Home › Forum › Ask A Member › Air Cooled Outboard Overheating › Re: Air Cooled Outboard Overheating
I have zero experience with air cooled jet outboards. But with only one or two exceptions, all air cooled prop-driven outboards have some sort of way to pump water up to the top of the exhaust housing, where it runs back down and cools the midsection. When that system fails, the midsection gets stinking hot. Then the powerhead is like sitting on a hot stove and it overheats also. Being as a jet drive has a super water pump to drive the boat, it would only make sense to divert a small amount of that water up to cool the exhaust. But I have no idea as to whether or not the makers of your motor had "good sense" and did that.
However, bottom line is that all air cooled motors get extremely hot, compared to the water cooled ones. You can expect it to get too hot to touch. That’s just the way it is. The question then becomes why is it quitting? Since it isn’t seizing, I would explore the usual stuff, like ignition or fuel vapor lock etc.