sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

Help please this is / was a very nice boat sank in fresh water lake in winter in very cold climate not pickled and left for about four months oh joy first shot nitro lube in all cylinders let sit for about one hour put strap wrench on h balancer and she broke free change oil and filters as well plugs fresh gas, starboard engine was hard starting but got running then it was getting hot so shut down checked oil level getting high coolant low oops not good pulled plugs water poring out then added water to heat exchanger and it came out #6 plug hole, removed exhaust man.off that side pressure tested it no leak now what? Could water have gotten in to the intake froze and cracked intake or head. Next the port engine first fuel pump not going no spark remove ecm notice corrosion on pin and shake it oops water inside and then noticed the idle sensor pot getting hot.anyway changed over fuel relay and ig. Relay as well as ecm from stbd. To port now the short notes sporadic spark, fuel pump, runs and quits, seams like bad connection at relays or ecm or both or something else maybe crank sensor or bad harness i know the coil wire was bad. When it ran for about five min. It was smooth but would not run under 1500 start to die, maybe idle pot? Running out of ideas and ecm $$$ close but should i change cap and rotor the other problem is boat not built to work on surprise surprise i hope someone can help this is my first time on here.

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

Sorry I don't have exact answers for you, but water can create all kinds of problems, and many of them you may not see or be able to see for while.

I also have to ask how badly was it sunk? Were the engines submerged totally? was it just the transom area or was the whole thing under, and if so how far?

May as well get some more info out so some of the more experienced members will have it to try and help you etc.

What year is the boat/engines

Raw water or closed cooling?

What drives?

Do you think or have evidence that water was able to get into the engine (before you got it running)?

Was it immediately removed from the water after being sunk, or was it left there for 4 months?

If removed were the cylinders lubed and the oil purged of any water?

From your post I am guessing (I know that its not good to guess, but please correct etc) it sunk when the lake was frozen, whatever water was in the engine (both what is supposed to be there and any new stuff) stayed while it sat sunk in the frozen water.

If it was removed, and then just sat on land for the next four months without attention it does change some of the possibilities, but this also depends on how deep it was sunk.

Depending on the age there are different electronics that could also have been effected.

It sounds like you have FWC engines, and losing and then finding coolant in the cylinder is a give away, but if it is FWC there is normally some kind of antifreeze in the system and it should not have caused the water passages in the block or heads crack from freezing.

Again the level that it sunk would help to find if it could have ingested water through the exhaust and than it could have froze etc.

Caps and rotors are cheap so why not eliminate them now.

Also if your losing coolant it most likely is not the exhaust unless you have FWC manifolds.

Hope that helps

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

You'll find that using accepted punctuation (capitalization, periods, paragraphs, etc) will make your posts much more readable and will get you many more responses to your questions.

I wasn't about to try to fight my way through that garbled mess!

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

Yes, use punctuation! If your engines were sitting under water for 4 months - I'm not sure why you're trying to run them instead of rebuild them...

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

Your posting is very hard to read and understand, but I'll try to do my best. If your boat sank completely so that your engines were underwater, there is a strong possibility that the blocks and/or heads and/or manifolds have cracked. Much of your electricals and electronics are beyond use, as well. What you are trying to do is comparable to salvaging a car which was in a flood. You need to start from scratch. In all likelihood, you're going to find that you need to replace everything. Is the boat worth all that time, effort, and money? What's the condition of the rest of the boat? I can't tell because you don't give information about the boat itself. My guess is the cost and skill of a restoration of this boat is beyond your abilities. It's time to walk away from it. Hy

