1998 252 updating thread

[xlint89]

Draining the old black coffee known as out drive oil. Lots of sludge in the reservoir.

Going to replace the fuel pump while I'm this far into it. Something brought to my attention when discussing the fuel pump is Merc uses a heat transfer compound between the fuel pump and mounting bracket to pull heat away from the fuel pump. Never heard about that. Pretty sure John said it's also used under the module in the distributor. He says it's supposed to be cleaned off and replaced every 4-5 years as regular maintenance. Obviously no one ever does it though.

[akorcovelos]

Bummer about the head, you going to try and fix that or have an shop do it?

Never heard of the heat compound on the fuel pump, you mean on the bracket holding the sea pump to the block?

[Big Block Power]

Yes you just use dielectric grease under the module. I've heard of the transfer putty but never used it. Leave it to merc. Lol

[xlint89]

I should prob have a shop do the headliner, but I'm not sure who to call. Got a boat cover guy coming to make me one, maybe I'll see if he's up to the task. If I try it, it's going to come out bad and I'm going to get really frustrated. Plus, I got all kinds of other projects on this boat going on right now.

Akor, no. The electric fuel pump for the Cool Fuel 2. It's mounted really low (coolest part of engine bay) on the port side. The elec fuel pump generates heat. The compound is supposed to help transfer heat away from the pump and towards the mounting bracket where it can dissipate easier.

https://www.wholesalemarine.com/quicksi ... 05701.html

Never heard of this until John said something about it.

[Big Block Power]

Looks like dielectric grease to me. It has to be close.

[xlint89]

New fuel pump, O rings and heat transfer compound on the way.

Finished yanking old speaker cut/spliced wires today. There's some parts of this boat that are inaccessible. I cannot see how you can access the wiring or wire hangers between the anchor locker and mid ship. There are nuts and bolts for the speaker inserts in the bow that you just cannot reach.

I'm also very frustrated as my boat seems like it is only able to use 6 1/2" speakers. Cobalt made nice speaker insets that match the size of the speaker, so you can't use a larger speaker without it looking funny. it will sit flush 3/4 of the way around, but the 1/4 that isn't flush, is the part you see. No room under the bow seats for installing anything. And I'm not just going to throw them into the rear bench just because that's the only spot they would fit. ("They" being a set of JL M880 I wanted inside the cockpit)

I really wanted the M880's (200W RMS each) in the captains seat position as they should get pretty loud compared to the MX 650's (75W RMS each) I had 8 MX 650's on the old boat and they worked well. You could hear them pretty good while under way, but I want this one to jam.

There's no good way to strap wires up on this one. And getting heavy gauge battery cable to the amplifier is a bit trickier than I thought it would be. I want to strap it to something, but not screw or drill holes into structural parts. I'm starting to see why the installers did what they did.

On that note though, they were total hacks. found 2 speakers with the LED light wire pinched and 1 that's completely cut.

[xlint89]

Looks like dielectric grease to me. It has to be close.

It's not expensive stuff. Just something I never knew about.

[akorcovelos]

Ah, forgot the cool fuel got an electric fuel pump. Why can’t you access the bow speakers? Looked to me like you just unscrew them from the front.

[xlint89]

I can access the bow speakers. There are wires and nuts that are inaccessible.

[xlint89]

Got all my speaker wires ran tonight except for the tower. 12 ga is going to be really hard to pull through the tube. So I'm going to get maybe the 16 ga wire to match the speakers. It'll make them much easier to get through the tower.

Need some primary wire for the LED lights on the JL's. Each speaker has it's own fuse for the LED. Previous install was horrible. They used speaker wire (not a problem) with butt connectors and no heat shrink and pinched 2 positive wires on 2 speakers and completely cut 1 on another.

Also cleaned out the out drive reservoir at home. Holy sludge. It was like a glob of grease sitting on the bottom of the bottle. Used an entire can of brake cleaner to break it up. Don't think the oil was ever changed before. The good news is I didn't see much metal on the drain plug magnet though.

Anyone got thoughts on how to flush the out drive? If that much residue built up inside the tank, I can only imagine how much is inside the case.

Also, any thoughts on how to remove the fuel from the fuel tank? Only thought i have is to access the top of the fuel tank. Remove the fuel gauge sending unit and insert a siphon hose through the fuel sender opening. There's a hole in the bulkhead the hose can pass through. Then put the other end of the hose coming out the drain plug at the rear of the boat.

