Exhaust Replacement

[JWSutcliffe]

I love sailing. I love spending time on my boat. As I get older I do find, however, that I absolutely hate working on boats! We got a late start this year due to cold weather in the spring and substantial business travel. When we finally got launched last month, during the usual systems checkout prior to the first day out my wife noted a fine spray of water coming out of the exhaust piping above the mixing elbow. Removal of the insulation revealed that the mixing elbow had completely cracked through and would require replacement.

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Dreading the thought of trying to salvage any of the well rusted components, I ordered replacement parts for everything from the exhaust flange to the hump hose.

Yesterday we attacked the job. Removing the three nuts retaining the exhaust flange was a two hour task requiring two people - one from under the cockpit, and one from the cabin side over the engine. Virtually impossible if I didn't have a very understanding wife who at 5'4" can actually fit under there! It was necessary to first unbolt the waterlift muffler and drop the heat exchanger.

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Amazingly we did get everything out, albeit with three hours of effort, and I was able to clean up the gasket surface on the exhaust manifold.

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This week I will fit up the new piping/fittings. Not a fun task, since the piping is Schedule 80 steel with 300 pound fittings. More pics to follow.

[Steve Laume]

I think you are just trying to make us all jealous that your wife will crawl in there and help you. Great job getting the thing out of there and both of you are still alive and talking?

One thing I have done on Raven is to move the heat exchanger off of the engine mounting bracket and back to a more easily accessible spot. It sits in a wooden cradle that is glassed to the hull and now I don't have to remove the heat exchanger, from it's bracket, every time I want to check the zinc. It is a pretty simple job to relocate the thing and it makes your life easier forever after. Just sayin, now would be the time.

The hard part is over. Now it is just screwing some fittings together and bolting it back in there. Remember to use plenty of Advil and anti seize, Steve.

[Jim_B]

I had a similar project a few months back. In the end I built the mixing elbow out of off the shelf galvanized 'black pipe'. Upon the first running it had a strange smell but that went away quickly. I made certain the mixing part was well below the elbow so no chance of water flowing back into the manifold. I have 100+ hours on this setup with out issue.

[jen1722terry]

Nice post, Skip.

We have a 31 we purchased last summer and have a persistent, slow seawater leak into the drip pan under the engine. For the life of me, we can't find the source. Could be the mixing elbow.

Unfortunatly and fortunately, the PO mounted two big AGM batteries on a rack over that part of the engine. Love the batteries, but miss the access from the lockers. thinking about installing an access plate in the cabin sole, for it's very hard to check the transmission fluid and adjust the packing nuts.

Thanks again for sharing,

Jenn and Terry McAdams
(presently cruising from New Hampshire to Nova Scotia)

[JWSutcliffe]

Jenn/Terry:

I installed a dripless stuffing box several seasons ago and was dismayed when I continued to have a small amount of seawater leakage into the engine drip pan. In our case it turned out to be the packing gland on the rudder post. Good luck reaching that!

[Bob Brown]

Just figured out the water in my pan is coming from a leaky cockpit scupper.

[M. R. Bober]

Jim,
Black iron pipe and galvanized pipe are not the same product. The smell that you detected was probably from the zinc in the galvanized coating. It is toxic, which is a good reason to stick with black iron pipe.

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Lancaster, (Home of the Kilmarnock & District PIPE Band. https://sites.google.com/a/kdpb.org/kil ... -band/Home )

[JWSutcliffe]

The sweet taste of success!

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After fabricating the new exhaust piping we installed it yesterday and had our first sail of the season. For anyone else replacing the exhaust on a Universal M25 - we used a 1 1/4 inch diameter high temperature silicone hump hose obtained from Catalina Direct, which made connection to the muffler much, much easier than with a length of conventional wire reinforced exhaust hose.

[Ken Cave]

How about stainless steel??

I just installed a new Volvo and the dealer fabricated one out of stainless steel. Cost was $540.00 and
as I am really old, it is worth every penny!! The riser off the engine itself is almost two feet with the mixer
on top. Hopefully this will curtail any water getting into the engine if and when I need to crank it over a
few seconds to start.

And, it should last a LONG TIME!!

Ken Cave
Dragon Tale #227