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Chunk of metal found between prop and housing

R

risdog

Member
"After boating Saturday, I not

"After boating Saturday, I noticed a piece of metal in the prop area of the lower unit. I have studied the diagrams for both the vertical driveshaft and the prop shaft. Nothing seems to resemble what this may have when it was flat. Any ideas?
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Piece of twisted metal found between prop and housing
 
"The piece seems to be a VERY

"The piece seems to be a VERY strong metal. It is silver in color, sorry for the poor photo. I tried to straighten the piece out with pliers so that I could see what it used to resemble, no luck, strong metal!"
 
that is part of an old axhaust

that is part of an old axhaust flapper.It came down your y-pipe.
 
"Next stupid questions, is thi

"Next stupid questions, is this necessary for proper function of the engine? What purpose does this piece really serve?"
 
"Keeps your engine from injest

"Keeps your engine from injesting water.
When you slow down and that wake hits the stern
of the boat, it can and will enter the exhast and
send water into the cylinders that have open valves and then hydro lock said cylinders causing
bent rods and or blown haed gaskets."
 
"Ahh ha! Once I removed the pi

"Ahh ha! Once I removed the piece I hooked the hose up to the boat and started it up. Black smoke everywhere, strong gasoline odor. I immediately thought, its not getting fire. I plan to pull the plugs this evening and see what the deal is.

I would think that the least water getting ingested might do is foul the plugs. It is likely that this is the cause of it not running right now? I was going to order the flapper from mercparts but the image looks nothing like mine. I am going to pull that down this evening and double check to make sure that I get the correct one."
 
"Pull your plugs and turn the

"Pull your plugs and turn the motor over for a while to clear the cylinders. If you got water in the cylinders damage is likely to occur!
Air is able to be compressed, Not fluid such as
water and the hydrolic force generated will no dout, bend piston rods, etc.
after you pull plugs and clear, run a compession test and if you find cylinders running lower than
spec. , you may have bent some rods. If you find low compression on a cylinder, put a teaspoon worth of oil in said cyl. and re test compression in that cyl. if pressure comes into spec., it's the rings. if not try a leak down
test to see if valves are sealing. Is valves are sealing, you have bent rods. (shortened the stroke, there by reducing compression)
good luck,
Kurt"
 
"Also, would be good to check

"Also, would be good to check for damage caused by that metal thrasing about behind the prop."
 
"I will be picking up a compre

"I will be picking up a compression tester on my way home this evening. Lets pray they are all within close range of each other.

I did inspect the damage near the prop. No cracks, nothing too major looking other than some signs of wear on the housing, the metal is nice and shiny on the end. I wasn't going to turn the ob over again until I made sure that it didn't come from somewhere in there."
 
All 4 cylinders checked out at

All 4 cylinders checked out at around 60 psi. I have found a leak of water coming from where the exhaust manifold meets the head. Correct me if I am wrong but no water should be passing from the head to the exhaust manifold except though the hose that connects the two.
 
"While trying to remove the ex

"While trying to remove the exhaust hoses I found a lot of what appears to be sand or some type of corrosion. I was unable to get the pipes loose to see exactly what it was.I didn't want to risk tearing the gasket to the upper exhaust elbow because I don't have another one readily available.

One more thing, when I purchased this boat (last week) I was told that the new engine (costing $2200) was put in the boat last year (8 hours ago). What I am finding odd here is that the serial number to the block matches up to the year of the boat. Are the serial numbers actually serialized or are they more part numbers? I find it weird that when searching mercparts that the range is 6229718 THRU 0B450800 and mine so happens to be the second number (indicating the end of the range)."
 
"Ouch! 60 psi is not good.
If

"Ouch! 60 psi is not good.
If that way across the board I would suspect a
well worn engine or worse! Also question your guage. Not sure of your comp. spec. , but should be well above 60 psi. Thats hardly enough to run an engine if at all."
 
"Hey guys, I got into the exha

"Hey guys, I got into the exhaust this evening to find that only the bar through the middle of the flapper remains, both sides are gone. I started digging deeper to find the source of the leak on the exhaust side. Well when removing the manifold I found where the block has been repaired, it looks like it has been welded, well needless to say the weld didn't hold up too good."
 