This boat seems to have sat for a while and I don't want to put crappy gas through my new fuel supply hoe, new filter water/seperator, new fuel pump, and my fresh fuel injector filters.

[Big Block Power]

Yes take the cover off the fuel tank. Or you could run it through the fuel pump. Use your old pump so you don't burn up a new one but we do it on vehicles through the port. It takes a long time though. Gear lube will have detergents in it to help break it down. Do some good runs with the boat get the oil warm and Drain it a few times. Or take the drive apart and clean everything by hand. I don't think you want to add a additive in there to clean it and drain and fill. The drive might not like that.

[akorcovelos]

My reservoir was the same, but when I changed the outdrive oil it was pretty clean. I just used some regular motor oil mixed with Seafoam, filled the drive, let it sit a couple days, then let it drain for a couple hours while I worked on other stuff. Oil came out dirty so cleaned it out at least a bit. Then I just refilled and got nice blue oil all the way up to my fresh clean reservoir.

As for the fuel, like BB said, just hook the old fuel pump up and let it drain the tank into 5 gal cans. It will take a while depending on how full it is, but it’s the easiest and cleanest way to do it. Make sure the boat has a slight bow elevation as the pickup is near the rear of the tank.

[Big Block Power]

My reservoir was the same, but when I changed the outdrive oil it was pretty clean. I just used some regular motor oil mixed with Seafoam, filled the drive, let it sit a couple days, then let it drain for a couple hours while I worked on other stuff. Oil came out dirty so cleaned it out at least a bit. Then I just refilled and got nice blue oil all the way up to my fresh clean reservoir.

As for the fuel, like BB said, just hook the old fuel pump up and let it drain the tank into 5 gal cans. It will take a while depending on how full it is, but it’s the easiest and cleanest way to do it. Make sure the boat has a slight bow elevation as the pickup is near the rear of the tank.

Bow down right. It will go faster

[xlint89]

Appreciate the ideas. Thank you

My canvas guy says he can set me up with the headliner, but we're almost 2 weeks in now and not a single stitch has been sewn yet. So we'll see.....

[xlint89]

Ugh.... What a crappy day. All day working on the boat and accomplished, nothing.

Figured I'd swap out the fuel pump and jump onto other things. The cool fuel 2 location on the engine along with the engine mount, the engine hatch lift, and the engine compartment design make it extremely difficult to do in the boat. Would have been a couple minute job if the engine was removed form the boat.

With the cooling hoses removed from the cooler I see something fall out of it. So I picked it up, shook it, and something else fell out of it. They were 2 pieces of a seawater impeller. (not mine, I haven't even ran the engine yet since I installed it) Great...... Where are the other 3 "arms" of the impeller at?

First attempt got everything back together, but had a leak. Took it apart again. spun the "L" fitting around and seemed to have solved it.

Put the retaining bracket nuts down and couldn't find them. Looked all over. Ended up finding 1 inside the bilge water drain hole. (holes water runs through making it's way to the bottom of the boat.) Other one is no where to be found. So i went and looked for another nut to replace it. No luck. It's a 1/4" fine thread.

I can't do a dam thing without that second nut as the retaining plate puts tension on the fuel pump and cooler. So I do a second look around for another one, no go. And tore everything apart looking for the lost one.

Well, I found the 1 inside that box/support and guessed the other has to be inside it too. The one in question is the port side. On my boat thee is no hole on that side for the bilge blower vent hose like the starboard side. So on a hunch, I drilled a 3" hole in it, just like the starboard. And down inside was that crappy 1/4" fine thread nut. (yes, I drilled a 3" hole in the boat just to look for a nut. )

Put it all back together again and no leak this time. Terrific. So I keep moving forward.

Was disassembling the hold down bracket to apply the heat transfer compound when I heard a "Tink..."

I'm notorious for over tightening nuts, and that's what happened. They installed brass thread inserts (1/4" fine thread) into the plastic cover. The noise I heard was the insert pulled out of the cover.

So that was it for today. Going to try JB Weld on the insert. Hopefully it holds, because plan "B" is to take it all apart again and install carriage bolts though the plastic housing if that fails.