When we arrived on the boat on Saturday (this was after hooking up our compressor and blowing up 15 promotional footballs for an upcoming Monster Jam performance), there were our engines with the heat exchangers installed and all the hoses back in place. Hope we never have to do that job again.
That's tape over the intake manifolds. The new carbs won't go on until the exhaust elbows have been changed. No use risking damaging new $350 carburetors. And, as luck would have it, the exhaust elbows and the gaskets and adapters came in today, already painted Chrysler blue.
To really finish the cooling system portion of the job, we needed to install the Coolant Recovery Bottles. We didn't have those before and when the coolant heated up and expanded while underway, it would puke out the overflow tube under the pressure cap.
We mounted the recovery bottles on pieces of 1/2-inch plywood and fastened those to a fiberglass lip that runs across the boat just behind the heat exchangers. It was great fun lying over the batteries between the engines and drilling pilot holes through the fiberglass with one arm, but it worked. We routed the plastic overflow tubing from the heat exchangers to the bottom of the coolant recovery bottles.
We marked the sides of the recovery bottle with the hot and cold coolant levels and added a little piece of plastic tubing to the top of each bottle, just in case that ever overflows. Looking at the pictures, we wish we had painted those pieces of plywood but for now, they'll have to be left.unfinished.
Now that we have the new exhaust elbows, we took the time to remove the clamps holding the exhaust hose to the elbows. These aren't going to be easy to remove.
The joints between the elbows and the manifolds are rock solid, even with the mounting bolts out. We're going to have to whack them with a big hammer to break them loose.
These water fittings won't come out so we guess we'll have to replace them.
We've been thinking about how to solve our steering problem. Some time after the boat came out of the water, our upper helm started to leak. We easily found a company that rebuilds these Hynautic helms quite inexpensively but we wondered how we would be able to refill the steering reservoir with fluid once the rebuilt helm was reinstalled. The nut on the top of reservoir where fluid is added was impossible to remove. Our guess is that someone used something like LockTite on it.
The part we were trying to remove is shown at the upper right top of the reservoir. It has a round back pump knob. Before we did anything stupid like trying the remove the entire reservoir, we consulted our Internet friends at the Silverton Owners Club. They recommended simply unscrewing the pressure gauge. We tried that and it came right off, leaving a nice little opening through which we can add fluid once the rebuilt helm is in place.
You have to love the Internet for all the knowledge that's out there.
On Sunday, we tackled the replacement of the exhaust elbows on the port engine. With the bolts out, those two elbows weren't going to come off easily. We had previously tried prying and even kicking them. Nothing worked, so we brought down a low-tech tool from home.
It took three whacks with this hammer and the inside manifold on the port side broke loose. Nice to see it gone. This is what the top of the adapter that fits between the elbow and the manifold looked like. Note the four Allen head bolts that hold the adapter to the manifold. Hopefully, those would come out.
The white stuff in the exhaust port is just a paper towel that we stuffed in there to keep debris out of the engine. Next, we removed those four Allen head bolts (came out without a problem) and then applied the big hammer to the adapter. It came off with one good whack.
Once we got the adapter off, we found an intact block-off gasket that seemed to be in pretty good shape. We expected that because these engines always ran at 180-degrees, just where they are supposed to. We're only changing the elbows (and adapters) because hot seawater is injected into the exhaust stream in the elbows and that combination is really tough on cast iron. The exhaust manifolds are cooled by a mixture of 50% antifreeze and water so corrosion there is kept at a minimum.
We scraped the old gasket off and applied a coat of Permatex Copper to the surface before mounting a new gasket and then the new exhaust adapter. We know that exhaust systems are supposed to be assembled dry but we have done them before with Permatex and have never had a leak.
With the adapter in place, we dropped on the gasket, also with a thin coat of Permetex. The studs in the photo are used to bolt the elbow down.
We were ready to install the exhaust elbow but we couldn't get the exhaust hose off the old elbow. The end where the hose had been clamped to elbow was badly cracked and dry so we decided to replace all the exhaust hose. We only needed eight feet to do both engines but the boat yard only had a three-foot length of 3-inch ID hose in stock. We took that and cut a 23-inch section, which is what we needed to complete one side.
Fitting this all together was quite an exercise. We elected to put the exhaust hose on the elbow and then fit the entire thing onto the muffler. We did it this way because the muffler fitting is smooth and the elbow isn't. (The exhaust elbow hose fitting has a nasty extra 1/8-inch lip around it.) We coated the inside of the exhaust hose with dish washing liquid and forced the hose over the lip onto the elbow. Then we picked the whole thing up and slipped the hose onto the muffler. It took a little jerking back and forth but eventually, the elbow dropped onto the mounting studs and we were home.
When we left, we had the port outside done and we would have done the port inside if we had had any more exhaust hose. That hose has been ordered and we should be able to complete the entire exhaust rehab next weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment