Thread: water in cylinders

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got a 460 in my jet boat but have been getting water in my cylinders but not my oil! intake crack or gasket? runs like crap on water lmfao

head gasket

Most common source of water in marine engine cylinders are leaking exhaust manifolds or risers. Do you have wet exhaust on that boat? If so, they have a certain life expectancy, even the SS ones.

If that isn't the problem I would look at head gaskets next. What cylinders exactly are getting the water in them?

Don

they are wet logs but the freaky thing is i was getting water on all cylinders when i pulled the plugs & turned here over they all were wet?

Did this just happen once? You might have backed off the throttle too fast and ingested water up the exhaust from backwash. Do you have flappers over the exhaust or baffles inside? You can suck water up the tailpipes if you back down too quickly.

I'd blow out the cylinders and fire it up and see if you are still getting water. Generally, you will only get water in one or two cylinders if there is a head gasket or manifold problem. The fact you have water in all cylinders tells me something else happened.

Don

ya i had water in one then couple hrs of use later all cyl. im gonna pull the logs tommorow put water to the motor & fire here up, figure no water in cyl after test ehaust was cause. water still commin in something else. just like to say thanks to everybody that replied! woud love to solve the prob before i get to the head gaskets. head gasket & intake gaskets were new last fall after an over heat top end rebuild

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