Well, as it turns out, NOT quite ready to go. Had to turn Chris/HippyChic around this past Sunday morning as he was enroute to my house, because I foolishly forgot to properly bleed off the excessive house garden hose pressure prior to warming her up on the blocks. I do this warm-up thing at the house so that I don't have to tie up the boat ramp warming her up whilst floating. The house water pressure cracked the RW pickup sight glass, causing a major leak in the bilge. Not the first time this has happened, and both times it was my fault. Hey, I'm not perfect, O.K.?
So no Sunday morning launch. Rather, a trip to Freeport Marine instead. I don't know the name of the owner, owner's son actually - the tall, thin fella that is always up on the elevated platform behind the counter. But he did me a solid, for sure. He was out of the Groco sight glasses in my size (of course! that's the way my luck runs), but after just a bit of Lepre-prodding he very kindly opened a complete RW pickup assembly and took the sight glass out of it for me. This is why I try to throw all my business his way. Back to the boat - took only an hour to install it. Well, 10 minutes for the first 5 bolts/nuts and 50 minutes to catch the bottom one, with my arm and hand contorted in a manner that God never intended. All good now.
Started her up and found yet another issue. The starboard riser was ice cold, while the port riser was very hot to the touch. Damn. Went down the ladder to look at what was coming out of the dual exhausts, and sure enough, the starboard side was flowing a ton of water, with very little coming out of the port exhaust. Gotta be a rust clogged riser. Double damn.
For you outboard guys, let me explain what this means. Gas inboards like my PCM/Ford 5.8L use raw (salt) water coming out of the heat exchanger to cool the cast iron exhaust manifold/riser assemblies. This water is then ejected from the risers into the exhaust pipes, and exits the rear of the boat. The water serves to keep the mani/riser cool, and equally important, provides cooling to the exhaust hoses that carry the hot exhaust gases to the stern. Without that water, the hoses would overheat and fail - a very bad thing as they are below the waterline. You can guess the catastrophic result that would follow.
Normal procedure is to change out the risers every 3 seasons, and the entire manifold/riser combos at 6 seasons. This is universally considered normal maintenance for a gas engine's cast iron manifold/riser setup living in a saltwater environment. But I am at only 5 seasons, and so it should not have been exhibiting this problem. Standard procedure is to replace BOTH sides, manifolds and risers - currently the price of this setup is in the $850-$1K range, depending if you want OEM Pleasurecraft Marine parts or aftermarket. Either way, another unbudgeted expense added to this season's costs.
Well, the cost is irrelevant, as no way I can launch with this issue. Time to get to the wrench-turning. No biggie to pull a riser - 4 bolts, two hose clamps to the exhaust hose and off it comes. Hmmm, didn't see much in the way of rust build-up - looked pretty good actually. Did a flow-test and it showed no restriction. This is actually a very bad thing, because it means that the water restriction is up-stream of the riser, meaning in the manifold. Triple damn.
This job just got exponentially more problematic - and expensive. Looked like the manifolds didn't make it to the full 6 seasons, rust-clogging at only five. I've done this complete cast iron exhaust change-out many times in the 28 seasons of owning this boat, so I knew what I was in for.
Because my decks are above the level of the manifold's securing bolts, the removal of those bolts has me laying on the front of the motor, and reaching under the manifold to unbolt (and reinstall - which is far worse) the 8 securing bolts by feel. At 68 seasons old I'm not really as flexible as I used to be, not to mention you need an arm the length of an orangutan's to get at the two rear-most bolts under there. Care to take the over or the under as to how many bolts I dropped into the bilge? Hint: take the over.
So I finally removed all the bolts from the port side, pulled the manifold up and out of the engine bay, and lookie here, the bronze right angle water-feed at its rear was 75% clogged - with some kind of weird built-up rust. Look at this nonsense:
Better pic, with the flash on:
This is a new one on me. There is no way that cruddy rust came from upstream, as there is no cast iron upstream of it. It had to have "migrated" backwards out of the manifold, and somehow welded itself to the bronze hose nipple.
Some kind of weird science going on here, which I have never seen, or even heard of. Maybe it's because I no longer use the boat as much as I used to - sitting idle at the slip for long periods is usually the worst thing for a boat. But this issue? Never heard of it - and I've been around inboards in general, and Shamrocks in particular since forever. Heck, I even co-founded the quite popular Shamrock Boat Owner's Club site on the interwebs, and never have I heard or read of anyone mentioning this sort of thing. I was told years ago that maybe I should rename my boat the Black Cloud, as things seem to happen to me that no one else has ever experienced.
Anyway, cleaned out that clog, rodded out the manifold and riser's water passages as a precaution, and got her back together yesterday - total cost? $20 for a Ford exhaust manifold set, and a right arm's skin that looks like a length of pepperoni. I genuinely do not like this particular job - one of my least favorites. But, could have been much, much worst.
She's flowing real good out of both sides now. And both risers are nice and cool - just the way PCM, and God intended. Turn up your sound:
And here's the engine running - not bad for a 2004, which my mentor and I installed. Now with 1700 hours and the original, never-touched Holly carb still feeding it. Again, turn up your sound:
That deep baritone exhaust rumble is one of the main reasons to own a V-8 inboard. Especially one without mufflers, like mine. Does an old hotrodder's heart good to hear it - like music to my ears.
So anyway, time to call Suzanne at HippyChic once again and set up another splash appointment. And to keep my fingers crossed as well.
