[mark gaudy]

No it’s not true, that is why they don’t tell you to adjust the valves on the sister cylinders, so don’t do that.
The pin hole is on the cam gear, so when the pin is in the hole, TDC is the top of compression stroke, no confusion possible. Have fun!

[mark gaudy]

I also have a Sea Ray 400 with the 6c 8.3 so we are probably talking the same animal, but verify your clearances on the tag on the front cover (by the fuel pump) Intake .012 and exhaust .024. Adjustment is straight forward.
No special tools that an aircraft mech won’t have. Metric wrenches, torque wrench, feeler gauges, hex keys. You should be able to reuse the valve cover gaskets, no need to buy any parts. The procedure is outlined in detail in the owners manual as it is easy enough that anybody of reasonable ability can handle it. If you don’t have the manual, I’m sure it’s on you tube somewhere. Good luck.
I should add that if you don’t know how to set each cylinder at tdc, look that up before you start because the port engine timing pin is hard to reach and I could not get the leverage I needed to push it in while rotating the motor with a socket and ratchet on the alternator pulley nut. (15/16″ I think) If you have help, you should not have any trouble rolling the motor over and pushing in the pin at the same time or aligning the marks on the damper and watching the valve train.

[mark gaudy]

Exactly what Rob and Philip said. Take it from someone who has stored boats in Buffalo NY for 40 years.
Snug up your hose clamps, tighten your pressure cap back down and go home and throw another log on the fire.

[mark gaudy]

I might suggest (I should say guess):
-Check your engine oil level , if it’s much above the low mark, remove some until it is at the low mark or just barely above it.
– inspect the airsep housing carefully looking for a crack, paying special attention to area where the filter seats. Make sure you do not over tighten the band clamp that holds it to the turbo, that can cause strain and crack. There is usually a warning sticker on the airsep noting clamp torque.
-not likely, but return line check valve to oil pan could be malfunctioning, or has it been dislodged from it’s mounting bracket? It has to be at or above the oil level in the pan for the airsep to work correctly.
– be sure drain port is pointing straight down. Good luck

[mark gaudy]

Interesting thoughts here. I have not posted much and I am a total novice to salty water, but have been a life long boater. I will post my experiences in the hopes that it may help some or maybe some will post to help me. In traveling the great loop, we have obviously encountered a lot of different water and it’s all, well, different. Coming from the great lakes, specifically Lake Erie, I can tell you that zinc does very little if anything on a fiberglass boat with stainless, nibral and bronze as the primary underwater metals while in my home waters. So the comments about the zinc anodes lasting longer with a freshwater flush make perfect sense. I would also guess that one might think they are useless in saltwater that is being freshwater flushed after every use because they look so good. But I assume (there’s that word again) the marine age thing comes into play here. If my 13 year old boat that has 1300 hours on it was a saltwater boat, that stays in the water all the time except for hauls for paint, thats less than 2 months of saltwater in my aftercoolers and 12 years and 10 months of fresh water (exagerated, but I was amazed when I thought of it that way) I would expect the zinc anodes to last a good long time.
The water in southwest Florida would grow a garden on my bottom in 3 weeks. The water in the keys was better even though it was warmer. The divers in Ft. Myers said that it’s a perfect storm between salt and brackish red tide coming from Okeechobee. The waters along the Carolinas are better and getting better as far as growth is concerned as we go north. Point being that where I am determines how much befifit I am getting from flushing. Now in the Chesapeake and salinity and growth is way down but I still flush, it has to help. My flush system is a little crude and requires 2 people, but it works for us for the 8 months we are in salt. I draw water through a 1″ spa hose from a full 15 gallon carboy. When the wife starts the motor,
I turn on the dock hose and the engine room wash down hose from my on board tank and run both hoses wide open. The smx pump, at an idle will suck that carboy dry through that 1″ hose with both hoses running in under 3 minutes, sometimes under 2 minutes depending on dock water pressure.
I guess my question here to those that just hook up a dock hose would be are you getting enough water to avoid pump problems down the road? Impellers are ok with that? No overheating? I was thinking that for a longer term solution, I might plumb off the fresh water tank so that they could get more water faster.
Maybe it’s not neccessary.
As far as the zincs are concerned, because I have noted that the zinc anodes do nothing in fresh water, sometime ago I switched to the aluminum mentioned earlier in this post and have used them in the salt just for convienience. The aluminum do show signs of wear in the fresh water.
When I purchased my current boat, the 8 year old original zinc anodes were about 99%. I have to change the aluminum about every three years when just in fresh water.
To the original poster of this thread, Performance Metals will sell navalloy pencils to the public. Call them and speak to Rae, she is a delightful lady who will be happy to help you.
Thanks to SB and all those that make this board possible, I’m learning every day.

