Tuesday the 9th of March, 2010
MUFFLER DAY
Today my goal is to remove the old leaking muffler. I had previously looked at this as being a tough job. I already undid all the hose clamps. I jumped in this morning with the hair dryer to break the 3 1/2" hose off the exhaust elbow. It came off with only a screw driver and a scraper. So, now to get it off the muffler end. Again that end of the hose came off too. Then, the real SOB was going to be the hose exiting the muffler and headed to the transom, about 13' long 3" hose that is in good enough shape not to change. It too came off without much of a fight. Then I undid the remaining (2) 9/16" nuts off the muffler mounting plate. One of them I could see and the other was behind the muffler out of sight. So, I got the one I could see off using a universal joint on the Craftsman ratchet with two extensions to make it long enough to go along side the muffler. Only 1/4 turn could be mad at a time with the ratchet wrench. Now, the last one - I contorted my arms into a position where I could feel the nut on the stud and guided the wrench blindly down behind the muffler and it felt as though the socket had gone over the nut. Contorted myself into the ratchet motion and felt the nut give. It came off too!!! This was my lucky day. The now naked muffler kind of looked like "TIN MAN" from the Wizard of OZ. So, I took a picture of the muffler for this blog
I decided to eat lunch before trying to raise the muffler up over the studs and see if it could possibly get by the battery charger mounted near by. Nice Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich made by Susan, and 1/2 a pear and I checked e-mail before back into the bilge. I wedged a screw driver between the muffler mounting plate and Fiberglas mounting pad and gave it a few taps and the muffler was now loose but needed to travel vertically to pass over the studs. I stuck various objects under the muffler as I pried it up. I finally rocked it and it popped off the studs!!!!! Yipee
It was not as heavy as I imagined. The muffler slid by the battery charger and I made a path to get it though the cabin and out the door. The next thing you know I had it on the dock. Now a trip to American Diesel to get a replacement was in order.
When I arrived at American Diesel - I couldn't find anyone in the office. Finally I found Brian. Brian and one other guy were all that were there. Everyone else was out sick with the flue. Brian indicated it was H1N1. I was busy keeping my distance and might not of heard that correctly. Brian set me up with a new muffler and 90º elbows. He suggested that I take those and get some accurate measurements for the hoses. That is another day from now. Maybe Thursday.