So, finally registered after months of lurking around the archives, posts an whatnot. Awesome site, full of great people n good advice! On to my issue...I recently acquired a 1990 Skideck with the omc cobra n 4.3 gm, she had been froze...after negotiating a price, i drove away with a great hull an maybe a working motor for free, trailer n all!! Lots of reading, troubleshooting, metal stitching a cracked block, both sides, and same to a riser on the port, she fired right up n ran like a champ! Large audience on the lake an no modesty from me. I quickly learned to sew, read some posts about upholstery, learned some awesome tricks I will share when I learn how to up pics, and a short time later (three months) had completely restored my boat, just shy of new plexi glass for the windows. Brought the boat to my local freshwater lake, tossed her in the water after rehooking my shift interrupt,( was unhooked before n findly found out what it was for) only to find the interrupt was bad. Unhooked an the boat ran decent again. Impeller was bad, but being new to power horses under water, thought she would be fine. I actually had an extra impellar with me, foreseeing changing it soon. I didn't get to it quick enough. Engine got hot and couldn't get water. Nursed her back to the dock after five or ten minutes, changed the impellar, tried to start her up. Chunk, grind, whirrr. Damn. Kept trying.......and trying.......wouldn't turn over at all after a while, and when it did go one revolution, it just didnt sound good. Found a good ole boy at the dock who taught me about hydrolock. Took out the plugs, n sure enough,water spit out of my two center cylinders. Lubed her up to prevent flash rust , let her dry overnight, popped the plugs back in n tried again. Sad sad day that was two days ago, she wouldn't even spin. I fear i forced her too far with water in the cylinders( oil level is fine by the way) n broke a connecting rod or bent something real good. Am I on the right track here? I'm leanin towards buying a block, stripping all my useful parts and jsut dropping in a rebuilt 4.3, maybe save myself alot of time n trial n error troubleshooting damage i might have done. So, to recap, any advice out there? Am I jumping the gun an maybe my metal stitched engine is still good? Could my outdrive be toast too? If nothing else, let my slackiness be a lesson to all the non impeller changers. The impellar LOOKED good, but had "taken a set". Fifteen bucks and some time could have saved me alot of headache!
