yanmar raw water pump

[seacapture]

I am currently changing my keel cooled yanmar 3jhte model engine to a wet exhaust. It was set up with the cooler as raised plates in the engine space. It worked well in Maine water being that the average august water temp got up to about 60 degrees but I plan on bringing the vessel south
where the average water temp will be in the 80's. I plugged all the outlets and left the antifreeze in them for corrosion protection. The problem is that the previous owner bypassed the raw water pump to circulate the the antifreeze to the heat exchanger. He simply had taken out the impeller that normally would pump raw salt water to the exchanger. I asked him why and he said it didn't circulate the antifreeze and he installed a 12volt circulating pump instead. It worked fine for him and he said he only had to replace the pump once in 8yrs since he built her. The problem I saw with that was if the alternator went for the starting batt it was hooked up to and the battery died you would have a problem.That being said I got rid of the electric pump and opened up the raw water pump(the one with no impeller)and low and behold he never took out the backing plate I believe it's called and the damn thing came loose inside leaned over and grinded away my teeth for the impeller.Now I say oh well i'll just buy a new pump! hah not so fast the damn thing can't be taken off without removing the darn front engine mount!! Is this for real? Does anyone have a yanmar 3jhte model and had this problem? I was thinking maybe hooking up a jabsco to the engine with a pulley and just going that route. I can't understand why it would be built like that. I looked at the mounts thinking maybe the previous owner modified something but it doesn't seem so. I have a 82 ft commercial fishing vessel and I will say this much..I have never been so mad at an inanimate object in my entire career offshore as I have been today! After years of bareboating I now understand that look on the guys face when the lady said( I put the thingy in forward and it wouldn't go) I wanted a big steel sailboat and now I got one. rolling on the floor laughing! any yanmar people out there?

[Inlet Marine Services]

Dont alway blame Yanmar, blame the guy who built the boat with no access. If you need blow outs of the cooling system e-mail me at inletmarineservices@comcast.net