Secret Water Test

Now that the motor was in we were pretty keen to see how the boat went in the water. There were actually a number of secret water tests. The first was when we did not have the steering in place and was to basically run the motor and see if the cooling water from the pump was working OK.

Here we are at a local river running the motor.

It all seemed OK but we could not put any load on the motor as we had to keep it tied up to the trailer. There was water coming out of the tell-tale so I assumed it was OK.

A couple of weeks later the steering was in and we could test it in the water for real. We went further upstream on the same river to a local water skiing spot early on a Saturday morning when no one else was around.

Here is the boat being held by my son James after slipping it in properly for the first time.

Note that there is no decking anywhere and the dashboard and seat beams are held in place with temporary blocks.

Well off we went – at idle anyway.

Hmm turns OK. Let’s get it up on the plane. Here is where it all turned pear shaped. Firstly we had serious problems getting the boat to take off and make the transition to planning. It took lots of revs and some time to coax it out of the hole and onto the plane. It seemed to be cavitating – or so I thought at the time.

Anyway off we went down the river for a bit. The steering was very direct and the boat seemed to turn reasonably well. Of course we could not put it into any hard turns as there was no deck and I was quite concerned about water coming in over the sides.

After 30 seconds or so of traveling at planning speed I stopped so that I could turn around without swamping the boat only to discover that the motor was absolutely stinking hot! Quick checks of the water cooling lines seemed OK so I pulled off the tell-tale line and checked what was coming out – next to nothing!

We let it cool down for a while and putted back to the boat ramp and went home dejected. Ah the highs and lows of boat building.

To cut a long story short the motor was missing, yes missing, a gasket between the exhaust manifold and the water cooled exhaust riser. This was allowing the cooling water to be pumped straight into the exhaust, cooling it nicely, but not sending anywhere near enough into the motor. Fixing it took a while as I ended up pulling off the head and the intake manifold (which was severely seized on). I was pretty confidant that we had the problem sorted so I decided not to put it back into the water until it is finished.