$4000 later

[SquamInboards]

WOW, I'm glad you're ok. Yeah there are some boats with 2 bilge plugs and that's very confusing. I'm sure you'll never forget again after that experience, but I always lift up the engine cover and check the bilge for leaks of any kind, launching any boat for any reason. You never know!

Sometimes people will put the plug(s) in a little plastic bag, then stick the key right through the bag so you really can't miss it.

Keep an eye on your oil, just to be sure you didn't get water up too high. Did the starter get wet?

Oh yeah and I'm glad it didn't overheat - yay! That's a sweet automotive hose you had there.

[Cusefan78]

Congrats on getting her running. You should head over and have a talk with that other mechanic. What he did is crazy.

[Awill10291]

How would the water have raised or affected my oil level? I had the oil changed recently. Unfortunately during that debacle when I closed the dog house, the oil checker tube and metal rod got all smashed by the dog house... The rod now doesn't go completely back down into the tube. Is this really hard to replace? Obviously I need it to check my oil, but also what oil pressure should my boat run at? 80 on the meter? Also IDK if the starter got wet. It starts right up so I'm guessing no right? Thank God.

[SquamInboards]

How would the water have raised or affected my oil level? I had the oil changed recently. Unfortunately during that debacle when I closed the dog house, the oil checker tube and metal rod got all smashed by the dog house... The rod now doesn't go completely back down into the tube. Is this really hard to replace? Obviously I need it to check my oil, but also what oil pressure should my boat run at? 80 on the meter? Also IDK if the starter got wet. It starts right up so I'm guessing no right? Thank God.

The reason I'm mentioning your oil is that if the water was high enough to get into the dipstick tube (it doesn't sound like it) then you may have water in the oil.

The starter is often mounted low enough on these engines (although I'm not that familiar with yours specifically) that they can get wet with a lot of water in the bilge. It won't necessarily have issues right away, but it may start to struggle if it got water inside. If you don't think the water got up that high, then no worries.

I suspect the dipstick tube is pretty easy to replace if you have good access to it with the cover up. As far as oil pressure, this is more about content than pressure or level. But I know mine sits right around 50psi at idle (according to the gauge). Someone else may have more info on that... maybe the 460 is a bit different? Again, my concern isn't related to pressure so much as whether any water got in.

I'm probably being overly cautious about the water intrusion, but it's something to be aware of. Get that dipstick tube working, and next time you go out, check the oil after running it, it should look... like oil ... and not like a milkshake.

[Cusefan78]

The dipstick tubes just pull out. Some of them have a bracket on the tube that is booted to the block. If it has one unbolt and pull.

[Awill10291]

GHETTO Fabulous Tower.

[Awill10291]

[img=http://s3.postimg.org/i2j4k5pf3/download_20160417_224027.jpg]

Got the wet suit out and burrr it was cold but good wakeboard session! The beast ran great. Needs some expert info though. So I put about 300lbs of weight/ballasts up under the closed bow. I had 6 people average weight of 180lbs on the boat. The boat seemed very very hard to get it to plane off at wake boarding speeds! Do I need MORE ballasts/weight in the front? Or maybe I need ballast in the back? At 18-23mph it sometimes felt like the front of the boat was straight up and down. Help please!

[Wulphie]

You need to be wakeboarding around 25mph.

[cadunkle]

Factory pitot speedometer? You may be going slower than you think, I'm not familiar with that hull but I'd imagine it should be easy to stay on plane by 20 MPH. Check it with GPS when the water is still to be sure it's accurate. If you have a paddlewheel or GPS already then maybe you have extra weight in the rear (wet foam) or too low RPM for speed.

[Awill10291]

I'm sure there is some wet foam. In theory, would more sandbags/rockbags/ballast under the front closed bow help the boat plane out? I've wakeboarded for many years and had a phone app to track the speedometer. We were going 22mph and the front of the boat was very high up in the air it seemed like. I need a HUGE wake in order to do flips/get massive air, so I do plan on adding tons of weigh all throughout the boat, but need enough weight maybe in the front in order for it to plane out at 20-24mph.