Duct Tape, Vices Grips, & beer (Excel Rehab)

There's 3 batteries now, starting is on the port side low, the stereo batteries are above on each side.   Basically everything is as close as it can be to what it's powering. Port stereo battery runs the tower amp beside the seat, starboard one runs the sub and inboat speakers on the other side of the seat.   I think you're right about the starting battery on the starboard side originally, but I moved that a long time ago.   I wasn't layin attention when I cut the port floor, but I did fill a bunch of extra holes on the starboard floor which were probably different battery hold downs.

Well, the heat is a little brutal right now so lets continue on this little journey.

While I was waiting on the heads and cam to arrive I thought I would sink the batteries into the floor to gain some space. I came across this issue.


Thats right, wet foam!   After much thought and a call to Baitkiller (thanks) I decided that it most likely came from the monsoon the boat was in a few months back. the water runs to that spot behind the back seat and then goes into the bilge. John informed me that wet foam is common and can be dried, he also knew from my serial number that I have a boat built in 92, sold as an early 93 so the wood stringer debate goes on, and that it was unlikely that the water would soak through the resin to the wood. So out came the shop vac and over the next few days I sucked the water out of the foam. For those of you who have replaced stringers the pic isn't the best, but the water is clear and the foam is clean and new looking not the brown mess from rot.



The holes on the outside of the secondary stringers were bone dry all the way to the hull, the first hole was dry on top and only the last inch or so was wet. Once I had my 3 holes cut I smoothed out the sides and leveled the bottom with a couple of cans of spray foam. no pics but there is a 1/2 in cutting board in the bottom of each hole to screw stuff into. I figured it would be best to mix up some fairing compound to give me something solid behind the glass. This wasn't the best idea, cold outside so i put some heat lamp in to cure the epoxy which also made it run down the wall.



After too much sanding and hacking out a few batches of epoxy I ended up here ready for some glass.

OK, I figured out why I had a rusty head bolt, cracked head, it's been that way for quite some time but I never could catch it wet to figure out where the water was coming from. While I was putting in the bilge heater for the winter back in December I found it and decided it was time to fix it.

This was really just the excuse I had been looking for to start the GT40p/Cam/Intake upgrade, and a few other things along the way. So I built an A Frame and found this handy little Warn winch and off I went.



Had to remove the V Drive in the boat, the engine stood up straight with it on there's a snatch block above on the A frame. Once that was off it lifted up at a 45 degree angle and I could level it by pulling up on the tranny.




Here's the Offending head and rusty bolt, this is the point that I'm deciding I don't like rusty motors and messy bilge's.




The crack is just above the bolt that was ground off even with the spark plug, this was on #8 and after some wire brushing I could follow a line down most of the head. I think it was a casting mark don;t know if it just wore out after almost 1000 hrs or if it got overheated at some point. It hasn't been seriously overheated since I got the boat 400 hrs ago.