Kaama, either you have been reading my old posts or your smarter that the average bear. If it is the latter, how much do you know about the particulular engine/drive package I have? I am pulling out the engines this winter and going thru them. On the last outing I was getyting water in all the outboard cylinders on the starboard motor. I figure that something is cracked. I want to leave the turbos on, and just do a mild rebuild (new pistons, rings, bearings and maybe camshafts). My biggest problem is what is cracked.

Hughes69:

Do yourself a favor an pull the heads on both engines.

If you are lucky, it's only a cracked/leaking exhaust manifold.

I suspect it is more than that simply by the age of your engines. Early turbo packages did not have knock sensors and if you may have eaten a hole through to a water jacket passage.

If you are going through all that work pulling the motors, then pull the heads and drop the pans doing a through inspection/rebuild/freshening.

Oh, and re-do the bilge paint and.....

Oh well good luck.

Wannabe

phughes69,

To be quite honest "no" I haven't read any of your old posts---it's just that I have been around these boats for a long time. A friend of mine has a 1980 KAAMA SE that once had the Merc 475hp turbos, but he yanked them out several years ago and installed superchargers instead. I am pretty sure he still has a bunch if not ALL of the stock Merc turbo parts that he's willing to part with for some cash if you need them. He had the turbos rebuilt and several other parts rebuilt and had the heat shields beefed up and rewelded, etc. It's all been sitting there for years collecting dust. He lives in Michigan City, IN.

Pat, I went back into the archives of all your posts and I DID actually find a couple responses I made to you, but it was back in January and I couldn't remember to save my own skin. Oops, guess I should have checked before I said anything. Anyway, I sent you and e-mail.

Are you sure you need to pull the drives? The reason I ask is that on many of the transmission style drives you can leave the drives on while pulling or installing the motors. Just line up the shaft from the drive to the the transmission tailstock (there is a spring at the end of the tailstock that helps guide the shaft as you install the motor). I had to move my drives several times before they were installed and they are very heavy and awkward. After I installed the drives, I had to remove / install the motors twice. Left the drives on both times.

Good luck,
Doug

It's even easier if you can leave the trans in too...............