As it was a nice sunny day and completed a few jobs for FPO I thought it was about time I started up the engine on Sammy 2

Found that there was a bit of rain water in the bilge so got that emptied first.

It has been over a year since it last started so I expected problems, however it fired up after a couple of seconds on the key! :-)

The fuel is now 4+ years old and it still ran ok.

I quickly noticed however that the water tell tail was not showing and water out of it. After checking that the hole & pipe was not blocked I started to look to wee if the intake was blocked.

This was clear so I thought I better drop the leg off and check the impellor, this was replaced a while ago but has not run for any time since. It was a struggle to come off but it did in the end, I checked that water flowed through the housing with the hose and I could hear the impellor turning in the housing so there was no need to strip that down.

I found a pipe of almost the right size to put over the pipe that runs from the pump to the engine and put the hose on this, sure enough out came water from the tell tale outlet so I knew water was getting around the engine so what to try next?

I put the leg back on and tried it again, still no water so I tried the hose on the nipple on the engine and reversed flow of water, started it up and low and behold it all worked as it should. :-)

Tried the engine a couple of times on and off and each time water came out as it should and no overheating. I suspect there was an air lock in the engine somewhere.

Well this covered a few hours so I know the engine is still good, just got to finish of the painting inside the cabin and we might be ready to launch!