Magic #16: So The Beast Demanded a Rematch

This has been a tough week for boat work given my Lyme Disease diagnosis and a family reunion in Keene that kept me away for four days. The good news is that I'm feeling much better after a few days of antibiotics. The bad news is that the engine decided it wanted a rematch.

The first 'leg' of the family reunion was at our house when a bunch of family members flew into town. I didn't even go over to the boat shed for 24 hours and when I stopped in to check on my list of stuff to do, I noticed a bit of antifreeze on one of the hoses. At first I just thought it was an errant drop, but on further inspection, I found about a pint in the bilge. Crap. I got a really bright light to trace where it was leaking from and found that several of the gaskets on the exhaust manifold were leaking, and one of them was leaking badly. Crap again...

After I finished sobbing I realized I had two choices. Wait until the boat was hauled to the marina, have them pull the manifold and fix the gaskets while my wallet bled gobs of money or do it myself. With that said, I really didn't have a choice because there just aren't any more gobs of money in my wallet, so I called Hansen Marine and ordered a new suit of gaskets (4 on the wet side and 4 on the exhaust side). They came the next day in the mail (kudos to Hansen for rushing this) and got up really early the next morning before the rest of the family had gotten up and drained the coolant, pulled all the new hoses I had just installed, and unbolted the thing from the motor and the rest of the exhaust. To say it sucked was an understatement, because getting the three exhaust ports unbolted from the underside of the manifold with the starter, solenoid, water pump and who knows what else in the way was just unbelievably difficult.

Amazingly though, after two hours of craning my neck, scratching my head, and yelling at the beast, I managed to get it off without losing any fasteners to the bilge or destroying something else in the process. I brought it back to the shop and stripped it down, pulling the end caps and the other wet side gaskets. Then I scrubbed the thing down with soap and water and got all the grease off. I figured that since I had it out, I might as well paint it (I have a can of Westerbeke Red spray paint). I shot 2 coats on, letting it dry a few hours in between (all while doing family things in between) and then put it all back together with the new gaskets and high temp gasket cement for good measure.

At that point we left for Keene for a few days so I had to wait until yesterday afternoon when to get the manifold back on. The reverse process wasn't nearly as bad, but there were still a few moments when I just couldn't seat one of the bolts and almost dropped it into the abyss. I refilled the antifreeze but I won't have another chance to start the motor until the boat is back in the water so I've got my fingers crossed. I'm reasonably confident that it will be ok, but we'll see...