[mark gaudy]

Interesting thoughts here. I have not posted much and I am a total novice to salty water, but have been a life long boater. I will post my experiences in the hopes that it may help some or maybe some will post to help me. In traveling the great loop, we have obviously encountered a lot of different water and it’s all, well, different. Coming from the great lakes, specifically Lake Erie, I can tell you that zinc does very little if anything on a fiberglass boat with stainless, nibral and bronze as the primary underwater metals while in my home waters. So the comments about the zinc anodes lasting longer with a freshwater flush make perfect sense. I would also guess that one might think they are useless in saltwater that is being freshwater flushed after every use because they look so good. But I assume (there’s that word again) the marine age thing comes into play here. If my 13 year old boat that has 1300 hours on it was a saltwater boat, that stays in the water all the time except for hauls for paint, thats less than 2 months of saltwater in my aftercoolers and 12 years and 10 months of fresh water (exagerated, but I was amazed when I thought of it that way) I would expect the zinc anodes to last a good long time.
The water in southwest Florida would grow a garden on my bottom in 3 weeks. The water in the keys was better even though it was warmer. The divers in Ft. Myers said that it’s a perfect storm between salt and brackish red tide coming from Okeechobee. The waters along the Carolinas are better and getting better as far as growth is concerned as we go north. Point being that where I am determines how much befifit I am getting from flushing. Now in the Chesapeake and salinity and growth is way down but I still flush, it has to help. My flush system is a little crude and requires 2 people, but it works for us for the 8 months we are in salt. I draw water through a 1″ spa hose attached to my strainer lid from a full 15 gallon carboy. When the wife starts the motor, I turn on the dock hose and the engine room wash down hose from my on board tank and run both hoses wide open. The smx pump, at an idle will suck that carboy dry through that 1″ hose with both hoses running in under 3 minutes, sometimes under 2 minutes depending on dock water pressure.
I guess my question here to those that just hook up a dock hose would be are you getting enough water to avoid pump problems down the road? Impellers are ok with that? I was thinking that for a longer term solution, I might plumb off the fresh water tank so that they could get more water faster. Maybe it’s not neccessary.
As far as the zincs are concerned, because I have noted that the zinc anodes do nothing in fresh water, sometime ago I switched to the aluminum mentioned earlier in this post and have used them in the salt just for convienience. The aluminum do show signs of wear in the fresh water.
When I purchased my current boat, which was always in fresh water, the 8 year old original zinc anodes were about 99%. (keep in mind my boat sits on the hard 6 months per year normally). I have to change the aluminum about every three years when just in fresh water, so they are doing something that the zinc doesn’t.
To the original poster of this thread, Performance Metals will sell navalloy pencils to the public. Call them and speak to Rae, she is a delightful lady who will be happy to help you.
Thanks to SB and all those that make this board possible, I’m learning every day.

[mark gaudy]

James, Consider yourself a lucky guy in that you only go 4 to 6 weeks on occasion without using your boat. Mine sits from October to May with a few feet of snow on it between startups, has for years. Your friend has some other issues at play.

[Author]

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