Lugnutz
Member
For those that were asking for a thread, I thought I would start one for the cleanup of the engine room.
A little bit of history on the boat. It’s a 1985 Searay 300 Sedan Bridge with twin Mercruiser/GM 350’s and V-drive transmissions. The boat is new to us as of the fall (Sept/Oct) of last year. So, it’s a new adventure for us.
The interior/exterior was pretty clean and was kept up but the engine room was on the dirty side. After spending some time on it now, it appears to me that the prior owners did all the interior and exterior cosmetic stuff but had a few different shops do any mechanical work to it. I have seen some of their handy work and receipts for what they charged and I will fix what they did or didn’t do as it goes back together.
The two biggest issues at this point and what started the project are all four seacocks are frozen in the open position and the starboard transmission output shaft seal leaks. There is very limited room to get to them let alone repair/replace them. As I figured and based on the advice from many on this forum, it was a no brainer to pull the engines out. I knew I would find more issues that needed addressed as we went along and have not been disappointed.
I have a couple of friends and a wonderful girlfriend that are helping with the project and we are hoping to have it done by the middle of July as long as there are no significant surprises. As a side note, I am not a professional and I don’t know everything. If you see anything that is done wrong or could be done better or something I missed please speak up.
Let’s start with a picture with the engines in before the removal. At this point, both engines are running sweet and we have discovered the oil leak on the transmission and a few other things for the to-do list.
The water bottle shows limited room between the engines for those that don’t know.
Seized and limited room to get to the seacock.
Looks like somebody attached the ground wire to the drain plug. Actually, all of them were done this way.
Can’t see the dripping but look lower left, that’s all trans fluid in the bilge.
Engines pulled out. You can see the mess that needs to get cleaned up.
Seized Gen set seacock. If you look close you can see the crack in the hose. There are actually many cracks in the hose and the amazing one was is it was cracked through between the hose clamps. The clamps were hardly tight and hose pulled right off without any effort. And the last picture, it’s a 1” hose and two clamps are used to draw it down on a ¾’ nipple. Now remember, the seacock is seized in the open position. When I removed the sea-strainer there was grass and seaweed in the filter so the Genset was used last summer. Yikes!
Here’s one that shows how bad the transmission leak was. The first picture was taken last Monday night and the following picture was taken on the following Thursday morning.
The prop shaft couplers were rusted and corroded so bad that I had to use a sawzall to cut the bolts and we used a lil bit of heat and a puller to get them to slide off.
This is where we are now. I got the couplers and stuffing boxes out this afternoon and we started cleaning the bilge. I have the Admiral working her magic with the oily mess. We used kitty litter to soak up all the oil and mixed Dawn dish soap and Tide with water in a sprayer and its cutting right through the oily mess. She was not happy about me taking the picture of her being all dirty but she has been pretty helpful with everything so far.
I will post more info and pictures as I get more done.
On a side note, how would you guys remove these seacocks? I believe they are the Spartan brand valves and more than likely are original. There are two wood screws that hold it to the bottom and my guess is that it is screwed to the through hull fitting that is attached to the bottom as in the third picture. There is no room to get a wrench in there and putting a pipe wrench on the top just oblongs the hose opening.
A little bit of history on the boat. It’s a 1985 Searay 300 Sedan Bridge with twin Mercruiser/GM 350’s and V-drive transmissions. The boat is new to us as of the fall (Sept/Oct) of last year. So, it’s a new adventure for us.
The interior/exterior was pretty clean and was kept up but the engine room was on the dirty side. After spending some time on it now, it appears to me that the prior owners did all the interior and exterior cosmetic stuff but had a few different shops do any mechanical work to it. I have seen some of their handy work and receipts for what they charged and I will fix what they did or didn’t do as it goes back together.
The two biggest issues at this point and what started the project are all four seacocks are frozen in the open position and the starboard transmission output shaft seal leaks. There is very limited room to get to them let alone repair/replace them. As I figured and based on the advice from many on this forum, it was a no brainer to pull the engines out. I knew I would find more issues that needed addressed as we went along and have not been disappointed.
I have a couple of friends and a wonderful girlfriend that are helping with the project and we are hoping to have it done by the middle of July as long as there are no significant surprises. As a side note, I am not a professional and I don’t know everything. If you see anything that is done wrong or could be done better or something I missed please speak up.
Let’s start with a picture with the engines in before the removal. At this point, both engines are running sweet and we have discovered the oil leak on the transmission and a few other things for the to-do list.
The water bottle shows limited room between the engines for those that don’t know.
Seized and limited room to get to the seacock.
Looks like somebody attached the ground wire to the drain plug. Actually, all of them were done this way.
Can’t see the dripping but look lower left, that’s all trans fluid in the bilge.
Engines pulled out. You can see the mess that needs to get cleaned up.
Seized Gen set seacock. If you look close you can see the crack in the hose. There are actually many cracks in the hose and the amazing one was is it was cracked through between the hose clamps. The clamps were hardly tight and hose pulled right off without any effort. And the last picture, it’s a 1” hose and two clamps are used to draw it down on a ¾’ nipple. Now remember, the seacock is seized in the open position. When I removed the sea-strainer there was grass and seaweed in the filter so the Genset was used last summer. Yikes!
Here’s one that shows how bad the transmission leak was. The first picture was taken last Monday night and the following picture was taken on the following Thursday morning.
The prop shaft couplers were rusted and corroded so bad that I had to use a sawzall to cut the bolts and we used a lil bit of heat and a puller to get them to slide off.
This is where we are now. I got the couplers and stuffing boxes out this afternoon and we started cleaning the bilge. I have the Admiral working her magic with the oily mess. We used kitty litter to soak up all the oil and mixed Dawn dish soap and Tide with water in a sprayer and its cutting right through the oily mess. She was not happy about me taking the picture of her being all dirty but she has been pretty helpful with everything so far.
I will post more info and pictures as I get more done.
On a side note, how would you guys remove these seacocks? I believe they are the Spartan brand valves and more than likely are original. There are two wood screws that hold it to the bottom and my guess is that it is screwed to the through hull fitting that is attached to the bottom as in the third picture. There is no room to get a wrench in there and putting a pipe wrench on the top just oblongs the hose opening.
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