Pulled her, have a project to work on….

aero3113

2 weeks ago I was backing into a slip and heard a ticking sound on the port side. When I got into the slip I put her in neutral and didn’t hear anything. Reved a little and still no sound, same with bumping her into forward. Leaving to head back to home dock she jumped up and took off with no issues. Power seemed good, I didn’t want to firewall her just in case there was an issue. Next weekend we head out and all seemed good again, this time I gave more power and the port engine seemed like it didn’t want to go over 4000 RPM’s. I pulled back a little and tried again, this time she went up to around 4300-4500. Something didn’t seem right. Back at the slip I noticed a slight vibration on the port engine at idle. Decided to pull her, we had a great season and my daughter’s schedules were getting busy so it was a good time to pull her anyway. Pulled her on Monday had her shrink wrapped on Wednesday and today I started to dig in! No compression on the # 1 cylinder! Pulled the valve covers and all looked good. Stuck a borescope in the plug hole, piston and cylinder all looked great. The piston head did look super clean, could be a head gasket. I could only see half the valves, tough to tell but I don’t think the exhaust valve was fully seating, could be tuliped. Pulling the heads off to take a deeper look at it.  More pictures to come in the following weeks.
Any tips for when it goes back together?Let me know!⚓️

captkevin

Fingers crossed for an easy fix

captkevin

Is this the same motor that had the spark plug issue earlier in the summer? If so any chance it is related? How does the oil look?

rasbury

Wow- you dove right in there didn't you!? If you are pulling heads you are out of my league- I understand the mechanics but don't have a machine shop!

aero3113

@captkevin yes, same engine. Oil looked fine and the plugs that I replaced looked okay as well. They were a little sooty but not bad. It’s possible it’s related, curious what I’ll find once the head is off.

aero3113

@rasbury you need to think of it as a giant Lego set or a model kit. Just need to remember how to put it all back together 😂

captkevin

Was the rocker arm loose on that cylinder? How many hours on motor?

aero3113

No, not loose. I thought I read that a tight rocker would keep the valve from closing? only about 300 since the previous owner had it rebuilt.

captkevin

My guess is when you had the spark plug issue it burnt the valve

PickleRick

Would be nice to just need a valve job.

If you had a a leak down test gauge you could probably diagnose it in just a couple minutes before pulling the head. 

aero3113

@PickleRick I’m suspecting a bad head gasket as well so I’m just going to pull both heads. The piston head looks too clean to me. Also, I saw a small area where the head meets the block that looked clean also.

aero3113

By the way @PickleRick the threaded rods you sent me are my favorite tools when pulling the manifolds!

PickleRick

I'm glad you're getting good use of the rods,  I still have probably 4 ft or so left over.  The only use it's gotten since cutting those two off were installing new nner seals in the front axle of the excursion and pressing new cam bearings into a rover engine.  6 ft of 3/8 all thread is a fairly versatile tool.
 

Hopefully you won't have a use for them again any time soon!

aero3113

I hope I don’t!! ⚓️

rmrstlmo

A few years ago I had a clicking sound from my starboard engine.  Turned out to be the head gasket was allowing cross firing between two cylinders.  Good luck!

aero3113

I pulled the intake manifold and heads today. I didn’t notice anything obvious on the cylinder that didn’t have any compression. The only thing I did notice was the coloring on the piston head, looks like the head gasket was leaking. I was searching the internet and someone on the SR forum had the same issue. All looked good but turned out to be a tuliped valve. I did find a cracked valve on the other head, opposite side (#2)! Luckily the cylinder and piston look good there as well. ⚓️

YYZRC

Best reuse of a wedding dress I've ever seen!

aero3113

😂
It’s an old sheet I found in my basement!

captkevin

Whats next step?

Dream_Inn

How did #2 still have normal compression?  Definitely would've failed the leak test.  Are you planning to just replace valves on #1 & 2 and go with that?  What's the rust hole in the pic of the #1 valves?

aero3113

@Dream_Inn I never checked #2. I went right to #1 and saw there was no compression so I stopped and decided to pull both heads. I probably should kept checking but too late now! I going to have both heads checked and rebuilt at a machine shop. $325 per head. That is actually scale buildup at the passageway. I’m going to try and clean everything the best I can. This engine always showed 5-10 degrees warmer than the other, I’m curious if this is why.

aero3113

captkevin said:

Whats next step?

Next the heads will go to the machine shop and I’ll give everything a good cleaning while I wait.

aero3113

Besides your normal sockets and wrenches there was one special tool needed to disconnect the fuel line on the rail. I don’t know if there’s a way around this but I ordered a set that had a bunch of different sizes for $11. Easy to use, put it over the line push in and pull the hose off.

Ian

aero3113 said:

😂
It’s an old sheet I found in my basement!

Was going to say the wife will need the tablecloth for dinner time…

aero3113

LoL!
Would be funny if it was and I just put it back on the table.

aero3113

What blows me away is how heavy all these parts are. If they could all be aluminum, including the blocks it would be a 60+ mph boat!

PickleRick

With enough money one could install closed loop cooling along with aluminum heads/intake/block 

aero3113

I dropped the heads off at the machine shop this morning. He said I should them back by Friday or early next week. I cleaned the surfaces for the heads and intake today. I also cleared passages and got a bunch of scale out! I found a hose that has a cut in it. Hose is on order.

aero3113

What do you guys think about these riser gaskets? Waaaayyyy cheaper than OEM. 

https://a.co/d/dOOs4gg

captkevin

Wow that is alot scale. Be interesting to see how much better it runs.

aero3113

Yes!
It was about a half container of cookie dough worth! LoL