Well here it is, all stripped down to the bare metal (did you know my engines used to be forest green in their original state? That was the last layer of paint I scraped off before I scraped off the original primer) and reassembled.
I have to say.....I am really proud of this, as trivial as it may be to some of you who do this everyday. This was my first "big" engine job that I tackled myself (well, fixing that turbo was pretty instrumental to me, too) and it has done nothing but fuel my desire for wanting to do/know more relative to these Detroits. I pretty much tore down the entire cooling system, sans the pumps (I've asked Ed to service the raw water pump while I'm re-doing the intercoolers next).
At some point I had to stop myself...I could have just kept picking parts off, refurbishing them, to the point where I would have had nothing left but a block remaining and a boat full of parts that I didn't know where they went.
I am a more confident boat owner today than I was before, and a little less scared of these big engines. Just the smooth feel of what I've done here , among other things, gives me the passion to push on. Seeing MikeP's engine room, and what Yachtsmanwillie has done for a sunken boat, is inspirational.
Yes I probably used too much blue stuff, but it's better than not enough and having leaks. I used gaskets AND blue stuff (got a t-shirt full of blue stuff - it was easier to wipe my fingers on me rather than finding a rag while assembling parts). I still have some clean up to do in that regard, and some touch-up painting to do yet, and I do NOT want to see any oily fingerprints on this nor anything set on the tank and dragged across - no tool boxes, no AC compressors, no nothing!!! I mean it! I'll put a torque wrench between somebody's eyes if they mess up my work! If only you could "feel" the difference in before and after.
NOTE TO SELF: Put the thermostats in the housing before reassembly! I ALMOST reassembled the first housing without the t-stat! Didn't make that mistake twice.
Yes, I wrote the date of installation on each hose - something I learned from somebody here.
