2001 Utopia lacking power - intake issue?

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mattard

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I have a 2001 Utopia with a Merc 210. Had it out yesterday, all was fine. Just took it out, and it has no power when I try to accelerate. If I accelerate very slowly, it will eventually get some speed going, but only with a high RPM. And when I try to give it more power, it revs but does not accelerate. I've had this same power issue before when I took a ski rope into the grate under the boat. So, with the lake water being so low, I thought I may have a pile of weeds in the same grate. I went under the boat and could not see any weed issues. Does anyone have any ideas? I read other message threads that suggest there may be weeds in other intakes, but I have no idea where they are (only my second summer with a jet boat). I'm hoping I can resolve the issue while the boat is in the water as I'm on vacation with the family and didn't bring a vehicle with a hitch. Thanks in advance for the help.

Mark.
 
I hate to say it, but I think you need to get the boat out of the water so you can really inspect the intake area, impeller, pump/stator for debris or damage that may be causing your boat to cavitate. Possibly someone with a hitch might help you out.

Sorry to hear about your troubles while on vacation...hope you get it resolved quickly and get back to enjoying your boat!
 
I forgot to add that you only have the one intake...if you don't find anything in the intake, possibly you passed something through that has damaged your impeller or pump/stator causing your cavitation issue.

Again, good luck with it.
 
Thanks for the response, I'm making arrangements to pull the boat out tomorrow night or Friday morning. If I can't see any weeds, how far can I investigate this before needing to get the boat serviced? After taking the grate off, can I remove the impeller and keep following behind it for weeds or debris to clean out? The boat still runs at low speeds (although I'm obviously making a point to not use it) so I'm hoping that nothing is damaged.
 
The impeller comes out the back. It's not hard to do... but it's not trivial either.

If you can get under the boat, and look up into the grate... that will tell you a lot. BUT... if you just sucked up a bag, or something like that... there is a chance that it will fall out when you take the boat out of the water.

If you look inside, and don't see any junk, or damage... put it back into the water, and see if it got better.


Also... get a good look in from the nozzle end. If the clearance between the impeller and housing is high... that can also be an issue.
 
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