Engine help

[Karl]

So, as most of you are aware, I purchased Arthur from Robert over the winter. Arthur is a 25 foot 1960 Skagit with a 312 ford intercepter marine engine. Until now, Arthur has spent all of its life on the Columbia at Portland in freshwater. The engine is a direct cooled engine and I plan on using it in the south sound and on the canal. I will be trailering the boat and rinsing out after every usage, but I'm still worried about salt water in the engine.
I called Charlie up at pugetmarina and he told me that a new cooling system would probably run me around $3000, if I could even find one. For those of you with a lot more experience than I do, do you think I should do some more searching and find a cooling system or just use the boat as it is?

[61_express]

They really aren't a fan of the salt. Even flushing will leave some residual salt in the cast eventually causing a failure. Another big concern is that the original heads aren't designed for unleaded fuel, after a while the valves will recess and can in some cases destroy the head. Some say the lead substitute works but I can assure you Its just a stop gap measure as I just did a set of heads off of a 283 that the guy used it every full up and still had to junk the heads. If it were me I'd find a closed loop system on eBay and have hardened seats put in the heads. Then she will be good for another 50 years.

[Helmar]

So, as most of you are aware, I purchased Arthur from Robert over the winter. Arthur is a 25 foot 1960 Skagit with a 312 ford intercepter marine engine. Until now, Arthur has spent all of its life on the Columbia at Portland in freshwater. The engine is a direct cooled engine and I plan on using it in the south sound and on the canal. I will be trailering the boat and rinsing out after every usage, but I'm still worried about salt water in the engine.
I called Charlie up at pugetmarina and he told me that a new cooling system would probably run me around $3000, if I could even find one. For those of you with a lot more experience than I do, do you think I should do some more searching and find a cooling system or just use the boat as it is?

I know it can be done as Marty bought one that had been converted to fresh water cooling.
In fact, I took a salt water cooled engine and converted it to Fresh water. You can save yourself a LOT of money if you can pull this off yourself.
To bad I am so far away. I seen Arthur and been on board when she was in Portland but don't remember how much room is down in there..

Me, I would find a Donor boat or engine to pull the tank and second pump from. Hoses, stainless sleeves, all available if needed.
Lots of those donors around and if you find one were the engine or out drive went, bad, might get it, scrap the boat and sell the trailer ;-)

Tell me this, do you have a welder and cutting torch were you can make up your own mounts ?

Send some pictures of the front of the engine and lets see how much room you have.
If your Water pump on the front of the engine has the salt water pickup coming to it, you can change that by mounting a extra pump like you would a power steering like would be on a car.
That is GM so I would look for a GM or OMC setup for your tank. V8 tank size is V8 tank size so any tank off a V8 would do the trick.

So, get some pictures off the front of the engine and compartment area so we can see how much room you have first.

I even took a temp sending unit I installed that, if the engine started to overheat, it shorted out the coil stopped it so no burning up a engine. Nice fail safe.

This is called Innovative Fabrication and its not hard I can also call you if you like.

[Bflaherty]

This was the number one reason we didn't buy Arthur when we went down to look at him in 2012..

That motor and especially those exhaust manifolds will be gone in a season or two if not converted. The manifolds are going to be the harder portion to deal with as you have to find the correct saltwater versions for your particular heads. Like Helmar described above, the pump, tank and hoses are pretty simple to mount and any V8 pump and tank will work. You might want to consider remote mounting the tank on the bulkhead in front the engine of there isn't sufficient space below the decks.

My father took one look at that motor and imediately had a plan and an idea for price to convert. I will call him today and see if he remembers what and where he had in mind.

[Helmar]

Something else too. Not sure on the Zinc's. Can one Over Zinc a boat ?

I would make sure as I have seen Zinc's on rudders and such, but I am sure we have some of the boys that know Much more about then I do. If I ever take my Bearcat back into the salt, I will zinc it up just like John Nelson said, Use a Honda or some other 4 stroke as a example.

I remember Tim Jones talking about Friday Harbor went Hot and was eating the zinc's off his boat faster than they should.
Should have asked that question then, how come ??

Who understands the Zinc's and how they should be used in, Real Life.

[DMCI]

Who understands the Zinc's and how they should be used in, Real Life.

Is this a technical question? (Just joking!)

To us engineers, the zinc is more properly known as a sacrificial anode. When Ferrous and nonferrous alloys were introduced into ships, they found that over time valuable parts like shafts, propellers,through Hull fittings, rudders, and are things made of metal would be reduced to oxides and other things changing the character of metals so that they would be destroyed. The same engineers assisted by their friends the chemists decided that there was really nothing they could do to stop this. The only thing they could do is put in something cheaper and even more reactive than steel, brass,and bronze.
Fortunately, zinc was found to be perfect for thisapplication. Cheap, castable, with some structural capability that wouldsacrifice itself before those aforementioned alloys. You can put them in closeproximity to those parts you find reacting through electrolysis on the boat.Theoretically, you can’t put too much zinc on a boat, especially those insaltwater which behaves like an acid. The biggest negative is the extra addedweight which becomes counterproductive at some point.

More critical than anything is to keep an eye on the zinc’sespecially around outboard motors and Stern drives where elegant little zinc’sdon’t have much life and needs to be replace periodically. The downside is thatonce a zinc material goes away the electrolysis begins looking up the list formaterials to react. So those zincs are vastly less expensive than engine parts,propellers, and what have you.

Please note that rather than putting a zinc on a motor you can also buy a piece of zinc suitable for bolting to the boat within one to two feet of the motor. I'm might suggest a piece of zinc 0.5 x 4 x 6" mounted on the transom below the waterline.