1982 OMC water jacket corroded through?

[Gil1982]

I have a 1982 OMC 2.5L sterndrive model # 252FTHRCNC, serial # J740693 that the water jacket appears to have corroded through. It started with just a little weeping of water then kept getting worse. I cleaned it up a little and this is what its looks like. It is down in the spark plug recess. The remaining metal feels pretty good as opposed to soft rust. A picture is attached. Is there any fix to this or is it just dead? Thanks much.

 

[Bondo]

Re: 1982 OMC water jacket corroded through?

I have a 1982 OMC 2.5L sterndrive model # 252FTHRCNC, serial # J740693 that the water jacket appears to have corroded through. It started with just a little weeping of water then kept getting worse. I cleaned it up a little and this is what its looks like. It is down in the spark plug recess. The remaining metal feels pretty good as opposed to soft rust. A picture is attached. Is there any fix to this or is it just dead? Thanks much.View attachment 208347

Ayuh,.... Welcome Aboard,... You'll need to replace the Head,...

 

[Skipperlll]

Re: 1982 OMC water jacket corroded through?

Ayuh,.... Welcome Aboard,... You'll need to replace the Head,...

your weep hole can be fixed with a Keencert. Its like a helical but bettrer. Take the head to a shop and have them instaul one.

Skipperlll

 

[Gil1982]

Re: 1982 OMC water jacket corroded through?

Thanks Skipperlll, that sounds like a great option. I'll call a few shops and see what they can do. Thanks, Gil

 

[Gil1982]

Re: 1982 OMC water jacket corroded through?

Thanks Skipperlll, that sounds like a great option. I'll call a few shops and see what they can do. Thanks, Gil

Being a cheapskate, thought I?d try repairing this leak before spending a bunch of money on it. Found a shop in our area that does Keenserts and it was fairly inexpensive but they needed to have the head off, couldn?t do it in place. Wasn?t ready to go to all that work yet.

So, I cut a short piece of 3/4? copper pipe (about 3/8? long) to use as a stiffening ring. It fit nicely in the recess and the spark plug fit inside of it. Cleaned up the head recess area with a dremel tool and ?glued? in the copper pipe with JB Weld. (Lots of details in between here but you get the idea.) The copper pipe stiffening ring went from the plug gasket surface up to the plug hex so I could still get the plug wrench in there.

Had it out on the lake twice since then for a couple of hard running afternoons and it works great. No leaks and only cost a few bucks.

Thanks for all the forum help, just wanted to let you know how it turned out.

 

[bigdirty]

Re: 1982 OMC water jacket corroded through?

hey man, good job making it work...but ah.. u say u used a dremel tool.. with the head still on the engine? There are no doubt a few small bits of metal now floating around in the motor.. if you are lucky it will just spit them out through the exhaust, eventually.. but I'd keep an ear out for strange/bad sounds coming from the motor..

 

[Gil1982]

Re: 1982 OMC water jacket corroded through?

hey man, good job making it work...but ah.. u say u used a dremel tool.. with the head still on the engine? There are no doubt a few small bits of metal now floating around in the motor.. if you are lucky it will just spit them out through the exhaust, eventually.. but I'd keep an ear out for strange/bad sounds coming from the motor..

That was one of the details I left out to shorten the story. I took an old plug and ground it down to just maybe 1/8" above the gasket surface, knocked the porcelain and center conductor out and fill up that space with some JB weld. There was just enough left to grab on to with a needle nose pliers to screw it in and out. That gave me something that plugged the hole off effectively and was small enough to let me grind and clean up close to everything. I could easily vac or air blow any dust and grindings that stayed in the hole. I will keep an ear out for noises though. So far, so good.