AQUA LIFT MUFFLER REPAIR
Allan,
I just fixed my Aqua-Life
myself. The leak was actually coming
from the one of the mounting holes (there's a screw in each corner that secures
the muffler to the boat).
FIND THE LEAK
To find it, I removed it
from the boat. Filled the muffler about
1/2 full of water. I took two
"Glad" plastic sandwich baggies and put them over the large
intake/output pipes, and hose-clamped them (to seal the
intake and output).
I dialed my air compressor
down to a *MERE* 5 PSI. I used a screw
to pop a small hole into one of the glad sandwich baggies, put the air hose to
the hole (I have the nozzle with the simple rubber tip which is used to blow up
inflatable toys or to just use the compressor to blow things off).
Viola! A nice stream of water came squirting out one
of the screw holes, and a lesser drip came out of ANOTHER screw hole (so I had
2 leaks).
Once you've found the leak,
empty the water from the muffler and allow it to try thoroughly. The epoxy wont get a
good bond if there's water in the affected area. I blew as much water as I could from the hole
(using the air compressor hose - but this time with high pressure to use the venturi effect to suck the water from the hole - THEN still
allowed it to sit for a day to air-dry even more).
FIX THE LEAK
Assuming your leak is also
coming from the corner mounting holes, here's how I fixed it:
I decided to drill the holes
out larger, then insert copper bushings into the hole, and epoxy the thing
together.
You need some copper tubing
(I think it's 1/4" dia
-- in any case it was the smallest stuff the
You need some J.B. Weld
brand epoxy (this stuff is much stronger than the average epoxy - so I don't
recommend just *any* expoxy)
You need some tape - nice
clear heavy-duty packaging tape (the sort of thing you'd use to close up
cardboard boxes that you plan to ship).
You need some wood
chop-sticks. Go eat chinese for dinner tonight and ask for EXTRA
chop-sticks. ;)
Find a drill bit which is
the same size as the outer diameter of your copper tube.
CAREFULLY drill out the
holes in the muffler to make them larger -- remembering that the centers of
these holes needs to be in the same positions.
A sloppy drill job will move the center of the hole, which moves the
screw that will ultimately secure it to the boat. If this happens it will be hard to get the
screws to line up and you'll have a poor fit.
You can fix it... but it's easier to just be very careful.
Put the copper tube through
the hole you just drilled until the copper just reaches flush to the other side
of the hole - and mark the tube with a marker or pencil. Using your copper tube
cutter, cut the tube at the mark.
You've just made a copper bushing.
Repeat for the other corners.
Cork the bushings. Put the narrow end of the chop-stick into the
bushing and cut it flush. The purpose of
this step is to SEAL the inside of the bushings so that epoxy (in the next
step) does not get inside of them. If
epoxy fills the inside of these things and then hardens you'll have a devil of
a time trying to clean it out. You might
just have to start over.
I operated on my muffler
with the muffler upside-down (to avoid any water getting into these holes).
Use the clear package tape
to tape over the TOPS of the holes (since the muffler is upside-down, the
"top" is actually on the underside -- so when I say top, I'm talking
about the side would be the top when the muffler is right-side up). The packaging tape's purpose is to keep the epoxy
from coming through the hole to the other side.
Mix up the epoxy.
Put some epoxy in the
hole. I use the wood chop-stick to work
it in to make sure there are no air-bubbles and to try to work some epoxy into the
crack (where the water was leaking).
Press the copper bushing
into the hole -- doing your best to get the copper bushing flush. If you look at the taped side of the hole,
you want to be able to see the copper bushing (the circular ring of it) touching
the tape. This means that when you peel
the tape off (after it dries) you'll be able to pop the corks out of the
bushing and have a
nice professional hole.
If there's any excess globs
of epoxy, do your best to wipe these up. Once this stuff hardens it will NOT
want to come off.
Let it sit for a day - then
remove the tape, pop the corks out of the bushings and you should have a very
nice hole, lined with copper, in each corner of your muffler.
Go back and "pressure
test" the muffler to 5 PSI and make sure you still have no leaks.
Done!
Regards, Tim
******************************************************
... I ordered a replacement
Aqua-lift muffler from Catalina. I was a
bit surprised that the muffler is basically a custom-made fiberglass box which
is not an orderable part number.
