Thanks all for the kind words and support. Sorry its been awhile, went back into the hospital again....
Finally got out and added a couple things to the boat. With the front fishing area, Admiral agreed she needed some rod holds up there. So added one on each side for her. As usual SS bolts with 5200 bedding
Earlier I had mentioned I was adding flood lights for night fishing. The first ones that I chose are 18 Watt LED. They worked "Ok", but wasn't overly happy with them. The mounts are rubber stoppers that I drilled a hole to except a bolt so it would be elevated off the gunnel a little bit.
When one of the cheap'o's went out, I added a little extra wattage for the Bow lights. These are 60 Watts. Haven't been able to try these out on the water yet, but they are good at home in the driveway
So back on the engine now as that is what has been giving me the problems right now. Originally I thought it was a fuel pump or fuel related. Replaced the fuel pump and went through all the fuel lines and re clamped them. Below is a pinch I found for the bottom cylinder. So the bottom was running lean at high RPMs. Saving grace is I haven't been able to get above 2500 RPM the last two times while out on the water so no damage there.
After the last time out, realized it wasn't fuel related.... So it was back to the drawing board and researching/reading. Did the normal (not in this order, but you get the idea), checked the power pack, checked the coils, verified spark on all cylinders, rebuilt the carburetors, verified all the linkage, checked the fuel pump, verified all the fuel lines, finally think I narrowed down the issue to a bad head gasket. Found some water on the spark plug in the Number 1 Cylinder. Also the cylinder is really clean. No Carbon build up at all. Pulling the head gasket off, you can see the water intrusion on the bolts from the top cylinder. I used a wire wheel and die to clean up the bolts.
Picture of the head removed. Used a Dremel with brass wire wheel to clean up the edges. You can still see the head gasket installed in the below picture. Forgot to get a good picture, but you can kind of see the top cylinder was clean because of all the water being pumped in. No carbon build up.
I believe the water intrusion was coming in at the area highlighted. You can kind of see it in the picture at the bottom of Cylinder 1. The discoloration is corrosion on the metal seal
After installing a new head gasket, torqued all bolts back to 20 ft lbs. Started with finger tight, 10 ft lbs, then 15 ft lbs, and finally 20 ft lbs per the manual. Will go back before next outing and go once around again.
Started the engine up and she ran much better then I remember, so think I finally got the issue resolved. Engine sounds great on the muffs, but she did before as well. Only way to confirm fix is getting her in the water under load. Here is crossing my fingers the engine works....
Until next time
SHSU
eace:
