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  #51   IP: 69.138.231.172
Old 03-26-2010, 06:36 PM
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What's too much force?

As I tap a screwdriver into the gap how agressive can I be? I don't want to crack the head or displace metal along the mating edges. Can I pound in with some force or do I need to just solidly tap? I know that's a hard question to ansewer. One guys tap is another brute force blow.
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Old 03-26-2010, 07:20 PM
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When I did my head gasket replacement I made some wedges out of 2X4s with very small angles. I used a screwdriver with a bit of force just to open up the gap the slightest bit. Then I put the wooden wedges in there and hammered away, moving around the head as the gap opened.

If you make the wedges small enough (5-10 deg) you might be able to get them in there with a hammer and not even need a screwdriver.

Don't be too scared.
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Old 03-26-2010, 07:25 PM
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ROBH2: A “hive tool” works well for this job. Dan S/V Marian Claire
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Old 03-26-2010, 07:59 PM
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I will be in Baltimore tomorrow afternoon. No problem stopping off in Fells Point. Call me w/marina and slip no. Two day stud soaking w/the blaster did the trick for me. Your motor does not look that bad.
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Old 03-26-2010, 09:24 PM
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Hive Tool

Had to look that one up. I have what is almost identical...a pry bar...not a crowbar mind you... Good idea.
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Old 03-27-2010, 01:06 AM
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Hive tool, huh. I had no idea what that was going to be, but it is indeed beekeeper miscellany.
http://www.danskfarms.com/servlet/th...ve-Tool/Detail

Good tip, probably better than the "Wonder Bar" I keep onboard and rarely ever use.

This should win some kind of award for most arcane piece of technology brought to bear against an Atomic Four.

Last edited by tenders; 03-27-2010 at 01:08 AM.
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Old 03-27-2010, 07:50 AM
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Sparkplugs???? Dan S/V Marian Claire
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Old 03-27-2010, 08:42 AM
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Baltimore on Saturday

Quote:
Originally Posted by keelcooler View Post
I will be in Baltimore tomorrow afternoon. No problem stopping off in Fells Point. Call me w/marina and slip no. Two day stud soaking w/the blaster did the trick for me. Your motor does not look that bad.
John, I PM'd you with my phone number. Did you receive it?

-Rob
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Old 03-28-2010, 12:09 AM
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Head is Off

I had the pleasure of an expert stopping by today to oversee my head removal. John "keelcooler" dropped by to see what kind of a mess I was making. With his encouragement and direction I was able to get the head off in about an hour. It doesn't look too bad.

We also noticed that the "Cylinder Water inlet manifold" looked pretty bad. John suggested I take care of it properly while I had everything apart...I agreed. I began to remove the bolts. Four of them rung off. Crap...

I spent the next four hours using a bolt extractor set getting them out. I then dressed the threads with a tap. So, that's done.

When I went to turn the brass pipe that led to the water jacket drain between the water pump and the alternator it just fell off leaving its threads in the hole. I haven't tackled removing them yet. I see in a post here how to take care of it.

I also included a photo of my vinegar cleaned thermostat. Unfortunately pretty doesn't make it work. I put it in a pot of water which began to boil and nothing happened. Looks like I'll need a new one.

So that's the progress for today. I'll keep updating...

--Rob




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Last edited by RobH2; 03-28-2010 at 01:43 AM.
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Old 03-28-2010, 08:56 AM
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Nice job guys. Those cooling passageways can be tough to clean. I ended up having to carefully drill some of that stuff out. An ice pick was also handy. Do you plan to pull the manifold?
As a side note: notice how even the color is on your head and block. On the pics I posted see how black #4 is. That is where I found the broken rings. FWIW.
Dan S/V Marian Claire
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Old 03-28-2010, 09:35 AM
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Thanks Dan. Yea, it looks pretty good and the water ports were goopy but only a couple were completely blocked. I used an icepick to open them and then I scraped them all out. I will muriatic acid flush the engine once I get it back together. In fact, I may do it, run it for a few hours and do it again to get all the crap out. That won't hurt anything will it...doing it twice in a short period?

When I pulled the water inlet cover plate off a bunch of bolts sheered but inside it wasn't full of potato chips. It had 'some' gunk but I expected it to be a solid log-jam mess from what I'd been reading. It was not bad at all. I guess that's a good sign too.

I think part of my "suspected but not fully verified" overheating is due to the fact that I had a "closed" and not-functioning thermostat. I need to repair my water temp gauge now so I can keep an eye on it. Where do they typically fail? Are the solenoids (or sender...whatever it's called) prone to failure? I have a gauge but it just sits at zero? I haven't diagnosed it yet so I'm just asking blue-sky questions. I need to trace the line and see how it's hooked up, if it uses power or if there is a break in the sender line or something. I do have a laser thermometer so I can check the head temp when necessary.

Yea, pulled the manifold yesterday too post photo. It's clean as a whistle and was apparently serviced in the recent past.

More later on the continuing saga...
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Last edited by RobH2; 03-28-2010 at 09:46 AM.
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Old 03-28-2010, 10:24 AM
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I think that motor will clean up just fine. That head gasket was just thin paper w/out reinforcement. Rob found paper work aboard suggesting engine was replaced in 1980. It appears to be one of the latest models. Glad the side plate bolts did not represent a major problem. Get a new plate w/welded on alternator bracket. Use brass washers on the bolts.

What a rock solid full keel boat. Keep an eye out for leaks around the fuel tank. The alum. tank appears to be mounted directly on top of a ply shelf w/out isolation materials. I think the vetus muffler will work best in your location. I located that tool and will mail tomorrow. What a small world and good luck w/your cooling system.
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Old 03-28-2010, 10:41 AM
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When you say “sits at zero” what is the lowest reading on the gauge? I would place the sensor in a pot of hot H2O and see if it reads. I assume that was it in the pic just below the T-stat housing. I have an early model so the head is different and I am not familiar with the flow pattern. I have used a torch to pass a little heat over the sensor but not sure how safe that is on the boat. You could have good flow over the sensor and poor flow thru the head giving the low but accurate gauge reading and the head hot spots. Dan S/V Marian Claire
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Old 03-28-2010, 01:43 PM
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Exhaust question

I'm in the middle of modifying the hot section of my exhaust due to water intrusion into the cylinders and so I'm particularly keyed in to this aspect. Looking at the pictures of your engine, it appears that the point where water is introduced to the hot section is actually on the downhill (manifold) side of the riser. Could this be the case? If so, no matter how new your exhaust is, you are destined for trouble. Maybe Keelcooler can comment on the actual configuration since he was on the boat. The perspective from the pictures could be misleading also.

FWIW, I'm also in the middle of pulling my head to replace several broken springs. I'll post the whole saga as it unfolded when I'm done.

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Old 03-28-2010, 03:12 PM
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It does appear that way. Rob has a Yanmar cast iron jacketed riser loop fitting. Water is discharged and mixed after the loop. That's why no fiber glass wrap has been applied to the water cooled exterior.

I would suspect PO had cooling systems problems and replaced manifold,pipe and riser. He should have also replaced a damaged muffler. Only run the a4 aboard with a gas tight exhaust system.
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Old 03-28-2010, 10:08 PM
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I'm not sure what you guys are saying. Is there a problem with my exhaust or not? I removed the manifold and it looks very, very clean.

What is a "gas tight" exhaust?

Rob
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Old 03-28-2010, 10:16 PM
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Rob - I am curious?

Does your vessel have a centre board that can be raised and lowered with a winch handle from the cockpit?

Cheers.
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Old 03-28-2010, 10:33 PM
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No Rob, if the point where the water actually enters the flow of exhaust gases is sufficiently below the high point of the hot exhaust (4" is the commonly accepted minimum), there should be no problem with that particular part of the configuration.