Initially Catalina told me they'd need some
measurements. I sent them basic
measurements. I got a return email
telling me that my measurements
weren't sufficient. Upon speaking to
them, they said that they have too many variations and what they really needed
to know were the locations of the input and output ports on the muffler.
I returned to the boat, took several photos
of the muffler and Emailed them so they could see what
I had -- along with a few more
measurements. They responded that
the pics were very good, but they didn't have any of the backside,
and still not enough measurements.
Puzzled, I called them back and they said
that EVERY muffler is basically custom made for every boat and they'd need much
better measurements. They wanted a lot of measurements which are
very difficult to make. They suggested I could either take many
more measurements *or* that I remove
and mail them the original muffler so
they could re-produce it. This
makes me wonder how they build a
muffler for a new C-320 when they have no existing muffler to
clone. They must have a mold. No?
So I returned to the boat, removed the
muffler, took MUCH better pictures of
every possible angle and measurement with a very large/easily-readable tape measure
appearing in every photo showing the critical dimensions and how they were
taken.)
They told me this would do and that they
could re-produce the muffler.
A new muffler showed up, which I tried to
install last week.
Upon removing the old muffler and putting it
next to the new muffler, I could see that the mufflers were indeed *similar*,
but they had taken SUBSTANTIAL liberties with what I was led to believe were
critical measurements (for all the trouble they put me through to get these
measurements I wasn't happy that they effectively ignored them).
The new muffler will not fit (no way). I plan to put in a straight pipe (bypassing
the need for a muffler even if the boat will be a bit noisy for a few weeks),
mailing both old and new mufflers to them, and asking them to start over and
this time not to take so many liberties.
If they had cheated the dimensions to the small side, the replacement
would have worked, but there's just no room for making things bigger.
I seem to recall someone knew of a standard
production muffler (not custom-made)
that fits on these boats. Who makes
that? I might go that route if Catalina can't help me. I'm still shaking my head in amazement at how difficult this
"simple" problem has been. It's
as though these guys who fabricate the
muffler have no idea how a C-320 is
made or what the muffler compartment looks like.
Regards
Tim
Tim,
your experience is exactly why I
asked for the Vetus replacement that others have
used. Since I've been anticipating my muffler leaking, I've looked into this
proactively. Through threads on this list and conversations with Catalina, your
experience is exactly what I found.
However, Catalina did tell me they really would insist I return the
muffler--perhaps the 1000 or so one-off mufflers explain why so many of them
fail????
p.s.--the reason I was
interested in the Vetus model used on others who have
tried it is because the dimensions on those advertised don't appear to fit, but
it's good to know that this is an option--
Regards,
Jon Vez
Solstice #582
BTW, I should provide an
update on this:
I decided to pressure-test
the muffler to find the leak, because it really obvious where the water was
coming from. I only knew that I saw water
coming from underneath the muffler while we were motoring.
I took the muffler home and
filled it with maybe a gallon or two of water.
Right away I could see a slow "drip drip drip" coming from one of the screw holes in the corner
of the muffler.
Then I put some plastic
sandwich bags to cover the input and output ports on the muffler and used hose
clamps to secure them. I made a small
hole in the center of the plastic sandwich bag where exhaust would normally
enter the muffler for the rubber tip of my air-compressor. I dialed the pressure regulator on the
compressor down to about 5psi.
When I gave it the test, I
noticed that although just one of the screw holes had any water dripping from
it, there was a 2nd hole that started dripping under
pressure. I had two leaks.
I went the hardware store
and bought 1/4" OD copper tubing and cut 4 copper bushings about 1/2"
long each. I very carefully drilled out
the screw holes on the muffler (I decided to do all 4).
I then used clear packaging
tape to put tape across the TOP opening of the screw holes I had just drilled
out.
I then flipped the muffler
up-side down, bought JB Weld brand epoxy, mixed it, and filled the holes with
epoxy (holes must be allowed to thoroughly dry of water before using epoxy).
I took a set of chinese chop-sticks and used them
to "cork" the copper bushing shut (to avoid getting the insides
filled with epoxy).
The epoxy takes 4-6 hours to
set up hard, but 16 hours to fully cure and be ready for use.
The following day I removed
the tape and uncorked the screw-holes (took the broken ends of the chop-sticks
out of the copper bushings).
When I re-installed it back
in the boat, I'm happy to say that there are now no leaks.
Total cost of the repair was
probably about $10 and 2 days not being able to use the boat.
Regards
Tim