When it rains it pours (Transom Assembly leak)

J3ff

I've never actually had hot water on this boat. The original seller kind of screwed me over on that one. Showed me the "hot water" while it was hooked up to power, but then failed to tell me that the heat exchanger was rotted out due to salt water. Not sure about that one, but it stopped working the moment I took ownership of it. Just one of the many things that went wrong the first few days of owning the boat. Figured it will never get easier to get the old one out and the new one in, so in about 5 mins the old POS got tossed overboard (yes, picked up and thrown overboard)...waiting for the new one to show up. 



This boat has taught me a lot of things. However there's a guy next to me in the boat yard right now that has a 50+ ft sea ray... he was on his way to Key West when a motor started having problems 6 weeks ago... since then a mechanic has completely screwed up the 2nd motor, to the point that he has thrown down the money to have 2 brand new motors put in. It's been weeks of waiting to get it all done. He sent me a text yesterday, the day after they did the first run w/ it in the water with the two new engines installed..

"The new risers are leaking at the casting plug, one of the carburetor is filling the cylinders with fuel, the elbow has the wrong gasket and coolant drained out the exhaust. Aside of that, the weather is nice."

I can't imagine what this guy is feeling. He's been putting a family vacation on hold over this boat!! He also has no problem paying the bucks to have it done right and keeps getting shafted!! Can't wait to figure out what doesn't get put back together correctly on mine 

PickleRick

Sounds like a lot of bad luck, but i bet the weather is really nice.  Was 65 yesterday here, woke up to 34 degree temps.  The weather down there is sounding better than nice.

rasbury

We are in the 30's in the am..will take the day off. To cold to go outside!

PickleRick

I like having seasons, i just hate the crappy ones like winter, fall and spring.

J3ff

Winter in the keys tonight - wearing a jacket right now. 

MarkB

J3ff said:

I've never actually had hot water on this boat. The original seller kind of screwed me over on that one. Showed me the "hot water" while it was hooked up to power, but then failed to tell me that the heat exchanger was rotted out due to salt water. Not sure about that one, but it stopped working the moment I took ownership of it. Just one of the many things that went wrong the first few days of owning the boat. Figured it will never get easier to get the old one out and the new one in, so in about 5 mins the old POS got tossed overboard (yes, picked up and thrown overboard)...waiting for the new one to show up. 



This boat has taught me a lot of things. However there's a guy next to me in the boat yard right now that has a 50+ ft sea ray... he was on his way to Key West when a motor started having problems 6 weeks ago... since then a mechanic has completely screwed up the 2nd motor, to the point that he has thrown down the money to have 2 brand new motors put in. It's been weeks of waiting to get it all done. He sent me a text yesterday, the day after they did the first run w/ it in the water with the two new engines installed..

"The new risers are leaking at the casting plug, one of the carburetor is filling the cylinders with fuel, the elbow has the wrong gasket and coolant drained out the exhaust. Aside of that, the weather is nice."

I can't imagine what this guy is feeling. He's been putting a family vacation on hold over this boat!! He also has no problem paying the bucks to have it done right and keeps getting shafted!! Can't wait to figure out what doesn't get put back together correctly on mine 

I wonder if the hot water wasn't from the engine ... I'm sure you are aware, the water goes through the engine block to heat it up, while the engine is running, so there's a way to have hot water without the 110V.  Do you know if he fired up the engines before he showed you the hot water?

As for your neighbor ... man that sucks.  Sounds like he should find a new mechanic!  Some of them barely can add 1 + 1 ... and you need to stay FAR away from.

MarkB

J3ff said:

Winter in the keys tonight - wearing a jacket right now. 

Yeah ... be careful you don't get frost bite. LOL.

J3ff

MarkB said:

J3ff said:

Winter in the keys tonight - wearing a jacket right now. 

Yeah ... be careful you don't get frost bite. LOL.

This was 730am today. Def felt cold!!


When I bought this car I thought "why would they sell this with this option in Florida"

Felt pretty good today!!

aero3113

That’s funny @J3ff

rinker270nb

Jeff, are you having the same shop do your work as the 50' Sea Ray owner?  Are good mechanics that scarce in the keys?  

Handymans342

Yes

PickleRick

I had a failed rear ac on my excursion my first trip to the keys.  I diagnosed the issue and walked to the shop at hwy 1 and i think 26th on Marathon.  I asked the shop if they'd replace a part, check seals, vac and charge.  He rambled about diagnosing and probably needing a compressor.  I told him thank you for your time, sorry to bother you and left.  I repaired it myself once i got home.  

