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Old timer told me to run my dredge pump at half throttle on startup, thought he was nuts

At the Port of Providence last month, this guy with 30 years on the job said to ease into it slow to avoid cavitation damage. I ignored him and pushed full throttle right away, ended up with a blown impeller seal after two hours. Has anyone else tested that startup trick and found it actually helps long term?
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2 Comments
terryrobinson
Huh, so when he said half throttle, did he mean just cracking the throttle open barely or actually holding it at 50% for a while before moving up? Ive always heard old timers say keep it low till you see water in the discharge hose but never heard a specific rpm number.
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river_fox18
Holding it at exactly 50% for a solid bit seems fine honestly, the real danger is just idling too long before you see that water stream. Most of those old timers never ran a modern engine anyway lol.
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