Bravoitis or deeper overheating issue

Borescope for the manifolds and risers??
I thought you were going to replace them, especially with the photos of the old ones you posted In post #28.
 
Agree and a borescope isn't going to tell you how much wall thickness you have left between exhaust chamber and water jacket
 
Espos4 said:
Borescope for the manifolds and risers??
I thought you were going to replace them, especially with the photos of the old ones you posted In post #28.
Click to expand...

Correction, thanks espos4. I did purchase new manifolds and risers. This mechanic will be taking them back off though to verify the previous mechanic did it correctly, and of course reinstall new gaskets.
The borescope is for the cylinders, making sure they aren’t marked and scored.
 
i feel your pain on getting screwed over by a mechanic. I bought a project boat with a blown engine, sourced a good used motor and got a mechanic recommendation from a friend. Pricing seemed reasonable, not crazy high like so many shops but also not crackhead low to raise concerns. Motor was swapped in and things seemed good but they were also supposed to pull outdrive and give all of that a good once over. I too had an overheat problem first trip out and what sucks is that first trip was 3 months after i got the boat back from them because i was waiting on my upholstery guy to finish work and he was jerking me around. So they are trying to claim that i have been running the boat and screwed it up, meanwhile i literally have pictures of the tach showing they got the boat with 408 hrs on the clock and now it has 409.4 LOL I had run the boat a handful of times on the muffs which represented the whopping hour of use and the .4 was probably from the sea trial i did with them! At any rate, I too found a new mechanic who has been excellent. What started out as replacing of a cracked gimbal ring has turned into him seeing the gimbal bearing is shot (was supposed to be replaced by other guy), Seals in the upper unit shot (was supposed to be checked by other mechanic), trim sender wires improperly installed in a fashion that could have sunk the damn boat, etc. It's insane, there is so much money to be made out there doing GOOD work, I don't know why these people operate like this!!!!!
 
WetPleasure said:
i feel your pain on getting screwed over by a mechanic. I bought a project boat with a blown engine, sourced a good used motor and got a mechanic recommendation from a friend. Pricing seemed reasonable, not crazy high like so many shops but also not crackhead low to raise concerns. Motor was swapped in and things seemed good but they were also supposed to pull outdrive and give all of that a good once over. I too had an overheat problem first trip out and what sucks is that first trip was 3 months after i got the boat back from them because i was waiting on my upholstery guy to finish work and he was jerking me around. So they are trying to claim that i have been running the boat and screwed it up, meanwhile i literally have pictures of the tach showing they got the boat with 408 hrs on the clock and now it has 409.4 LOL I had run the boat a handful of times on the muffs which represented the whopping hour of use and the .4 was probably from the sea trial i did with them! At any rate, I too found a new mechanic who has been excellent. What started out as replacing of a cracked gimbal ring has turned into him seeing the gimbal bearing is shot (was supposed to be replaced by other guy), Seals in the upper unit shot (was supposed to be checked by other mechanic), trim sender wires improperly installed in a fashion that could have sunk the damn boat, etc. It's insane, there is so much money to be made out there doing GOOD work, I don't know why these people operate like this!!!!!
Click to expand...

I hear ya! It almost makes me want to open my own marine shop. By simply doing honest work and managing client expectations, there’s a lot of money to be had. Good reliable mechanics seem to be so hard to find these days.
 
Quick update:
Engine is out of the boat and getting a full review of everything. Thus far, the following has been completed:
-New Starter installed
-New Alternator installed
-New raw water pump housing, impeller, gaskets, and bolts installed
-Heads/ valves redone
-New 165 degree thermostat and gaskets installed.
-New manifolds, gaskets, risers, and elbows installed
-Cylinder walls look fairly smooth, and plenty of wall thickness remains.
-Pistons and rings look great

Items currently on order:
-All new bellows/ transom seals throughout, since the outdrive is off as well right now
-New Coupler on the fly wheel (You can see in the picture that the current one is about done)
-Engine Mounts and oil pan (because why not...the engine's out)

Props and prop shaft look great; prop shaft grease showed no metal flakes anywhere. The U-joints moved freely and very smooth with no wiggle or play. 2nd picture shows a little corrosion in the lower port cavity, inside the outdrive, but nothing a wire brush and some corrosion controls chemicals cant fix...just me being nit picky.

While the engine is out, I plan on cleaning up the bilge and making it more orderly by rerouting “afterthought” wires (installed by the previous owner) to clean up and simplify the space, as well as removing superfluous capped hoses/ pipes. I also took the time to label each wire with tags from where the wire starts to where it terminates, with a description of what each wire is.

Huge undertaking but hopefully well worth it. Next season, I’ll be tearing apart the outdrive and inspecting it from head to toe.

