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Random Quote: Fishing "A pleasure disguised as a sport"
THT users, I'm looking for some advice/guidance on a recent maintenance issue I discovered this weekend. I have a 17ft CC fishing boat with a 1988 88HP Johnson OB. I took her out this weekend for one last spin before I winterized her for the season. She ran fine and normal and I put her through all the routine exercises. However, after I put her on the trailer and hooked the hose up to the H20 intake, I started her up as normal, noticed water spurting out of one of the cylinder heads, where the sparkplug screws in. Obviously, this is alarming and I immediately thought, water was getting into the cylinders. But if water were getting into the cylinders, I can't possibly imagine it would run perfectly fine. Here's where it gets bad...I then tried to pull off the cylinder heads to look for corrosion or flaws in the head gasket. In the process of doing so, I broke 2 heads off of the bolts securing the cylinderheads. Clearly I need to have these bolts extracted to get a better look at the cylinders. But what is your take on the water coming out of the spark plug ports? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Again this is a 4 cylinder 88HP Johnson. It is NOT the V.R.O. edition.
Thanks,
Brandon
If she was running fine, there was no water intrusion problem. My guess is she blew a head gasket after she was running on the trailer. Was she running rougher on the trailer than in the water?
As for the bolt heads, it the bolts broke off below the top of the head but above the top of the block, you should be fine. If they broke off below the block, it is still fixable, but you will have to decide at white point you want to consider pouring money into a 1988 engine. If, when removing the broken bolts, you feel any resistance stop immediately and have a machine shop remove it. They have tools and know-how to prevent or at least lower the odds of having a major clustf--k on your hands.
Are you sure you broke the actual head bolts? Those heads are two piece, if memory serves. The head itslef and a water jacket, sounds like a hole in the water jacket. Probably not a biggy, find another somewhere and run it another 18 years
On those broken bolts. If you can remove the others you should be able to slide the head off. Most break off around the head of the bolt so now that the head is removed you should have about a half of bolt still sticking out. Use some of that stuff for stuck bolts and spray down several time over a couple of days to allow it to penetrate. Take a small pipe wrench and try to remove them. I would sugest if they do not come out with some preasure leave them alone before you break them off again and take to a shop. I for got the name of that spray.
Greyg8r - She was running the same on the water as on the trailer. However, when I was on the water I had the OB cover on, so I couldn't see if it was leaking water at the time. The bolts broke off pretty much flush with the head, and they aren't really that big so I think I'm going to hose the bolts down real good with some PB penetrant and take it to a professional to have them extracted.
Afishinado - I think you are correct about the Head and the water jacket. If it's just the jacket that's compromised, I'm sure I can find one this winter.
Thanks for your help guys. Has anyone ever used a bolt extractor? I consider myself pretty handy, but don't want to get in over my head (no pun intended) trying to get these things out.
As always, any advice is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
-Brandon
It sounds like you broke the waterjacket bolts. You have about 10 head bolts and about 20 waterjacket bolts. The waterjacket bolt is a smaller size bolt. The best thing to do at this point is to remove the entire head, to help in getting off the waterjacket. The head bolts are bigger in size and are harder to break. If they feel tight dont try to remove it without heat.
Greyg8r - She was running the same on the water as on the trailer. However, when I was on the water I had the OB cover on, so I couldn't see if it was leaking water at the time. The bolts broke off pretty much flush with the head, and they aren't really that big so I think I'm going to hose the bolts down real good with some PB penetrant and take it to a professional to have them extracted.
Afishinado - I think you are correct about the Head and the water jacket. If it's just the jacket that's compromised, I'm sure I can find one this winter.
Thanks for your help guys. Has anyone ever used a bolt extractor? I consider myself pretty handy, but don't want to get in over my head (no pun intended) trying to get these things out.
As always, any advice is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
-Brandon
Brandon, if she was running on the trailer like she was at sea, then she wasn't running "perfectly fine" - she was running on 2 or 3 cylinders and you didn't recognize it. You need to monitor the engine better in the future. No worries, thoughNot an issue now.
The only way you are getting water in the cylinder is if the head gasket blew (most likely and cheapest), the head gasket is seriously warped or cracked (not real expensive) or the block is cracked (unlikely and would render that engine useless). Get a professional to get those heads off, have a machine shop check the heads for alignment, and see if there is any scoring in the cylinders.
Johnson 88HP SPL Outboard Problem 
