I believe the leak is coming from failed gasket at the little circle pad with the slot in it. On the exhaust adapter. There is still some crud on that spot I apparently did not get clean when I put it together. The tiny hole in the base gasket feeds a port in the block that is connected to a slot in #3 cylinder water jacket. I found this by studying a spare v4 block I was going to build with a flashlight. The water pouring down the steering knuckle isn't that big of a deal. As long as it's fresh water. But I run salt a lot too and just can't see bathing the forward motor mount and that whole steering assembly in corrosive salt water. The Sierra gasket came today. It looks exactly like the one in the BRP diagram. Cold inlet tube and connecting bays are separated. To answer the hot question. It doesn't run hot, but it did get friggin hot once. Since power head is off, and that PITA thermostat is easy to access, I ordered an OE thermostat set. What I had was new, I didn't know if the run hot had damaged them or not. Running a cut off test prop in a barrel full of water, with a hose running full blast into the barrel and a make shift lid to slow splash, was running at about 900 rpm in gear after about an hour in neutral at first start up to get some loaded back pressure time on the engine. I was tinkering with the dash, heard a sound, turned and damn. No tell tale and smoke rolling from the barrel. It had propped out more water than the hose could replace and was struggling to pull through the pump. Immediate shut down, let it cool naturally to cold iron, hand spun the flywheel, fired it back up, sweating bullets. Ran fine. Shut it down, pulled plugs and ran compression check. Compression is fine. 135-140, all 4. Didn't ruin anything on a near disaster. I believer running double oil on break in saved it. But that little pad that is fed by a slot feeds a tiny port that feeds the cylinder water jacket is a scant inch or two away from #3 cylinder. I firmly believe the gasket failed because of the run hot. I've run it some in the barrel since then, none of this water over the steering knuckle thing. Then it cooled here. Then water out the front. I believe the gasket was already compromised when weather cooled here and simply separated at that pad. The crud on that little pad didn't get there in a couple of hours of idling. I really believe this was a combination of an incomplete surface prep on the pad, a run hot, and cooling weather. I'll know for sure when I can get back on it and run it again. Thanks for your input. It is appreciated. I'll post up once it's running again. Side note, Yah, I'm old school. I remember when Tasha's Daddy, Ezeke, Chinewalker, Joe Reeves were here. Back then if you didn't put your model number with INTRODUCES imbedded into it, your post didn't get looked at. This site has been good to me.
