Overheating? Consequences?

[Parsunit]

Hi Folks,
yesterday I ran my Suzuki DF 20 in a bin, to warm the oil before changing. The water was approximately 2 inch above the ventilation plate. Unfortunately I didn't spend attention if it was peeing, my plunder. I had a coffee and when I came back the engine was off. I restarted, and it begann immediately to vibrate a lot, and it ran very noise. After a couple of seconds I realized the red control light and shut the engine down.
I assumed it could be the cooling, and took the lower unit of. The impeller looked fine, no signs of worn, however I replaced it together with the gaskets/sealings. Then I changed the Oil/Filter, added water to the bin till it was approx 10 inch above the ventilation plate and ran it again. It went on, strongly peeing, and ran calm at idle.
Now I am wondering if overheating was probably the cause, if waterlevel 2 inches above the ventilationplate could be just not sufficient (the intakes are below the plate) and if the block could be damaged due to idling 5-10 mins probably without cooling, and pushing the rpm two times to about 2500 rpm.
The Motor was in the basement the last 3 month, it was the first run, to prepare it for the oil changes.

Your answer will be very appreciated,
Thank you very much,
Flo

[Moonlighter]

You may have been lucky. The overheat protection system may have cut the engine before serious damage was done. If the engine now runs smoothly and strongly, then it should be OK.

And youve learnt an important lesson - never, ever, walk away from an engine that is being flushed whether its on the muffs or in a drum of water!! In a drum, the pee stream will quite quickly shoot the water out of the drum onto the ground, and the water level will then get too low. And yes, you do need to start with more than 2" above the vent plate - At least 6".

If you want to give it a long thorough flush, do 5-10 minutes engine running on the drum/muffs, then turn it off. Then, connect up the hose to the flushing port on the engine and leave the hose running for 10 minutes but ONLY WITH THE ENGINE TURNED OFF.

By the way, the best muffs to use are the ones with the small round rubber cups. These are the old-style ones originally used for Evinrude etc.

[Parsunit]

Hi Moonlighter,
thank you for your quick reply.

It wasnīt a drum, actually it was a barrel, so the peestream didnīt leave the barrel. I wonder why the waterlevel has to be so high above the ventilationplate, since the intakes are below it? Does the impellerhousing has to be under water as well? Does it leaks air and isnīt working then?

Is there a distinctive error code in the faultstorage which allows me, to tell if it was really overheating?

Like I said, in idle it runs absolute smoothly.

Thanks and have a nice day,

Flo

[Moonlighter]

There will be an overheat record stored. If you have the Suzuki SDS software and cable and connect up, you will see it listed.

Drum or barrell = much the same thing!! LOL!! What you call a barrell, I call a drum. Shrimp or prawn = same animal!!

The water recirculating long enough will get hot. Depends on how big the container is of course.

If the pee stream is strong when its in the barrell then whatever depth water that is will be enough.

As you said yourself, the lesson is to pay attention to what is happening.