Should the head gasket be replaced?

[TiminIN]

To make a long story short, I ran my boat in the lake for 30 to 45 minutes, mostly low speed (idle zone) without the spring on pressure valve. It died like it ran out of gas, had to tow it back and then realized what had happened. It is a 1982 60hp Johnson, model#J60ELCMN. How much damage could I have done to it? do you think I should replace the head gasket?
Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[R.Johnson]

Re: Should the head gasket be replaced?

Other tham making the engine run cold, You should not have any damage. Why it would stall, and not start, I would need more information.

 

[TiminIN]

Re: Should the head gasket be replaced?

The water out the tell tale was cold but from other posts that I've read about the pressure relief valve was that when it's fully open it may not be cooling everything that it should. If this is not the case then maybe that wasn't my problem and I don't know why it stalled. I can look up other posts that explain why I'm concerned.

 

[TiminIN]

Re: Should the head gasket be replaced?

Dhadley said this: "Without the valve the motor may run too cold at idle. The obvious effect is that it may not idle as strong as it could. A lot depends on where you are (water temp). At planing speeds it's possible, although not likely, the block could not be filling up with water completely."

 

[R.Johnson]

Re: Should the head gasket be replaced?

The engine will certainly idle better at the correct temp. You would not change the water level by leaving out the spring. Stop scaring yourself here.

 

[TiminIN]

Re: Should the head gasket be replaced?

So, are you saying that it's not probable that with the valve open it wouldn't cause it to not idle correctly and maybe I have another problem?

 

[F_R]

Re: Should the head gasket be replaced?

In all probability, you have something else wrong to make it quit and have to be towed. Any engine has to be able to start and run long enough to warm up, even if the air and water is near freezing. What I'm saying is that a cold engine shouldn't quit just because it's cold.

However, are you saying it got hot because the spring was missing? That shouldn't make it get hot, but cold. If it got hot, that's another problem.

 

[TiminIN]

Re: Should the head gasket be replaced?

From all I could tell the engine did remain cool. It was cool coming out of the tell tale. When it died on me it would run if I sped the idle up but once I put it in gear it would die. I was able to travel a little ways by putting it in reverse and cruise slowly. When I would adjust the cable to the throttle to make it more rich, the it wouldn't start. While I was being towed home I did start it but then all of a sudden I noticed that there wasn't anything coming out of the tell tale so I turned it off. When I got to my dock I pulled one of the plugs and it didn't really even smell of fuel. I've recently replaced the water pump because I would have a steady stream and then after about 5 to 10 minutes I'd have a trickle. So I started a thread on this forum and everyone said to change water pump, so I did. But I still had the same result. So I called a local boat mech and asked him what he would do next and he said the themostat. So when I changed that it seem to solved my problem but what I didn't know was that I put the spring on the stat instead of the pressure relief valve. So when I went all that way down the lake and then it died on me I didn't know what happened and thought that maybe it had to do with that spring.

 

[OptsyEagle]

Re: Should the head gasket be replaced?

I am very far from an expert in these things so take what I say with a big grain of salt, but I have fouled plugs before running an engine too cool (thermostat failing open). The symtom of a fouling plugs is not catastrophic failure, but more one cylinder at a time starting to run rough, then failing but the motor running on the other cylinder, etc, until it fails.

My point is that as soon as you fix your cooling problem, I would put in new plugs, gapped properly and see if she don't run like new again. If I am wrong you are only out about a couple bucks per plug.

Good luck to you.