Where is my leak coming from?

[spharis]

Razz did you pull your tank out?

Mine looks like the carpet is epoxied over the feet, and I didn't care to pull the carpet up to expose them. I need to run new hydraulic lines, and speedo pitot line, and there is minimal space behind there. I just replaced my vent hose and had a time with that. I noticed my hyrdraulic lines were getting brittle feeling.

[Razzman]

No i haven't pulled the tank as of yet. Your telling me there's minimal space! I figured that out trying to tighten up the vent covers on the transom!

Well I figured out water leak ... a cracked head! Not quite sure how I'm going to attack this yet. Maybe I'll throw another post out there for opinions.

[chpthril]

Razzman

Originally posted by Razzman
No i haven't pulled the tank as of yet. Your telling me there's minimal space! I figured that out trying to tighten up the vent covers on the transom!

Well I figured out water leak ... a cracked head! Not quite sure how I'm going to attack this yet. Maybe I'll throw another post out there for opinions.

Any chance it might be a freeze plug??? There are probably 3 or 4 in the side of the block, below the manifolds, and one in each end of the head. I do hope it's simple/cheap.

[Razzman]

I wish it was a freeze plug! I pulled the exhaust manifold and cleaned the side of the head real good and watched water seeping through the casting in two places between cylinders 2 & 4 along a line i suspected was a crack.

It doesn't bother me all that much about the head as it's not hard to replace a head, just a pain in the rear. What does bother me is the possible damage to the cylinders. We took it out Sunday to find the leak and up until then it has run perfectly. Sunday however was different, it didn't want to start and when it did finally start it ran rough until i got going a bit. Then it quit after awhile like it was starving for fuel. If i let it sit it restarted but wouldn't take a load so i had to idle in to the marina. What bothers me is that when it did restart it blew pure white smoke out the exhaust which i suspect was steam from compressed water in a cylinder.

The funny thing is that it ran perfectly smooth at 10 mph without any hesitation at all. I'm going to pull the head Saturday and see what's up inside. From the outside looking through the exhaust ports the valves look good with no sign of water so who knows. Also you should never do just one head so I'll end up having to do both if the block is ok. Oh well such is life huh? My super deal may not be so super after all! The wife is bummed and stressed over this ... sigh

[chpthril]

Sounds like it could be cracked between the valve seats in the combustion chamber, allowing water in to the cyl. If I have learned one thing over the years, it's that every repair is a 'cause and effect'. I'd guess that your engine ran hot at sometime, and now you have tracked down your water leak to a cracked head, the effect. The hard part now, is to find out why it cracked, the cause.

Good luck, keep us posted.

[Razzman]

I'm guessing it ran hot at one time as well. Damn and it ran so good when we bought it! I've also noticed one riser is cool during operation and the one on the cracked head is hot. The water jackets aren't plugged however, another wierd one.