hello everybody,
I recently bought an older 81 charger open bow with the hopes of restoring it. The person that had it did not know much about it because they received it in trade for some work. I only gave him $400 bucks for it. It was stored outside and has a good floor carpet and hull. The seats are shot and need recovered. Not a big deal to me to redo the seats. It has a merc 3.0 inboard with an alpha 1 outdrive.
I brought it home and started to go through it and winterize it. There wasnt any water in it, and the lower unit was drained. I installed lower unit oil and changed the engine oil. I removed the line to the fuel tank to put in a gas can for starting because I dont want to trust whatever may be left in the gas tank.
I started it up just fine. It idles good, and will throttle up a bit fine. after about 20 mins I shut it down and checked the oil and found it milky. There is no rust on the block and it did not leak or show any signs of an exterior crack. This is a big disapointment. I was asured that the engine was good. I want to try an fix it myself because I cant afford to replace the engine, especialy on an older boat like this that needs other work still.
I went ahead and finished winterizing it to try and preserve it for now. I did fill it with antifreeze so I cant realy do anything with it till spring, but I am trying to figure out what to do then. I have read some posting and researched a bit but wonder if anyone else can add some advise or insite to my repair plans?
If I have researched correctly there can be several causes.
1. cracked internal block, or cracked cooling jacket.
2. cracked head
3. blown head gasket
4. intake ?
I plan to drain anitfreeze and run a compression test to check for a week cylinder. After this I plan to perform a cooling system presure test and remove the plugs one at a time if leaking to help identify wich cylinder is the problem. Then I will work to remove the head to replace the head gasket and inspect the head.
When I check the intake what should I be looking for, besides water leakage?
is there anything else I should be doing or look into??
I recently bought an older 81 charger open bow with the hopes of restoring it. The person that had it did not know much about it because they received it in trade for some work. I only gave him $400 bucks for it. It was stored outside and has a good floor carpet and hull. The seats are shot and need recovered. Not a big deal to me to redo the seats. It has a merc 3.0 inboard with an alpha 1 outdrive.
I brought it home and started to go through it and winterize it. There wasnt any water in it, and the lower unit was drained. I installed lower unit oil and changed the engine oil. I removed the line to the fuel tank to put in a gas can for starting because I dont want to trust whatever may be left in the gas tank.
I started it up just fine. It idles good, and will throttle up a bit fine. after about 20 mins I shut it down and checked the oil and found it milky. There is no rust on the block and it did not leak or show any signs of an exterior crack. This is a big disapointment. I was asured that the engine was good. I want to try an fix it myself because I cant afford to replace the engine, especialy on an older boat like this that needs other work still.
I went ahead and finished winterizing it to try and preserve it for now. I did fill it with antifreeze so I cant realy do anything with it till spring, but I am trying to figure out what to do then. I have read some posting and researched a bit but wonder if anyone else can add some advise or insite to my repair plans?
If I have researched correctly there can be several causes.
1. cracked internal block, or cracked cooling jacket.
2. cracked head
3. blown head gasket
4. intake ?
I plan to drain anitfreeze and run a compression test to check for a week cylinder. After this I plan to perform a cooling system presure test and remove the plugs one at a time if leaking to help identify wich cylinder is the problem. Then I will work to remove the head to replace the head gasket and inspect the head.
When I check the intake what should I be looking for, besides water leakage?
is there anything else I should be doing or look into??