After enjoying a great Thanksgiving and working the next day, on Saturday we were ready to tackle the removal of the inboard starboard exhaust manifold. Last weekend, we started on this but managed to round over one of the six bolts that hold the manifold to the cylinder head and we didn't have the required Allen key to remove the adapter from the top of the manifold. Hey, it was the first day of a new project and it took us a while to get everything on the boat we needed.
Saturday, we were better prepared. During the week, we visited Harbor Freight and bought an inexpensive set of 3/8-drive, six-point sockets. We own hundreds of sockets but not many of the six point deep well variety.
Once on the boat with all of the lights hooked up, we tried the manifold bolt with the rounded head and the six-point socket backed it out immediately. We had to disconnect a couple of water lines and the manifold was ready to come loose.
Chrysler marine exhaust manifolds have three mounting points (unlike GM small block V-8 manifolds that have four). Chrysler also uses studs on the forward and aft-most manifold mounting points and three-inch long bolts on the four others. That makes sense because you can remove the bolts and then the nuts on the two studs and then pull the manifold off, sliding it on the studs.
One tug and the manifold came loose and we slid it out and off. From its outward appearance, the manifold didn't look bad. In fact it looked very good. We shined a light down into the ports and there was absolutely no rust. In fact, except for some carbon, it looked almost new.
We have no idea when these manifolds were last changed but from the look of two mismatched washers on the mounting bolts, these manifolds weren't original. Our engines are cooled in such a way that only a 50-50 percent mixture of antifreeze and water ever passes through the manifolds. Seawater is used to cool the heat exchangers and the exhaust elbows. That means that they should last a long time.
If the other manifold looks this good (and we bet it will), we'll save about $630 by reusing them.
The match between the manifold and the exhaust elbow is made through an adapter. It uses a block-off gasket to keep seawater out of the manifold.
We've brought this adapter home and will clean it thoroughly and re-use it.
Ugh! on Sunday
On Sunday, it was 45 degrees, plenty warm enough to get that other riser and manifold off. Having done the inboard manifold and riser on the inboard side just yesterday, the outboard manifold went pretty quickly until we ran into a major snag.
After disconnecting the water hoses, we easily removed the riser. With that gone, we tested the studs on the ends of the exhaust manifold to make sure that the studs didn't unscrew when we removed the nuts. They didn't, so we took out the other four manifold bolts. Getting a wrench in there so close to the water tank took a little stretching but they did come out. You can see how close the water tank is in this picture.
Next, we slid the manifold out away from the cylinder head but before it was free, it came in contact with the fiberglass fresh water tank. We tried moving the tank, but it's up against the hull so it isn't going anywhere.
We didn't notice this until we looked at these pictures while writing this blog post, but that manifold appears to be cracked. We can't wait to look at this in more detail when be get the damn thing out but whatever we find, that manifold is going to the Dumpster.
Here's what it looked like when we left on Sunday afternoon... one manifold hanging from two 3/8" studs. Looks like we'll have to cut them off.
We would liked to have been able to get that manifold off so we can begin removing the intake manifold but looks like we'll have to stop and deal with this first. But, it's a boat, so nothing goes exactly as planned.
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