Leaky Gasket

[squeeg333]

Hey guys, so I finally was able to at least put the water to my boat this weekend. Hooked it up to the Fake-a-lake, and she fired right up. After smoking out the neighbors with burning off the fogging oil, I did the usual summerizing check for leaks. Fortunately, all of the hoses and connections that I had removed for winterization, and prop shaft removal seemed to be just fine. However, once the engine was warm, I noticed a few small leaks. Two are very small leaks coming from the inlet and outlet of the exhaust manifold, where the two Gann 90 deg elbows are. It looks like the pipe dope that was used to seal these two elbows is going bad. The other leak that I saw was a very small leak from the port exhaust manifold gasket, near the front of the engine (bow end).

My question for you guys out there is two fold: Have you ever seen this gasket leak before? In my experience, gaskets find a way to leak eventually. The second question is do you guys know if leaky gaskets are under Indmar's enginer warranty? My engine has one more year left on it's warranty, so, I suppose if it'll be covered it'd be worth having it taken care of. I haven't taken it into the shop, as it's not an outrageous leak or anything. The parts would be in the neighborhood of 20 bucks from SkiDIM, and would probably take me 4 hours to tackle... but if it's under warrany, then might as well have it looked at.

What do you guys think? All the leaks are very slow drips, but I don't want to see them get worse.

[mmandley]

As i understood the engine warrenty from my dealer, its 100% covered for everything except damages related to winterizing, fuild changes, and outright abuse of the engine.

I would call your dealer talk them see what they say, take some pictures of you can to reference what your seeing to show them.

[DOCDRS]

I guess it depends how far the dealer is from you. I like the picture idea then they can have the pars. I have heard some probs with some of these elbows failing. I've heard they are designed to fail under overheating conditions , not so sure about this idea

[squeeg333]

Just a short followup on this - called the dealer today. He said that he's about 90% sure that Indmar wouldn't cover these gaskets under warranty, as they are 'external' engine components. I am hesitant to risk taking it in and having the warranty claim denied, and then I'd be out the $100+ that they'd charge for hooking it up to the hose and seeing what I'm seeing!

30 dollars in parts a few hours might be well worth the savings...

[myster]

The first year I got my boat, I had a manifold gasket fail. I am 4 hrs from the dealer. There are two different types of gaskets that you can use. One is a "string" type which is a one piece gasket that covers a whole side, or one whole manifold and is easy to put in, the other option can be picked up at any auto parts store and will be seperate gaskets for each port. These are a bit harder to install since you kinda have to drop them in place, but that is what I did and it's been fine since....follow torque specs!!!!

[squeeg333]

Where did you get the torque specs?? That is my main concern. I haven't called Indmar just yet, but will if need be!!