Tahoe_User
New member
New to this forum so may not know all the etiquette so bear with me.
I have a Tahoe Q6. Mercruiser 5.0 liter with stern drive. Last season it ran pretty good but would always stall on my return trips and I would have to limp home. I am running on the ocean off Mass. So I had a guy look at it and we found water in the oil. he did not think block was cracked so he redid intake and exhaust manifolds and found cracks in there. Ran it in driveway...ran like a top...super psyched...by far best it ever ran. My boat dominates when its sitting in the driveway...best driveway boat ever.
took it on the ocean in May 2023. it ran like a beast. It was awesome...when boat's behave the experience is really hard to match. Anyway, as soon as my head created those thoughts the boat stopped behaving. The engine compartment filled up with what I thought was smoke but in retrospect It was like super super hot steam. Did not smell like smoke. It was very white. It sort of sounded like a camp fire as it made a lot of popping/cracking noises. bilge was completely filled with very cold ocean water...super filled. water was up to starter. I actually thought I forgot to put my drain plug on so did some very uncomfortable swimming and it was there no problem.
Shut down engine....let everything settle and unfortunately just drifted for like 20 mins. Started back up, no problem. Drove back to port and then "smoke" started again so shut it down and rowed in. Rowing a 3,000 pound boat is not as fun as it sounds. If there was a breeze I would have been screwed. Got boat on land and it would not start. Finally had time this weekend to get in there and this is what I found:
- Starter is dead....super dead. took it out, tried to jump and nothing doing. So ordered a new one.
- Bilge pump was not working. It had some kind of plastic wrapper (like from a candy bar or whatever) and other crud. the floating switch was not healthy either so unjammed that and now it works great.
- Big mega Problem, maybe two....there is a water leak at the fly wheel...so I am not starting engine but I am putting garden water hose in to hose at front of engine and water is coming out at the fly wheel. I am told there are (2) core plugs or freeze plugs???? up behind the fly wheel and only way to access them is to remove stern drive and then pull motor...yay!....any thoughts on this?
- To see the water leak I removed the oil filter. The oil was grey...not good. So either water was leftover in there from last season or water is still getting into the engine from a cracked block.
i will put in new starter and run it in driveway. Likely it will work fine like this. I will then take to local lake and test it there so I am not dealing with ocean conditions. I suspect it will run fine but if I have block crack then when engine heats up the crack will expand and things will go badly. I have a pal on that lake so we may just run it at his dock so I am not suck in middle of lake rowing home again.
any thoughts are greatly appreciated. I suspect I will be pulling engine in the off season.
I have a Tahoe Q6. Mercruiser 5.0 liter with stern drive. Last season it ran pretty good but would always stall on my return trips and I would have to limp home. I am running on the ocean off Mass. So I had a guy look at it and we found water in the oil. he did not think block was cracked so he redid intake and exhaust manifolds and found cracks in there. Ran it in driveway...ran like a top...super psyched...by far best it ever ran. My boat dominates when its sitting in the driveway...best driveway boat ever.
took it on the ocean in May 2023. it ran like a beast. It was awesome...when boat's behave the experience is really hard to match. Anyway, as soon as my head created those thoughts the boat stopped behaving. The engine compartment filled up with what I thought was smoke but in retrospect It was like super super hot steam. Did not smell like smoke. It was very white. It sort of sounded like a camp fire as it made a lot of popping/cracking noises. bilge was completely filled with very cold ocean water...super filled. water was up to starter. I actually thought I forgot to put my drain plug on so did some very uncomfortable swimming and it was there no problem.
Shut down engine....let everything settle and unfortunately just drifted for like 20 mins. Started back up, no problem. Drove back to port and then "smoke" started again so shut it down and rowed in. Rowing a 3,000 pound boat is not as fun as it sounds. If there was a breeze I would have been screwed. Got boat on land and it would not start. Finally had time this weekend to get in there and this is what I found:
- Starter is dead....super dead. took it out, tried to jump and nothing doing. So ordered a new one.
- Bilge pump was not working. It had some kind of plastic wrapper (like from a candy bar or whatever) and other crud. the floating switch was not healthy either so unjammed that and now it works great.
- Big mega Problem, maybe two....there is a water leak at the fly wheel...so I am not starting engine but I am putting garden water hose in to hose at front of engine and water is coming out at the fly wheel. I am told there are (2) core plugs or freeze plugs???? up behind the fly wheel and only way to access them is to remove stern drive and then pull motor...yay!....any thoughts on this?
- To see the water leak I removed the oil filter. The oil was grey...not good. So either water was leftover in there from last season or water is still getting into the engine from a cracked block.
i will put in new starter and run it in driveway. Likely it will work fine like this. I will then take to local lake and test it there so I am not dealing with ocean conditions. I suspect it will run fine but if I have block crack then when engine heats up the crack will expand and things will go badly. I have a pal on that lake so we may just run it at his dock so I am not suck in middle of lake rowing home again.
any thoughts are greatly appreciated. I suspect I will be pulling engine in the off season.