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

At the very least you will need to pull the heads and inspect block and heads for cracks. Looks like you have a crack somewhere. I would remove the engines and inspect crank and bearings, cylinders, etc. You may get by with re-ring and replace cracked heads, if everything is in spec but not likely. This is a mess and I wish you the best. Hopefully you have someone to help as this can get expensive. All electrical connections should be cleaned. You could see electrical corrosion issues for years. One thing to consider is this is a truck engine. Since you have freshwater, antifreeze, cooling you can get by with a truck block. You can get these new for around $2000 but you should be able to find a used one a lot cheaper. Maybe a private party on Craigslist that you can see run. They were used in S-10s, full size Chevy truck, Astro vans, etc. and there should be hundreds out there. Car engines generally have a much easier life than a boat so you should be able to get some good life from a used one. This is only to save money as there is some risk, you could get a bad engine. I would look locally but you could try car-parts.com also. There is a lot of work involved or a lot of cost.

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

littlebookworm said:

Your posting is very hard to read and understand, but I'll try to do my best. If your boat sank completely so that your engines were underwater, there is a strong possibility that the blocks and/or heads and/or manifolds have cracked. Much of your electricals and electronics are beyond use, as well. What you are trying to do is comparable to salvaging a car which was in a flood. You need to start from scratch. In all likelihood, you're going to find that you need to replace everything. Is the boat worth all that time, effort, and money? What's the condition of the rest of the boat? I can't tell because you don't give information about the boat itself. My guess is the cost and skill of a restoration of this boat is beyond your abilities. It's time to walk away from it. Hy

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+1 on this.^^^^^

If you had insurance on this, the boat would most likely be totaled. You want to spend time messing with engines and electrics that were submerged then not touched for 4 months? Spending any time, money, or effort with what you have sounds like a fools errand. If you somehow do by chance get both engines running, I wouldn't trust them to do anything more than putter around a harbor with lot's of other boaters present, sea tow, the USCG, a VHF radio, cell phone, flairs, and a life raft.

Heres my 2 ?; Either get rid of the boat, or.... check the hull to be sure it's not rotten, if it checks out, do a complete re-power, new electrics/wiring.

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

Start with the basics. Pull the plugs in running engine and check compression. Make sure there is no leaking into cylinders. If all is good keep an eye on the oil and coolant levels. Clean all the electrical connections and go from there. Clean the cap and rotor and inspect for any carbon tracks or cracks, etc. Sounds like you have a newer engine with fuel injection so you may need to get a scan tool connected to help. Just replacing parts will get expensive. All electronics could be affected by flooding. I have had a few flood cars, lots of repairs from power window motors to electrical connections, all corroded.

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

Hi Guys:

I too can't read the original post because of the poor spelling and punctuation, however:

I rebuilt 2 submerged engines a couple of years ago but the boat did not sink but filled up with rain water on the hard. In order to drain the water I had to drill holes through the bottom of the boat. Luckily neither engine was submerged above the oil dipstick hole so there was no water inside. Naturally the electrics were shot but they were both rebuilt to spec condition with little problem. My advice is, if the water is above the dipstick then walk away as the only thing left is the block and you could buy replacements for much less than the work involved in repairing sunk and frozen engines.

kilowatts

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

45Auto said:

You'll find that using accepted punctuation (capitalization, periods, paragraphs, etc) will make your posts much more readable and will get you many more responses to your questions.

I wasn't about to try to fight my way through that garbled mess!

Click to expand...

Thanks for coments sorry I'm not good at this stuff but will improve new game for me

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

Thank you everyone I should not go online when burnt out and am not very good at it either funny when I was keying in my information it seemed to make sence to me I'll try to be clearer next time.

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

2lman said:

Thank you everyone I should not go online when burnt out and am not very good at it either funny when I was keying in my information it seemed to make sence to me I'll try to be clearer next time.

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So what did you find besides needing to be clearer?

Re: sunk Formula 27 4.3 mpi mercruisers

Hi LENNY darn caps key haha anyway. I did reply but when I sent it they say I was not log in. So here goes again, change over relays and ecm from running engine and she ran and very smooth but not idle. I have not changed cap and rotor that will be next as well as drying out more elec. and change over CPS.

Thank you for the interest I will update