The dust is starting to settle on 8/21 poker run problem

[Northern Baja]

What fun! Not?

After the boat quit us in the middle of the Liquid Jungle I brought it home for a little Heart to Heart. What happened? I had been experiencing lazy performance and some overheating on the ol' 350 power Islander. I took it to the marina for repair, and it came back just in time for the run with a clean bill of health. Unfortunately we found that if we found no improvement when we put the boat in the water. [smilie=101.gif] So we had decided to "baby it" through the run(yeah that was going to work), so we could participate. Making the run was great, we're glad we made it. The boat died in the process, the smoke then silence. No power to anything. The temp showed 175 when it quit.

On inspection I found the smoke was a combination of a exhaust boot(between the elbow and the thru prop y pipe) and the harness wiring that had sagged and was touching the elbow (Which had blown the fusible link). Everything on the other side looked good.

I concluded that the problem was water flow so I tore into the sea pump first and found it to be in poor shape the some impeller flaps broken off and lodged in the pump outlet. So I rebuilt it. The exhaust hoses needed to be replaced and I theorized that it was possibly clogged on some smaller pieces of pump impeller that I hadn't been able to account for. So we (son Ryan is old and interested enough to be a huge help) ripped the exhaust part to see what we could see. With it all part we really didn't learn much new.

I hit up Mark Schoenmann (Schoemann boat works) up for parts and he comes through the next day with everything. [smilie=appl]

To complicate the repair, Ryan was dying to install a quick-n-quit II setup I had sitting on the shelf(if it's not broke don't fix it during boating season right?). He had a good point, as we already had it apart, so decided to jump into installing a different exhaust at the same time. So after an every evening thrash, we got the boat back together for the weekend. We had already invited some neighbors down for the weekend, so no pressure here.

Ryan and I tossed it in the water Saturday afternoon( I had to work sat AM) at the dock it sounded good and we could see flow out of both mufflers, so this was good. But the temperature gauge still wanted to move right up to 175 by the first mile marker above Wabasha.
The exhaust note was great not to loud, sounded pretty decent. [smilie=071.gif]
I decided to pull the thermostat to see what that did to us. that certainly kept the temp at to nothing. [smilie=071.gif]

On Sunday we played all day without issue. Performance still isn't perfect but better. The boat could pull 50+ with 8 aboard with full compliment of coolers and such. Ryan was claiming 60+ with all the lardasses and their coolers out. [smilie=dancing.gif]

One thing I notice right a way was a touch of white smoke/steam out of the right side (the hot side prior) exhaust. Maybe a head leaking (crack or gasket) a bit. I'm figuring this isn't new or real bad, we just didn't have the thru hull exhaust to see it before. So hopefully we can keep that as a Winter project. [smilie=106.gif] The marina's compression test showed everything in range. I wish I had seen the plugs wehn they were pulled.

I'm looking forward to something less than a marathon week this week as we didn't bring the boat back to work on.

[Saleen367]

Ryan was claiming 60+ with all the lardasses and their coolers out. [smilie=dancing.gif]


Ashlee will love this! :shock: [smilie=071.gif] [smilie=071.gif]


Glad to see things are looking up.

If the marina did a comp test and it showed OK, then a head gasket is not to blame. They will definately show up during a comp check, even a slight leak.

[cabin fever]

Mine shows a little smoke now and then depedning on Water, and air temp. and I just replaced my heads, head gaskets, and intake. Still does the exact same thing. Runs like a raped ape though, so I'm happy. How hard was it to install the Quick n Quiet?

[Northern Baja]

The quick and quiet setup was bad to install. First I got the setup as a new take-off from a bigblock OEM installation. I bought the all polished stainless setup (y pipes, mufflers, coupling hoses, and clamps for $200 on ebay. The price was right but install instructions were lacking.

With the repair we already had the risers and stock elbows off so:

1. Sprayed the inside of the coupling with WD40 for easy test fitting and put the risers, y-pipes and couplings together and concluded the y-pipes had to be shortened on the riser end by 3/4 of an inch.
2. Bought a 10" cutoff saw blade and put it on my wood miter saw to do the cuts
3. Refited the y-pipes and couplings. extended the coupling to the muffler cupplings out to the transom, positioned the pipes where we wanted them, and traced around the coupling the a grease pencil on the transom.
4. After marking the center of the circles I drilled small pilot holes through the transom.
5. At this point I got out my straight edges and tape measures and measured the location of the holes from the out side. Some quick adjustments from the outside and one new pilot hole drilled, yielding pilot holes that were exactly the same from the outdrive, acceptable clearance from everthing inside and out.
6. I used used a hole saw from the outside to cut holes an 1/8" larger than the exhaust. At 1.5" thick drilling these about killed my drill!
7. We then drilled the holes and bolted the mufflers on the transon with a little sealer, and installed the rear couplings.
8. Then installed the y-pipe and risers.

The results were positive. No leaks, Not to loud, not problems, well above the water ine at rest. From a performance point I'm not positive we gained anything. if we did it was in the 1-2 MPH range. To many variables for me to tell.

With a top end around 60, we aren't happy with the performance of the boat. So I considered this addition to be simple prep for a freshen up of the motor this Winter with the addition of a supercharger being considered. Or maybe just keep the boat clean and get it into decent shape so that we can quickly sell it if we find a more interesting ride (a 23' Howard open bow has catch my eye).

[wildchild212]

Glad to hear that things are looking up. 60 is not to bad for your set up. The bad things about poker runs is they make you want to spend money so that the list of boats that get by you gets smaller the next year.

[Caincando1]

Got Blower. [smilie=071.gif]

Glad to hear things worked out for you Northern. By the way the gauges dropped right in. I'll be by the middle to late this month to drop you off a present.