I was not familiar with the way your mixing elbow is designed on the inside. From the outside it looked like the water entered at the high point of the hot exhaust, but Keelcooler seems sure that this is not the case.

Qben
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Old 03-28-2010, 11:03 PM
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Thanks for the clarification on my exhaust. And, NO, I don't have a centerboard. It's a 36 foot boat with a fin keel.

http://sailboatdata.com/VIEWRECORD.ASP?CLASS_ID=1372

Rob
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Old 03-29-2010, 08:42 AM
keelcooler keelcooler is offline
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Your exhaust and new muffler look fine and appears exhaust gas (CO) tight.
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Old 03-29-2010, 09:31 AM
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I think so. Since it's off right now I have ordered a new gasket to be sure along with all the other gaskets, bolts, etc.

Moving along...
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Old 03-29-2010, 10:35 AM
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Great

Keep up the good work Rob..sounds like you are moving along nicely!
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Old 03-29-2010, 01:06 PM
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Thanks Shawn. The head is at a machine shop right not getting cleaned and magnafluxed. They may have to plane it as there is a gouge between cyl 1 and cyl 2. That's where the head gasket must have been blown and it burned across it looks like.

Hopefully by the end of the week I can start her and see if life is good again. You guys have been so much help.

I'll keep posting till the end.

-Rob
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  #74   IP: 69.138.231.172
Old 04-01-2010, 10:36 PM
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WooHoo...It's done my friends...

It's done. The old girl is back together. I was afraid to try to start it at first and kept checking for whatever I might have forgotten to replace. After triple checking everything I turned the fuel valve and went to the starter switch. It turned over for about 10 seconds (replacing the empty fuel line I guess) and the it fired right up. It's amazing how much better it sounds on 4 cylinders instead of two.

It was smoking a lot which had me worried. I set my Dwell to a perfect 32 and began timing by rotating the distributor. When everything was tuned and timed correctly the smoke stopped and the engine was purring like a kitten. No smoke was filling the cabin for the first time.

The big test was to see what RPM's I could get under load. Prior to all of this my max was 900 in forward. I put it in forward in the slip and began to throttle up. I got up to 2000 RPM and then it slipped out of forward. I read the Moyer manual and finally figured out how to adjust the clutch. I think I need to add one more notch but all in all, the engine sounds fantastic. It's much quieter with 4 cylinders too. That's surprising but because it's running more efficiently I guess there is less stress on all of the components, thus, quieter.

John, your valve tool worked so well. It's difficult to get the two retaining pieces in without constantly dropping them but on the 7th one I figured out a good way to do it. A while back I bought this 3/8" magnet on the end of what looks like an old am/fm radio antenna. The magnet is really strong, so much so that if you have a bolt between the magnet and another piece of steel the magnet will go through the bolt and stick the bolt to the steel. I placed on valve retainer on the tip of the little round magnet and stuck it to the valve. I placed my finger on that first one to hold it there. Then I picked up the second retainer and using the magnet positioned it beside the first one. The magnet is so strong that it pulled the first retainer through the valve and held it in place while I loosened the valve tool to encapsulate them both. It worked perfectly and I used it on the 8th valve. I wish I'd done it for all of them. It’s really hard to do valves in the water but I finally got them all. My back is killing me though…

I don't have photos. I forgot to take my camera down. I'll get some later. But, the bottom line is that she's running beautifully.

Thanks so much to everyone who guided me and held my hand. I'd never owned a marine engine before and came into this being completely ignorant about the entire engine. I now know every piece of it and am completely confident that I can handle whatever it throws at me. I hope nothing...LOL...

I'll post some photos later...

Best regards to all...
:
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Last edited by RobH2; 04-02-2010 at 09:03 AM.
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Old 04-02-2010, 07:20 AM
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Congratulations and just in time for spring. Enjoy. Dan S/V Marian Claire
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