Whoever owns this boat next will have no doubt about its reliability or the history of the maintenance that was done on it; a sale both parties can be confident in…whenever that time comes.

Anything else I need to check before I throw her all back together?
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1719.jpg
    IMG_1719.jpg
    131.4 KB · Views: 155
  • IMG_1720.jpg
    IMG_1720.jpg
    131.5 KB · Views: 151
  • IMG_1721.jpg
    IMG_1721.jpg
    97.6 KB · Views: 157
  • IMG_1722.jpg
    IMG_1722.jpg
    119.4 KB · Views: 147
  • IMG_1723.jpg
    IMG_1723.jpg
    137.8 KB · Views: 158
  • IMG_1724.jpg
    IMG_1724.jpg
    119.2 KB · Views: 154
Last edited:
You might think about replacing the cool fuel pump while the engine is out.

I had to pull my engine to replace the transom assembly mid season and wasn’t able to replace the CF on my 2003/6.2L/B3 at that time. The CF unit is inaccessible with the engine in the boat, so we had to partially pull the engine 2 years later to replace it. Could have saved about $1500 in mechanic time had I replaced it when the engine was out.
 
ColoSR said:
You might think about replacing the cool fuel pump while the engine is out.

I had to pull my engine to replace the transom assembly mid season and wasn’t able to replace the CF on my 2003/6.2L/B3 at that time. The CF unit is inaccessible with the engine in the boat, so we had to partially pull the engine 2 years later to replace it. Could have saved about $1500 in mechanic time had I replaced it when the engine was out.
Click to expand...
All items within the cool fuel unit were replaced last season, but thanks!
 
Rotorhead, how's it going? You on the water yet? Just came from my 5th failed seatrial. Motor cool at low Ron but getting hot above 3000. Looking for solutions lol. I think I. About to install the thru Hull since my boat is a 99 it could be bravoitis.
 
Ok all, after much trial and error, and a lot of troubleshooting, the new mechanic found a hairline crack on Cylinder 7 (Cracked block). Can't say this was the culprit of the overheating, how long it has been there, or (most likely) if this was simply the cause of the block overheating. Either way, it has made my decision easy and I have to replace the motor.

I have about another 3-4 weeks until the install is complete. Whole new engine, risers, manifolds, etc. so if the overheating issue continues, the only remaining factor that hasn't been really touched is a clogged or crap install of the through hull. For anyone interested, the cost of the new engine and labor was just shy of $10K. Obviously, this may be a little high or low, dependent upon your location so do with this info as you will.

Hopefully I should be back on the water late this spring, as I'm adding Aquamarine decking and possibly flush-mounting a Garmin or Raymarine GPS unit into the dashboard.
 
I solved my problem then discovered a whole new host of problems that led to me taking motor out and rebuilding . I did install the through hull but once the motor had to come out we were able to get in and fix the bravoitis itself I'll dig up a picture of that it was clearly a problem. Still having trouble getting the rebuild motor to run right just got the car back from another rebuild hoping that solves my problem and it's back on the water this week so I can sell it.
 
scoflaw said:
Please elaborate, you talking about the 500 hp peanut motor?
Click to expand...
The 425hp peanut motor yes. At the time I responded to this thread the used motor was installed and not running right. We swapped out fuel pump and had carb rebuilt as both had evidence of water in them. Then boat ran great. Friend took it out and it ran great for 4 hours til it blew up. That was when we took it out, took it apart and began the rebuild.
 
IMG_20211210_134515.jpg
Here is pic of the bravoitis that we discovered after we pulled the blown engine out. So we went ahead and fixed that and now we have thru hull and thruy drive cooling
 
F37CA7AA-CBDF-4960-92C4-3B2127170790.jpeg
When I replaced my motor on my last boat, I went through this but believe it or not, this boat never overheated. I replaced the transom assembly while the motor was out.
 
WetPleasure said:
I solved my problem then discovered a whole new host of problems that led to me taking motor out and rebuilding . I did install the through hull but once the motor had to come out we were able to get in and fix the bravoitis itself I'll dig up a picture of that it was clearly a problem. Still having trouble getting the rebuild motor to run right just got the car back from another rebuild hoping that solves my problem and it's back on the water this week so I can sell it.
Click to expand...
Are you selling for good, or just looking at a different boat?
 
WetPleasure said:
View attachment 122148Here is pic of the bravoitis that we discovered after we pulled the blown engine out. So we went ahead and fixed that and now we have thru hull and thruy drive cooling
Click to expand...
Never heard of "Thru drive cooling" could you elaborate? I have a thru hull intake though...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,118
Messages
1,426,526
Members
61,035
Latest member
Lukerney
Back
Top