Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

I've surfed here for a while and now it's my turn.

I own a 1996 Four Winns 170 Horizon with 4.3L Volvo-Penta 190hp since new.
Great family boat, I've always done the maint/winterizing, etc.
Live in SE Michigan.

Well, Fall 2007 I was busy with my home basement project, it was mid/late October, and I chanced 1 more weekend of not winterizing the boat and instead doing other stuff.

Bad move.

We had early snow storm, the block partially froze. Of course I was not aware this, then next weekend (Halloween) I did the usual winterizing/etc.

Come Spring 2008 upon start up in driveway (with hose attached) I got the dreaded "Hey, no H20 is coming out of the outdrive" after 15 seconds, and a few seconds later H20 came out the PVC lines to the carb. Of course I shut down immediately and knew in my heart worst case scenario, ice damage/crack during that early fall snowstorm. Major re-build needed.

Pulled the intake, yes it was cracked on the bottom and engine full of H20.
I drained it and explored my options.





(more details to come with picts and Q's for you experts, work lunch hour is over)

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

mtbdudex said:

Major re-build needed.

Click to expand...

If you feel horseshoes in your pants, you might not need any rebuilding.(not that a cracked engine is rebuildable anyways)
Might just need an intake manifold and an oil change.

I was hoping for a pic of the block along the gallery area behind where the pushrods go - any cracks there? I zoomed in on your second pic best I could and it looks good .... but it's not high res.

Then inspect the exhaust manifolds. They usually crack first.
_____________________________________________________________

mtbdudex said:

I got the dreaded "Hey, no H20 is coming out of the outdrive" after 15 seconds,

Click to expand...

I guess that hole in the intake is so big, it was the path of least resistance and was taking all of the cooling flow.... but I don't fully understand the connection to no water flow:

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

I took the bad manifold to work, cut it up, and did a cold pressure test:

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

Everything appeared "fine".

Then, upon detail inspection I think there are 2 cracks in the block as shown:






During the cold testing I never has H20 squirt/trickle from these,but under hot/pressure they might give?

That's where she has sat all fall/winter/so far, drained all H20 and put new oil everywhere to keep rustout.

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

Howard Sterndrive said:

If you feel horseshoes in your pants, you might not need any rebuilding.(not that a cracked engine is rebuildable anyways)
Might just need an intake manifold and an oil change.

I was hoping for a pic of the block along the gallery area behind where the pushrods go - any cracks there? I zoomed in on your second pic best I could and it looks good .... but it's not high res.

Then inspect the exhaust manifolds. They usually crack first.
_____________________________________________________________


I guess that hole in the intake is so big, it was the path of least resistance and was taking all of the cooling flow.... but I don't fully understand the connection to no water flow:

Click to expand...

No crack exhaust manifold whatsoever.

I think the intake manifold bottom plenum crack was so large all water went into the crankcase and eventually filled out via the emission hoses.

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

yeah those cracks in behind the pushrods there are all we needed to see- you need an engine.

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

Sad thing is very real runtime little hours on this engine, 82 hours for 11 years of ownership. That is the real #.

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

Well, Fall 2007 I was busy with my home basement project, it was mid/late October, and I chanced 1 more weekend of not winterizing the boat and instead doing other stuff.

Click to expand...

How did Clint Eastwood put it, "Do you feel lucky"? You Weren't!

Guess the real cost of that basement project is now a few thousand more that it was originally.

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

Trust me, I'm very hard on myself because of this.

-"lost money" my family could use elsewhere, instead of fixing my mistake
-"lost fun" because not using the boat all last season

I see it every day as a I drive, fortunately the company I work for is giving a limited success sharing payout, so this enabled me to consider spending some $k's to fix it.

This lesson is learned and booked!

btw, my avatar is that boat in 2007 summer, we have 3 young kids.

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

Well;
I ended up getting a re-man engine from a SE Michigan place, http://www.michiganmotorz.com.

Turns out one of the co-owners, Phil, went to High School with a guys son I work with. Small world, found that out when we chatted about where I work/etc. I also paid them to install the engine and take the old one. Good price, I won't post exactly here, let's say very competitive.

Just in time for the 7/4 weekend!

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

and for closure and lessons learned, guess who's winterizing their boat this weekend while not so cold here in SE Michigan.



I'll be teaching my kids the lesson of "taking care of your stuff", they'll pitch in and help vacuum/clean while I take care of the engine/outdrive stuff.

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

In case someone searches on "4.3L rebuild" I want them to also have this info:

Be very careful on the re-man block you get, look in this recent thread http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=563586&p=3876637#post3876637

As detailed in this thread, in 2009 I paid a local engine shop to put a new short block in, and they got a "M" block, but used the old engine dress hardware.
Everything seemed fine till I replaced the starter 4 weeks ago and upon re-assembly thought I stripped the bolts, but I did not.
More details here
1996 Four Winns Volvo-Penta 4.3 GL PNCS Starter replaced, but stripped back bolt

Reason for "bumping" this thread is to alert others who re-dress 4.3L blocks to be aware the SAE to Metric swap of 1999.
http://www.pera.org/articles/eb60416.htm

In 1999 the 4.3L Chevrolet engine block went metric on the motor mount, transmission mount and starter bolt. Additionally the block casting number had an "M" suffix added. That makes the identification easy and clean.

Click to expand...

>>Be very careful about the hardware you use on your re-man block.

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

Good stuff to know Mike.

Re: Mike R 4.3L Volvo-Penta rebuild thread

Maclin said:

Good stuff to know Mike.

Click to expand...

What I'd like to know is at GM who the heck was the Chief Engine Engineer for the 4.3L engine who approved the decision of his/her staff to keep SAE threads on just a few specific fasteners when they went Metric?

Where is the logic in that?

Can anybody count all the $$'s it's cause the whole car/boat/etc community?

Definitely a hall of shame decision!