It's hard to find good help in a shop.

J3ff

rinker270nb said:

Jeff, are you having the same shop do your work as the 50' Sea Ray owner?  Are good mechanics that scarce in the keys?  

yes and yes. Going to go check in on the boat tomorrow. Assuming it will look the same as it has for the last two weeks (motor out and dirty)... going to try and clean it up a bit. 

rasbury

On the plus side, he is not doing any engine work right? I would not let him do anymore than the job at hand of remounting the transom, motor and out drive. Even I could not screw that up. If you have other issues I would politely tell him you'll get back to him. Might be a real nice guy but is over his head...

PickleRick

Cant really fault the tech for a leaky carb or leaky manifold, unless he damaged the manifold during install or was thinkering with the carb that wasnt on him.

J3ff

Yeah, I'm not sure who the fault is on all of his problems. The guy doing my work has been honest and fair and seems to be doing it on the cheap. I have not been putting any pressure on him to get the work done. Can't be "that" customer down here when there's only a couple of guys who work on these boats and they all know each other. 

J3ff

Knocked this off the list this morning.. let's hope they know how to hook it up to a closed loop system. 

J3ff

Looking better...

rasbury

Looks good! Should be a straight forward install from here, have my fingers crossed for you!

GMSLITHO

Looks like he’s doing a good job

Liberty44140

Looks really good!

MarkB

J3ff said:

Knocked this off the list this morning.. let's hope they know how to hook it up to a closed loop system. 

That looks MUCH nicer!

J3ff

Motor is in, outdrive is on... had a nice 30 min chat with the mechanic who did most of the work. 

As suspected things were not done 100% correctly 3.5 years ago. A couple bolts were grossly overtightened during the install (these did not have anything to do w/ the transom mount).... 2 seemingly unimportant parts were simply not installed (one had something to do w/ shielding the throttle cable from metal but was worn and replaced now), but apparently are very important, so that's been fixed. 

I'm sure it's not going to be perfect, and even after 3500 dollars worth of work to the drive (the first round of work when it got down south, that included a prop shaft seal change, redoing the upper seals, etc.)  they found a "TINY" bit of water in it... Really wish the first shop (not the current shop) would have just replaced the drive with a rebuilt drive vs trying to fix it. 

If the gas tank goes on this thing the first weekend it gets back in it wont be a shocker to me. At that point I'll empty the tank, sell the motor and trailer and use it as a house boat that never moves. 

rasbury

Let's get in the water!

reneechris14

Fuel tank leak geez don't put that out there everything is going to be great just push the throttle forward to go faster.

J3ff

reneechris14 said:

Fuel tank leak geez don't put that out there everything is going to be great just push the throttle forward to go faster.

Hoping for the best! We'll see. He did tell me risers need to be replaced ASAP (3 years old), so that'll be something to dive into on a bad weather weekend in the next month or two). 

rasbury

I just replaced mine last year...they were original to the boat...can't imagine they are bad already. They are easy to take off and inspect. As a matter of fact I replaced the exhaust elbows but I just cleaned up the risors so they are still original! I did not replace the manifolds as I'm fresh water cooled so they never see raw water.

PickleRick

3 yrs in salt water is the rule of thumb on risers. I dont have the dry joints but did read some interesting info on the stainless dry joint risers.  

aero3113

@PickleRick , what did you find? Anything on cast manifolds and risers? I’ve been trying to research the expected life of dry joint manifolds and risers in salt water. Everything I’ve read is that you can wait till you start to see a rise in temp. 

rasbury

So I kind of forgot what I learned.....at 62 I guess I can only retain so much... for the difference between dry and wet....so being closed cooled, manifolds never see water and what water would be in the riser is blocked off by the gasket, so manifolds on a boat like mine would last as long as those on a car as far as I know...except if you over heat and were to warp them or something I guess. So I can't recall if the water goes to the riser or just to the elbow to go out the exhaust....I would tell you when I looked at the risers there was virtually no evident corrosion, I wire brushed them up and put them suckers back on. The only real corrosion I had is where the exhaust boot was attached to the elbow...guess the trapped water where it seals and the heat take it's toll as the metal was falling apart....2006 boat I picked up in the panhandle...on a lift it's life and probably would have been better off in the water to air did not get to it....this was last year when I replaced the elbows... as far as waiting until you have a temp rise....does that not mean your getting water i the cylinder at that point??