I was able to take nearly 2" out of length out of the nipple between the exhaust flange and the exhaust elbow. This will allow the elbow to no longer hit the bulkhead and to also clear the new heat exchanger. I used a street elbow for water injection which allowed the assembly to be shortened.


This exhaust elbow is not a Universal Engines genuine part hence the reducing bushing from 1 1/2" to 1 1/4". Gotta love the snowballing effect.


The motor mounts were the easy part of this job. It is all the little things you find along the way that make the job take longer and really get frustrating. for example getting the exhaust elbow off the engine required the engine to be completely lifted off the mounts and moved forward. We used a 4:1 Harken block & tackle to a beam across the companionway for this. This little extra step added almost an hour to the job alone.


So a simple shaft & cutlass replacement led to; three new motor mounts all failed, removal & reconfiguration of the exhaust elbow, a new heat exchanger, failed hose clamps, engine antifreeze flush & fill and more. This is a much more typical job than it would seem and this sort of snowballing effect happens quite often with boats. See, it's not always easy...