I asked/replied the following here last night in a different thread, but I suppose due to it's age I didn't get much response1<br /><br />"<br />Ok, I've got a 1988 Chris-Craft 205 with the 4.3LX and an Alpha Drive. I seem to be experiencing similar problems as our friend who posted this originally. I just got the boat (cheap since it had milky oil). I changed the oil and took it to the river and ran it (gently) for a few minutes. I drained the oil and it was milky again. So, I pulled the plugs, and found one (#1) was wet. I immeadiatly though...bad head gasket! So, I tore the head off, looked it all over, and put in a new gasket. Well, tonight I took it back to the lake and the same little event happened all over again. I wouldn't mind putting a new motor in this thing if I thought it was the solution to the problem, but I think I'm a decent wrench, and I just have a hard time believing that I screwed up a head gasket job that bad. When I pulled the #1 plug water RUSHED out of the hole...<br />So, do I have a bad exhaust manifold? How do I check it? What type of shop do I take it to? Is this a job for a marina, or a machine shop? Are there rubber diaphragms in there that go bad? Should I replace both?<br />As a note, while I was running it in the lake tonight I noticed that there was quite a bit of gurgling noises comming from the region where the rubber hose clamps to the iron down-tube. I re-tightened the clamps, but it never really went away.<br />Oh, it all seems to run fine and has great oil pressure and compression.<br />Thanks to all that have borne with my longwindedness!<br />"<br /><br />Anhow, this evening I took the exhaust off, and the risers/elbows seem to be REALLY rusty/ falling apart. A fairly significant amount of the iron that controls the direction of the cooling water as it mixes with the exhaust is gon, about 2/3 I'd say. But, how bad is too bad? Both sides look the same, but I'm only getting water in the (if it was a car it would be the driver's side, but it's where my passenger sits) bank of cylinders and exhaust.<br />Where is all this iron junk going? Is it just getting caught up in the drive somehere?<br /><br />I cooked up another idea I'd like input on. Maybe I've got an exhaust lifter that's 'pumping up'? Would this leave my valve in an allways 'sorta' open state - allowing water into the valve-cover region and into the piston area as well?<br /><br />Thanks in advance for the help.
