Thanks Crosbyman and Vintin! Took a few days but I got to looking at it at the shop. No, it’s not seized, a good thing! I removed the thermostat and found it frozen is ‘an open’ position and replaces it with a new one from Sierra. Both had 143 stamped on the end. I did find that the crankcase vacuum hose was quite loose at the crankcase end so I removed the orig spring clamp and put a regular hose clamp on it. That could have been the fuel starving issue, I hope! I started it today with hose water into the water portal on the stbd side down low, turned up the water volume to max available here and hardly any water spray came out the discharge port. Water was going everywhere at the bottom because the water portal into the engine from that side also back feeds the ‘forward going’ water pick up, so the water was gushing out from there pretty well but I am pretty sure enough was going into the engine that if the water pump was working there was sufficient water available for a very healthy spray from the discharge port would have been happening. But it wasn’t, so I think I am going to have to remove the lower unit and explore what the hell happened to the water pump. Only about 40 hours on the motor since i last rebuilt the lower unit, with all the pump pieces replaced with new. Not a cheap exercise I can tell you!! Thanks again and if you guys can think of anything, especially causes (other than the obvious like a bag over the inlet) please let me know?  BTW, a friend out here in the SF Bay area has a couple of 4 cycle rebuilt outboards that were derived from Crosby auto engines. I think they are Homelite?

Crosbyman: I will see what I can do, but my only option will be a half barrel filled with fresh water. But that will get both water pickups immersed and won’t take the whole day. I might be able to do this tomorrow. Wish me luck, I’ll report back. I have had very good water output several times in the past with using the screw on cover with a hose fitting in it that replaces the SST one with the 6 or 8 holes in it. I think I read somewhere that this is where the engine picks up its water when in reverse. Thanks again.  Tom Alex