Howdy to everybody handier than myself (which should be anybody reading this)!

I took my boat to the coast last weekend for some fishing with my brother in law. Everything mostly went well. However, when I got back home to San Antonio, I attached the "ear muffs" to the water intake on my motor to flush out the motor of salt, and the motor was not spraying it's normal stream of water out the back (motor was turned on when doing this). There was nothing (like debris) blocking the water intake, and I am kinda at a loss on what my next step should be. A side note, I did run over (at trolling speed) a sand bar as we were leaving our first fishing spot, but had the motor wide open after that for probably 25-30 minutes and the boat performed like it always does.

Do any of you wise men have any suggestions on what I should do?

Not much experience with it either, but did almost the exact same thing last year. We ran around for a 3 day weekend at the coast (flushing with fresh water every time we took out of the water)

When we got it home I changed the oil so started it and let it run on the muffs to warm up before the drain and the water stream didn't come out. Our motor Suzuki four stroke has some flush out ports on the motor to screw a hose to so I screwed the hose on flushed it ( a little sand came out) and we tried it again and all went like normal.

Flush it if you can and maybe rev it up just a bit to help get it moving.

What motor is it and what is the age of your water pump?

Flush it as soon as possible after coming out of salt. While you're down there. Wash trailer too. Wiring connections may become a problem soon. Trailer may start rusting too. Always fresh water rinse ASAP.

Try blowin air in the p hole. I inserted a basketball inflator thingy. Hooked up air compressor and blew mine out. Worked fine after that. Worth a try. Good luck JD

I was told I went overkill, but when we go to the coast we hit every non aluminum/stainless bolt on the trailer, including lug nuts/studs, light connections, winch, tongue jack, coupler, safety chains, battery connections etc. etc. with corrosion X, we flushed the motor with fresh water morning/evening when taking out of the water, and after the 3 day trip we hit a carwash on the way out of town and washed the entire boat/trailer/motor/truck down.

I was raised to be askeered of salt water. I also disassemble all of my reals and clean/lube after the trip.

What he said.

Galvanized and aluminum trailers will fair pretty well in salt with diligent rinsing. Painted trailers not so well. It's the nature of the beast. If your trailer is constructed with tube material, you can take a small hole saw and drill a couple of holes in the bottom of the tube. This allows better rinsing and draining when dunking the trailer for a rinse and will not compromise the structural integrity.

I highly suggest finding the problem and fixing it before running your engine any more. Your indicator tube is either clogged or you shredded a water pump. Disconnect the tube at the bottom and top and every where in between and blow it out with compressed air. Use a towel at the other end to catch any obstructions you blow out. This will at least give you peace of mind if something blows out. If nothing comes out and its all clear its your water pump.

I have a Honda 115 on my pontoon boat. Since day 1 the stream was always very weak. Some days it was just a dribble. The previous owner told me its always been that way but it runs cool. It bothered me. This engine has a network of tubes from the water pump to the pisser. I thought I had cleared them all. No fix. So I put a water pump in it. Still no fix. Spoke to a mechanic and he insisted I had a restriction. So I went back and took a closer look and sure enough I missed one tube. And yes it was 90% clogged. Blew it out and now that baby pisses like race horse. thankfully the tube that was restricted was only an indicator tube. The engine had been getting full flow the entire time.

run a piece of monofilament string trimmer line up the [censored] hole. I keep a piece under the cowl just for this reason. 99 times out of 100, this will solve the problem. If it doesn't, then its time to check the water pump/impeller condition.

Like some water but not much or none?