Impeller boot mystery damage

[pltsman45]

Have a 2016 255 and recently have been getting some cavitation at around 35-4000 rpm's. Thinking it was a twig or something stuck on impeller, went to take a look and found the boot was damaged, basically the soft plastic part was chewed up. Which i think normally happens when you suck up a tow rope/dock line something like that, which i haven't done. Pulled the pump to find only a little bit of weeds wrapped around the drive shaft where the soft plastic part of the boot would be. Has anyone encountered this before? Could weeds wrap around this boot and damage it? Or do these boots just go sometime? Here is a pic of the damaged boot vs a new one. All the soft plastic is about gone and all that was left was the hard plastic. Put a new boot on and will see if that takes care of the cavitation.

 

[pltsman45]

FYI... New boot took care of the issue.

 

[Winerocks]

This happened to one of mine as well. Not sure how it happened either, but it made the boat shake like crazy.

 

[Winerocks]

I now keep 2 new boots in my bin of repair parts, along with 2 starter relays and several sizes of gear clamps. All are cheap parts that seem to cause problems from time to time.
My previous boat was an I/O, and parts bin included around 25 parts, some big, some small, and around 25lbs of tools. Scarabs are not perfect, but ownership has been much less stressful and overall way less expensive than my Merc I/O was.

 

[pltsman45]

Yes, I have a similar repair bin, one boot and 6 relays i'll add some various size gear clamps. Haven't needed the relays yet.

 

[Luc Lafreniere]

A spare boot isn't a bad idea. Never needed it, but cheap as you say. I think I'll get one in case.

I highly doubt weeds would have caused that. Maybe something got sucked up at one point and eventually got released. But glad to know it was an easy-ish solution.

 

[Guniwheel]

Just had my bot damaged by rope. Where did you guys buy your replacement boots? Thanks

 

[blthlt]

might wanna see if anyone has a spare they'd sell you..

 

[pltsman45]

Amazon.

 

[Winerocks]

pltsman45 that is exactly the boot that I bought to replace a bad one. Great quality, fit perfectly, cheap, fast delivery.