Well it's been interesting so far this year.
Last year at the end of the season my 2006 24 ssv starting making a horrible noise. Couldn't figure it out. Sounded like the starter was dragging. So tried taking it out again to figure out the problem and had a complete failure of the damper plate. So I decided to fix it myself. Wound up getting the transmission pulled by the Middle of December. Installed the new, much heavier damper plate, and put the transmission back in place. That way I wasn't straining the hull with wood blocks under the engine.
Then this spring I drug it back out. Installed the v drive, new fuel pump. and checked out a lot of things. Not happy with the condition of a lot of the engine components due to having been run in salt water and not taken care of very well. Then reinstalled the interior. Most of which had to come out so that I could pull the floor and get everything out of the way so I could pull the transmission.
So finally a couple weeks into May I was ready for the maiden voyage. We took it out and everything seemed to be working great. After a few sets of wakeboarding I could hear some funny engine sounds. So I opened the engine compartment and could hear the lifters tapping. So we shut it down and checked the oil. Nothing was showing on the dipstick. We got it back to the dock and loaded it on the trailer. Took it home and tried to find where the oil had went.
Well it was all in the bilge. So then came the task of finding where it was coming from. Went and bought a remote camera and started looking under the engine. Found that the oil lines from the remote filter mount on the engine were in bad shape. Decided to pull them and replace them. First one I grabbed just fell off in my hands. The fitting was rusted all the way through. So that explained where the engine leaked from. If anyone else has worked on these lines you know how tight it is to get to anything under there. Had to pull what I would call an oil/trans cooler. Then I could see the nipples on the part of the remote filter that screws on where the oil filter should go, were so ate up that I wouldn't be able to get the new lines on them.
So I eventually figured out how it mounted to the engine and was able to pull it off the engine. Couldn't get the correct fittings quickly so I just screwed the oil filter on under the engine. The wife wanted to go out that weekend and there was no way I could get the remote back together. So got it running and the engine sounded great. Credit to the 8.1 liter for being able to run that low on oil and not destroy itself. I had also put some lucas oil treatment in it, so I think that might have helped also.
So after a couple days out all seemed to be going well. Out with 11 people on board Monday and most didn't board so it wound up being a tubing afternoon. And after a couple hours of tubing I suddenly heard the engine get louder. My buddy went back to check it and said he thought it was just because of the wake. I should have stopped and checked myself. But I didn't. Then I looked at the temp gauge and noticed it was hot. Shut it down and she was pretty hot. Went back and could see a large amount of water coming out of the raw water pump. Reached down and could tell the entire front was off the pump. So we let her cool down. And then it started back up and we limped to the dock.
Found the pump and the 4 little brass bolts that hold it on in the bilge. Installed a new impeller, and checked the threads everything was good. So put it back together. I know I didn't super tighten them when I put it back together this spring as I didn't want to strip or break them. But thought I had put it together tight enough that they wouldn't just back out. Put them a little tighter this time and will recheck after each time on the lake.
Started it and sounds good at idle. So I am taking it out tomorrow after work to go boarding and hope that the 8.1 is still in good shape. No water in the oil so hopefully it didn't get too hot.
Wishing I knew then what I know now and I wouldn't have bought this boat after we launched it in salt water for the test drive. Love the boat and love the engine. But that salt water was tough on things that you really can't see unless you get underneath of the engine.
2006 24SSV 8.1 Vortec
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by michael hunter
