Just like the thermostats housing before it, there were a couple of issues. The bolt holding the lower anode in snapped when I tried to remove it. The irony there is that it didn't need to come out to remove the lower section of the outboard. There were also a couple more serviceable parts that needed to be replaced once I had the lower section off, which meant waiting a week or two for more parts to arrive. Add to that a crazy couple of weeks at work and this past weekend was the first chance I had to get Dusty back together. When the lower section came off a few weeks ago, it looked like this:
First thing was to clean it all up. There was a lot of sand and gunk in there, the seals on the exhaust adapter between the lower and upper section of the outboard had melted away and I needed to get that snapped bolt out to replace the rear anode (the anode was now loose and would have made a fair bit of noise vibrating around). I took to the entire lower section with a mixture of a wire brush on a cordless drill, and a wire brush on my Dremel for some of the trickier bits. I also cleaned up the exhaust adapter that goes between the lower and upper section of the outboard. I don't have a shot of it before, but it was pretty bad. Here it is cleaned up with new seals ready to go:
Once that was done I drilled out the bolt for the rear anode an installed the new one:
Next step was to rebuild the water pump. The pump kit came with instructions which were pretty straight forward. Nice shiny new parts:
Once that was all together and assembled on the lower section, it was ready to go back on:
This was actually quite tricky by myself (it's got a bit of weight to it). It took me a few goes to get it all lined up, but once it was it just slotted straight into place. I did up all the bolts and stood back to admire my greasy fingerprints:
Only thing left to do was to turn it over. It started pretty well, with a much stronger stream of water coming from the tell tale. A great sign the the new pump was pushing the full amount of water through. I let it run for a good 15 minutes and could feel when the thermostats opened and hot water started to cycle through. It ran the entire time without any cooling system issues that I could see. Next step is to change the oil in the gear case (since its the last serviceable item I haven't done) and put Dusty back in the water for a test trip. Finger crossed that all the maintenance for the season done. She needs a good clean to remove all those greasy fingerprints. I've also thought about getting a replacement decal set from eBay, but i'll wait on any cosmetic bits and pieces until I know I've worked out all the mechanical issues.
