Thread: water in cylinders

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As I mentioned, I can't see head gaskets or even a bad exhaust manifold or riser doing that. In the whole time I worked in the marine industry I can't remember an engine getting EVERY cylinder wet unless it was ingested down the carb or back through the exhaust. You will usually see two cylinders next to each other go if it is a head gasket, and maybe one side of the engine if a manifold or riser go bad, but I don't see how the entire engine gets soaked.

Lots of questions I would be asking you if I was taking this boat in for service. How long have you had it? How has it been performing up til now? Did this just start on your last outing or have you seen it before? What were you doing when you noticed the problem? How much water are you getting in the cylinders? Does your boat have rubber flappers on the ends of the exhaust pipes and are they in good condition? Is your exhaust modified in any way, ie, do you have risers that are mounted higher than the waterline? Did you overheat the engine recently? When you shut it off does it run on (diesel)? ( that makes the engine a very effective water pump, in reverse)

Chris Craft had a problem with one model boat where they mounted the engine too low, and it would suck water back into the engine when slowing down. Their fix was to install a spacer under the riser so the water couldn't come back up the hot exhaust. I think you have something like that going on.

Shoot us some pictures of what you have, as many as possible, and I'll try to give you more areas to look at. Your plan to run it on the muffs is a good way to check BTW.

Don

it is a berkely pacajet must be some production run ford did for glastron. last yr i sucked have the bottom of lake huron up the pump overheated it bent 4 valves & push rods etc, tore it down sent the heads out new lifters rocker rollers etc . yesterday i pulled the hoses off that feed the wet logs started the boat ran great no water. turned the boat off let the water just run for 5 min with the log feeding hoses 80% piched off. got in turned the key fired right up ran good. must be cracked logs or risers or both like you thought. ran good no water in my oil afterwords.but like ya said before my top end rebuild it ran about the temp at :the surface of the sun lol still havnt got all the burnt rubber off the back of the hull!!!!

I think you have narrowed it down pretty well to the exhaust logs. I'm not familiar with those, we dealt more with conventional Mercruiser, Volvo, etc cast iron manifolds and risers. You may be able to have those pressure tested to see if there are cracks that are allowing water to get into places it shouldn't be. Sometimes these cracks open up when the boat warms up. You might be able to pull them off and look down the exhaust ports on the logs and see if you can see signs of water coming in there (rust trails usually)

The fact that you overheated the boat so bad could have contributed to them cracking. All manifolds have a certain life expectancy anyway........running in fresh water vs salt water helps a lot, but still they will wear out in time.

Lots of the Berkley powered boats ran big block Fords and Olds, it seems. I looked at buying one years ago that had a 460 in it too.

Don

the riser gaskets were burnt & not all there which would let water cascade down into the exhaust & one intake was cracked as well! gaskets on way & gonna get the cracks welded. thanks again & jet boats dont run worth a damm on sand lol