Wildcat with exhaust leak, maybe

Good advice BuffaloBFN. I've been taking pictures when I remember to. I've been adding them to the photobucket site here
http://s1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa392/fesser1/66%20Wildcat/
I would link them to here but it takes me so long to figure out what I am doing that it seems like time wasted.
With the assistance of my youngest daughter, I was able to at least find the biggest leak. If you look at the photos you will see a simple splice or junction of the two straight exhaust tubes, with two stainless hose clamps. When I put a hose into the exhaust outlet, water trickled in at this coupling. I was surprised because I expected it to come from the elbow that is just below the exhaust manifold outlet. The elbow is rusty and ugly, but, with water in the exhaust tube, the coupling in the middle leaked and the elbow didn't. That said, if I make it through the week that I really need the boat, I would like to replace the elbows and the parts that pass through the transom. Is this hardware readily available? Sorry for the long posts, but if it wasn't for this site, I would be trying to reinvent the wheel on everything I do with this boat. Frank

I think you are right Peter. I found a weird combination of stuff that looked really old and stuff that looked pretty fresh. The starboard side is even stranger. The tube is definitely older and the through hull fitting has some copper that is crusty looking but that side is dry. I should have real fun today since I have all day to work on it. Frank

My temporary solution was found at a muffler shop. The guy sold me a six inch section of 3 inch tailpipe for 6 bucks. I can get it to fit in the exhaust tubes which are 2 7/8. I am going to double clamp everything as Peter mentioned. Plan to foam around the exhaust and put the floor back temporarily. When we get back form the lake, the fun will start...gut interior, pull up floors, see what uglies are living down there. I am so glad I didn't just live with the leak one more time.

Frank,
Forget the foam! As mentioned, you may decide to go no foam after spending some time reading some of the threads about it. I happen to be a no foam person but there are other opinions as well.

OK, never shop at West - they are nothing but whores when it comes down to price. You can do better by simply doing on line searches. I happen to like go2marine.com.

The local muffler shop helped out but you do know it's temporary!! Even if they sold you SS tube, it's 400 series "muffler" stainless and it's junk!!!

We all want you to do a total at seasons end! we'll be witing and be around for any help you need!

Pete, I put some foam in there before I checked in here. There were lots of crescent shaped passageways through the inner and outer stringers and the cross braces. I posted pictures of those areas as best I could. The pictures are actually what I was looking for before I started ripping the floor apart. It almost looks like the boat was designed not to have foam since there were so many passageways built into the stringers and crossmembers. Frank