Where�s all that water coming from?

I would venture to say,Yes there is a in the exhaust . Being it is below waterline most of the time,it will seek its own level.
Pull the floor and replace the hose before you call a salvage co. to pull the boat from the deep............Boat dr

yeah i agree 5200 is the best stuff on the market...that stuff dries up like concrete.

Thomas, On a 69, you should have hose like I suggested all the way. That is not a boot you are looking at, it's the hose. Earlier boats had straight lengths of copper tubing and not stainless. It isn't something as simple as a broken hose clamp. Your hose has reached the end of it's life!!

Shop around. Skidim, Go2marine and West carry it. Even McMaster Carr supply has it but with them, it's labeled as Bun-N rubber coolant hose. The stuff isn't cheap. Expect to pay over $15 per foot. Don't cheap out and stick some muffler shop so called stainless pipe in there. The grade of stainless you get is very important. Remember what the Doc told you about the bottom of the lake!

Your floor may be cut rather close around the hose. You may need to enlarge this area to aid in the R&R but as long as it's under the dog house(engine enclosure) it's better than pulling up the floor. The R&R will be easier from the rear since you will have more access room (once the gas tank is out) to the hose pocket. If by chance you still have some copper tubing down there then you may have to pull up the floor. The hull side panels need to come out too for complete floor removal but you may be able to just lift the rear edges to get it out. Do you still have the original floor covering which was HD vinyl wall covering? Get some pictures posted!

Anybody know the diameter? At West Marine I found:

Trident Rubber 3-1/2" ID Flex Marine Exhaust for $21.79/ft.
Trident Rubber 3-1/8" ID Flex Marine Exhaust for $18.99/ft.
Shields Rubber 3-1/2" ID Series 200 for $18.69/ft.

The Trident Rubber hoses have a wire helix inside. The Shields Rubber hose has no wire inside. Do I need the wire?

Thomas, Check the ID of the hose. Most likely being a 69 it's 3" but it is about the time that they switched form the earlier 2&1/2"

No, you will not find a muffler.

Depending on the amount of bend the hose makes from the bilge to the exhaust manifold determines if you need wire.I would suggest the wire. You also may need corrugated which I didn't mention if the bend is real tight and close to 90 degrees. A picture would help.

Did you pull the floor up or at least enough to see no mufflers?

If the boat originally had a Chrysler, it had a 3" exhaust.

it shouldn't take but a couple of hours to replace, the center section of the floor is just screw down and should lift up easily. Regarding the hose just remove it at the exhaust manifold and measure the ID and order the length you need but you might want to figure out how to lift the section of floor right behind the motor box, but look along where the main stringers are located and follor them towrds the back looking for screw heads might be buried on the crapet and hard to see but you should be able to feel them. I am assuming the it is like the newer models so Tim or anyone else correct my please.

On my boat, the exhaust hoses go outside the center stringers, not through the center cavity. The center section in mine is right behind the engine cover and doesn't attach. It pulls right out, but only accesses the prop shaft and a mostly empty cavity. I have to pull the rear side floor.

I can see where the exhaust hoses come up just in front of the gas tank. They take a sharp 90-degree turn right when they drop through the floor. It's obviously custom-formed from the factory.

A local hose shop has 3" ID nitrile-lined rubber hose good up to 250 degrees. It's not wire-lined. My machinist tells me it's fine for this application. When I asked the hose shop proprietor if you can turn a 90 degree bend without collapsing it, he said he could do that with a 4-inch piece. I can't understand how that would work, but I guess I'll have to go see it to know if he's been sucking down too many fumes. I wonder if there's a wire insert you can use like a radiator hose to keep it from collapsing? Besides the local availability, the price is also enticing: about $3 and some change per foot, as opposed to $16 per foot for corrugated exhaust hose.

Someone suggested turning the corner with a 90 degree stainless or copper pipe. I couldn't find a muffler pipe that had such a thing. Aren't there new diesel trucks with 3-inch stainless exhaust systems and 90-degree bends?

PVC was also suggested for turning the corner.

Oh yeah, I got hosed by the hose dealer. When I showed up he 'fessed up: when I said "three-inch hose" on the phone, he heard "three-eighths-inch hose". Hence the huge price difference. And no wonder he could bend it so easily. His three-inch wire-wrapped hose is $25/foot. Thanks.

I can get a copper 3-inch 90-degree elbow for a little over $30 each. Ouch.

Southeast Correct Craft said they used to cut the layer of fiberglass off the top of the exhaust hose chamber (there should be one below the plywood floor�it's just cosmetic), remove all the foam, replace the straight pipe with PVC, leave out the foam and fiberglass, and hook it all up with short, bendable pieces of 3-inch rubber hose. Apparently, the original design was a short, L-shaped piece of rubber that runs from the manifold, turns the 90 degrees, and stops. It's hooked to the straight piece that runs to the thru-hull fittings.

Opened up. Wowie!

From the manifold a short elbow drops through the floor and turns sharply (90 degrees) to the rear. Then it stops and couples to a long straight hose that runs to the back wall. The elbow is approximately 10 inches on each leg. There are only two pieces.

The two pieces couple together with what must be about a 5-inch piece of 3-inch OD stainless pipe. What had happened to mine is that the coupler mysteriously slid inside the hose to the rear. It was about three inches beyond the lip of the rear piece. So, no coupling going on there!

All my pieces are intact with no holes, so I could just clamp it all up and get back in the water.

However�

Most of the heads of the clamps are rusted away, so no turning them. New clamps everywhere.

The factory double-clamped the hose at the back wall, but not at the coupler. Hmmm.

The straight hose has what looks like and aneurism inside and feels soft outside, so I'm sure it's at the end of it's life.

I can get a 3-inch stainless elbow with 6-inch legs and a 4.x-inch radius bend for $45. That's just one. A 3-inch stainless pipe is $20/ft., and I need about 6 feet. I could have the straight piece and the elbow made as one piece, but I really don't know if I can install it that way without removing a brace that runs across the top of the stringer.

I'm going to a local muffler shop Friday where the phone guy promised me his fabricator can make anything I want in 3" aluminized steel. I'm a little leery about putting steel down there, but I'm told it will last 40+ years. Then I could just use the $25/ft. hose for coupling the ends.

The side cavity where the hose runs was completely full of water-soaked foam. I took a bunch out. I also had to cut back the thin layer of fiberglass under the floor to get to the hose. As I wrote above, the fellow at Southeast Correct Craft said they don't even replace that foam. They recommend just covering it all back up with the floor.

Another option would be to buy some SS pipe and bends yourself, then have the fabricator put them together for you.

$20/ft is a bit high- Verocious Motorsports sells good quality 304SS pipe for $15/ft. I used their stuff exclusively for my exhaust project.

If you want to put in the "soft walled" corrugated hose that these guys are talking about call up your local industrial supply house and get a price on this Goodyear product.

tleed wrote: SkiDIM's $16.61/ft. corrugated product is looking more attractive. But I'm still on the hunt for 3" stainless or copper.

Did you see my link above for stainless bends and tubing?

Ask your exhaust guy what kind of bends he can do- if theyre mondrel, youre golden and can go with the SS the whole way. If he just has a crush bender, dont even bother- go with the corrugated hose, at least for the bends.