maiden voayage at our local lake. Five minutes after launching it, I was keeping an eye on the temperature gage which kept climbing. Then my wife screams that there is smoke coming out of the engine compartment. I shut the engine off immediately. Thick smoke was billowing out with the engine compartment and I opened up the hatch. Scared me to death about the boat was on fire. Turns out after being towed to the dock a hour later that we discovered the exhaust tube on the out drive was burned through. That's when I realized that the engine was not getting any water. So $700 later I had both impellers replaced. This maxum has a Volvo engine. The mechanic told me that this engine was obviously replaced from a MerCruiser engine. Is this correct? He claims that maxum doesn't put Volvo engines and their boats. Only MerCruiser. Also I am replacing all the exhaust boots around the engine myself. They don't seem to go on very good because someone altered the cast exhaust tubes.

[shrew]

My biggest pete peeve with outdrives is there is no way to tell is you're shipping water or not. The same could be said for inboards with below-water exhaust, but those are not very common. Most inboards have above water exhaust discharge making verification easy. Outboards have the small stream. They put a similar discharge to an outboard on my Mainship, so you can see water discharging.

Brunswick owns searay, bayliner and mercruiser. They also owned Maxum. i've never seen a Volvo in a Maxum. My father had a few bayliners express cruisers from the early 80's with Volvo's. I'm fairly sure they had switched all boats to mercruiser by the mid 90's.

[mmwjr]

Welcome aboard

Maxum did not use Volvo only Mercruiser, what outdrive is on the boat? Volvo and Mercruiser both use GM blocks so swapping is a none issue but I suspect the outdrive is still a Mercruiser Alpha.

A friend of mine had the same expierence as you and a year latter lost the engine due to this overheating expierence. I don’t trust the helm gauge much and use a handheld IR temp sensor to take readings at the first trip. I also replace the impeller every two years. The helm gauge only provides the engine temp and not the exhaust components.

Best of luck.

[MStanley]

Hello. The outdrive is a Alpha 1 mercruiser. Someone cut the cast iron exhaust tubes it looks like so they could use rubber boots to make this work. It’s a Volvo 5.0 L engine. Some wiring isn’t connected either. But all gauges seem to work. I may try to install some type of exhaust temp gauge myself so I can monitor the temps. I have two empty gauge holes available on the dash. I had to replace all the exhaust boots because of no water running through them and several of them melted a bit. Once the impellers were replaced we saw water shooting out of two of them during tank test of water flow. The boat had been setting for two years but owner assured me everything was recently replaced. We also found out the impeller key way was wrong and someone put a different key in it. This caused the impeller to just sit there while the shaft was spinning and not moving any water. Also there is a pump mounted on the front of engine on this Volvo at the crankshaft. It too was bad. But now both are fixed. Just need to finish my boot repair on starboard side.

[Phillbo]

How did these issues not show them self during the sea trial?

[mmwjr]

Originally Posted by MStanley

Hello. The outdrive is a Alpha 1 mercruiser. Someone cut the cast iron exhaust tubes it looks like so they could use rubber boots to make this work. It’s a Volvo 5.0 L engine. Some wiring isn’t connected either. But all gauges seem to work. I may try to install some type of exhaust temp gauge myself so I can monitor the temps. I have two empty gauge holes available on the dash. I had to replace all the exhaust boots because of no water running through them and several of them melted a bit. Once the impellers were replaced we saw water shooting out of two of them during tank test of water flow. The boat had been setting for two years but owner assured me everything was recently replaced. We also found out the impeller key way was wrong and someone put a different key in it. This caused the impeller to just sit there while the shaft was spinning and not moving any water. Also there is a pump mounted on the front of engine on this Volvo at the crankshaft. It too was bad. But now both are fixed. Just need to finish my boot repair on starboard side.

So they left the engine mounted impeller along with the one in the drive. Only one is required. Note the Alphas upper gears get some cooling by the pump in it. You may also want to replace the exhaust manifold to elbow gasket as I have seen these compromised from no water flow. The two pieces move weaking the joint.

[MStanley]

Yeah. Only one is needed. I’ve had boats all my life but never a Maxum. I didn’t realize Maxum didn’t use Volvo engines until after purchase.
The out drive impeller is a high volume pump. The engine mount is a low volume. I’m thinking they are going to work against each other. I also am replacing 4 exhaust elbow rubber boots. Or do you mean the gaskets to the manifolds from risers ?

[mmwjr]

Yes the gaskets in addition to the rubber hoses.