Well, as you can probably imagine, this project has become more and more involved since I began the teardown. I've fired the two other rednecks previously mentioned above. I don't want to trash my own brother-in-law so I won't bother you all with the careless errors made during the teardown
. I took the heads and intake manifold to the machine shop to get them cleaned and tested. All three parts came back trued up and no cracks. A valve job on the heads was already done recently. Good news! All three parts have been painted and reinstalled. Reinstalling the pushrods and rocker arms turned out to be a little tricky as it was my first time doing it in a V8 and my first time with hydralic lifters but it's complete now and all 8 cyclinders have good compression. I've got some new pics but I haven't put them on Photobucket yet. I'll do that soon.
I did find out that my alternator was only putting out about 11 volts so that has been replaced with a new USCG approved Motorola alternator and it has been installed. I've also found out that my starter was bad. It's binding up and shorting out. It won't turn the motor fast enough to crank it up. I had 12-13 volts at the batteries and the same at the starter but it just wouldn't crank up. I even jumper cabeled in a thrid battery and it still wouldn't crank. I've ordered an OE replacement starter and I should have it in a couple of days. Upon closer inspection of the orig. starter I found a "Made in Argentina" label. Yuck. I've put new plugs and wires on it. The distributor has already been replaced. I ordered new riser and exhaust manifold gaskets from Osco and installed them on the freshly painted risers and manifolds. I also had the Rochester 4bbl carburetor rebuilt by a professional and I have reinstalled it. I replaced the oil filter and water/fuel filter with new ones. I had already ordered two sets of new belts, so I'm good to go there. I've replaced the water pump pulley, crankshaft plate and pulley, and the thermostat housing with used but "like new" parts from a 1989 5.7L.
I've accumulated several OE part numbers for my '88 5.7L OMC that I will be adding to this post at some point soon. Just in case there is anyone else out there searching for the parts I had to find.
A pic of the new crank pulley, water pump pulley, and the thermo housing.
A pic of the reassembled motor. The bad news is that it's siezed up in this shot! I wasn't able to get it started after reassembly. Something in the bottom end has gone away and we're going to have to pull the motor. Although dissapointed, I'm somewhat relieved. The boat has 730+ hours on the meter and rebuilding the top end only caused something else to fail. It's time for the motor and drive to come out and get throughly checked out and repaired by a pro. No more shade tree mechanics insight as to what could be wrong. So we are trying to get this done in time for next season so we can enjoy the boat!
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