"It sounds like the seller fed

"It sounds like the seller fed you a line of BS about a new motor with 8 hours on it.
It sounds more like you have a tired original engine, that has had some bandaid welding and who knows what other bogus repairs done on it.

If it runs OK once you are done putting it back together, you could hopefully run it for the season, then put in a new engine over the off-season.

Rod"
 
"If it is FWC w/antifreeze you

"If it is FWC w/antifreeze you could add a large bottle of BARR's STOP LEAK--good stuff. If not remove the T'stat hsg. and put in 2-3 little bottles of metallic block sealant and hope it finds the hole before being flushed out. Or just let the rust particles seal it. If it doesn't then do as Rod suggests.

In all fairness to the seller, he may have been bamboozled buy the engine builder. There is a rivot system used to repair cracks in large diesel engines that would probably work. The area is cleaned up and smoothed out. Then a series of holes are drilled along the crack and the rivots are installed overlapping to seal off the opening."
 
"Dave;
That picture tells vol

"Dave;
That picture tells volumes. Someone left water in it and it froze.
Has that been welded, or is it some type of sealer that has been painted over?
Looks to me like you are in the market for a new drop in engine package. That's what I would do.
You should check around and see if you can pick up a decent used engine locally.

Another angle is to maybe upgrade to a 4.3L V-6 or something similar if you have room in your doghouse.

Rod"
 
"It is not a closed cooling sy

"It is not a closed cooling system. I would be willing to try the block sealant, however this is just the first leak that I have been able to locate. There is another on the back that needs to be addressed as well. There is also a loud grinding/knocking sound from 1100-1600 RPMs that leads me to believe there is internal damage as well. Is it possible that the exhaust flapper missing and the boat stalling out when stopping could have forced water in that in turn put enough stress on the old crack to reopen it?

Either way, this was sold to me a a old boat with a "new" engine. This is not what was delivered, so I will be waiting to hear from the seller. he told me when he bought the boat, the head was cracked between cylinders 2 and 3. With this he said he had to put a new block in the boat. He may have gotten bamboozled, however I am not going to allow this to be passed on to me. Thank you guy greatly for your help thus far! You all have been great. Maybe he will pay for a short block and you all can help me swap it over.
happy.gif
"
 
"It would be great if your sel

"It would be great if your seller can provide to you the paperwork where it is indicated that the shop actually installed a "new block". Then you could show up at the shop door with this paper in hand and the boat on the trailer for them to look at. I would just love to be a witness to that scene with a video camera.

The shop owner will immediately go into defence mode with a lot of smoke about how they would love to help out but the warranty period has expired, and you are not their original customer, and blah, blah, blah, and so on.

Bottom line: If your seller paid for a "new block", he got screwed and there is no way you should have to be stuck with the outcome. They are the ones who should ante up with a new engine.

Rod"
 
"Is it possible that the e

"Is it possible that the exhaust flapper missing and the boat stalling out when stopping could have forced water in that in turn put enough stress on the old crack to reopen it?"

NO. Good luck with the seller. Call your attorney and see what they say you options are w/the boat sale. Don't threaten to take him to court; just do it! Per my attorney.
 
I also couldn't help but n

I also couldn't help but notice the build up of
crud on your intake valves. It takes alot of hours of running to accumalate that amount of build up. hundreds of hours!
Kurt
 
"also, you may want to conside

"also, you may want to consider wieghing the legal cost if seller doesn't want to cooperate.
It may be cheaper to just fix the boat. This would also be a civil case, witch by definition is going to cost time and money. I would talk with seller and tell him you are confiding with an attorney and persuing a civil case, but wanted to first give him a chance to make good.
This situation your in sucks! I would send head to machine shop and have them test it and magnaflux it. you may get by with a short block.
being a 4cyl, you should be able to find an affordable replacement. An upgrade may also be a consideration. I recently had a 4cyl failure in a friends boat and we found a good running engine for 500 bucks, and so far he has put over 400 hours on it. If you do the labor yourself would also go far, as far as savings go.
Good luck to you,
kurt"
 
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