LeeHimself
Recruit
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2011
- Messages
- 1
I own a 1997 Glastron 175SE. It has a Volvo Penta 3.0L GS motor. I bought this boat last year as a none runner, and expected the worst. Number 4 cylinder had water in it. The water had gotten into the oil. So through the winter of 09 I performed a strip down. I found no issues. The head gasket was good, the head was good....Interesting. I rebuilt the engine and installed, but I noticed when I came to connect to the riser, there was a part missing according to the manual....The "Flapper". I aked on a couple of forums as to the purpose of this device as I was new to boating. One replyer said "it is to prevent water coming back up the riser and into the engine" I had an "a-ha" moment and concluded that because the flapper was missing, the previous owner must have put the boat in the water at an aggresive angle pushing water up the riser and allowing it to seep into No4 through an open exhast valve. The question came: What happened to the flapper? The answer came when I noticed molten plastic partially obscuring the exhaust port on the underside of the outdrive....The remains of the flapper. The next question was: Why did it melt and fall down the riser. This was answered when I connected the seawater pipe to the pump. It would not fit quite right. I looked down the pipe and there was an object in it. It was a conical insert that looked like a flow reducer. This is not supposed to be there, and may well have been responisble for the lack of cooling water flowing through the engine causing the flapper to melt as a result of the hot exhaust gases. Since the rebuild, this engine has performed sweetly, but goes to show, water in the engine is not always a bad gasket or a cracked engine.
