Yard Gnome

Sorry if I'm wearing out my welcome, but its nice to get a post out there while i'm working on things to smooth out the process. Thanks for the help.


I am getting a noticeable white smoke at start up from the exhaust. This is new from my overheat two weeks ago. The air temps have gotten a little cooler, but I doubt thats the problem here in Florida. I am worried about the potential problems after reading Vondy's S.O.S. thread. .

My exhaust manifolds are very hot. My temperature gauge reads about 170-180. I have the 160 t-stat, but plan on replacing with the 140 soon. I am getting good suction at my raw water pump from the bucket test.

I was thinking about removing the exhaust manifolds this weekend, cleaning them up, and checking for leaks. They are pretty corroded by the exhaust ports. When does water usually mix with the exhaust? Is there a separate channel in the exhaust manifold for the water and exhaust? Thanks.

James,have you or others been running in salt water? Those cast iron exhausts can corrode inside and start closing up the passages. You might buy some time on them by submerging them in acid after you take them apart.I don't remember what acid,but I'll find out by tommorow.

you have a carb engine..if so the correcto t is the 143..it will lower the t to the 150-160 range...
As for t raising after shut off and restart I find it normal, as water stop circulating inside the engine and gets hot..See that after some seconds of restart t goes down inmediately....
My exhaust were pretty corroded and blocked even in the fresh water enviroment i use it..I used muriatic acid to remove the rust scum..and also a lot of scrubbing, wire brush, sandblast etc...

just to let you know, if the risers are leaking on the outside it means they are also leaking on the inside
i tore a merc set apart yesterday, sandblasted the sht out of them and then went to town on the belt sander on the gasket surfaces (benchmount not portable) works well and saved the entire set, the good thing about the bench top is you can really hog some material off the faces to get to a new clean useable surface

Eric,
You need a mill!! There are literally thousands of used Bridgeports available in the used market.

Pete, i have one, to much set-up time on the manifolds...im built for speed. the belt sander is the cats ass,

Update
My yard gnome made its first successful voyage today. About a two mile, 30 minute trip, w/ max speeds of around 30-35 mph. Didn't open it all the way up, but ran smooth with no problems. Can't wait for next weekend.

Overheat issue resolved for now
I found a ball of impeller debris on the intake side of the water pump. It was about the size of a penny. No way I overlooked that when changing the impeller. Not sure where it came from.

Manifolds
Going to wait on removing the manifolds for now. Steam issue isn't consistent enough to start removing a bunch of stuff. I'm going to wait and see if it becomes worse.

Next step
More tuning and minor trailer repairs.

Other Stuff
I'm kind of a mess at the dock. My steering is really stiff and its hard to navigate the boat onto the trailer. Maybe I'll get better with practice.

Also, I added about 1/2 qt of Risole to the oil and fogged the fuel system with sea foam. I figured its been sitting for a while and needed some cleaning. My oil pressure dropped to 40-50 from 50-60.

Will be back with more tuning questions.