Forty Plus: cooling water flow stops around tickover

[40TPI]

Hi, my recently acquired 40 + MK II, FP664E1, has just had it's debut in a water filled galv dustbin. Water flow stops on reducing revs to tickover and requires a good throttle blip to restore flow. I have seen another post where flow apparently ceases at tickover but is this normal? How long can the engine run at tickover without water flow before overheating?

Ancillary info: Previous history scanty but believed un-used for three or more years, has seen saltwater use. Relatively clean carb but messy petrol tank; spark plug loose on arrival but with evidence of a careful owner putting oil into cylinder before lay up. So not an unloved motor! Back flushing with a water hose at half cock didn't soak me and pushed out only a very small quantity of rust scale. Waterways presumed open so proceeded to fuel up and start. Followed the advice elsewhere and removed the prop shear spring and arranged for two inches of water over the exhaust. Text book start up on second pull. Runs smoothly. Since the galv dustbin rolled seams leak it is possible to have adjustable depth over the exhaust by controlling water hose refill rate! Water pumps fine at quarter throttle down to about an inch of water over exhaust outlet. Water flow resumes when depth increased back up to about inch and a half.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

Peter

[charlesp]

You are describing the behaviour of a perfectly normal 40 plus. Only the very first models - the 'Little Model Forty' - seem to pump water at tickover.

Try not to run for more than a few seconds without a flow of coolant - British Seagull recommend that you keep it buzzing.

[40TPI]

Thanks for the reassurance Charles! It is not covered on the main SOS faq. I've since just about finished a read of all the old forum posts here and could have saved the bandwidth if I'd done that first. There is an absolute wealth of info in the old posts!

[John@sos]

There is a thought, must put that on the FAQ pages, though I had! Well answered Charles!

Regards,
John
SOS