Some brainless pillock has fitted the wrong gimbal housing on my boat!

[ExcaliburII]

Update

Try Dave Crawford marine in Lyminton he has loads of used bits.

Thanks for the contact, Volvopaul, tried them this morning but haven't heard back yet . . .

I got quotes for a new gimbal housing from a couple of Mecruiser dealers in UK this morning and, bizarrely, the price is a lot lower than the equivalent $ prices quoted on a few of the USA websites. I have bought stuff from USA dealers in the past when the exchange rate made it worthwhile but, as Moonraker 36 says, it's less attractive now.

So, assuming I can actually get hold of a new housing for the price I have been quoted, I am less tempted than before to tackle a weld and dress-by-hand job on my old one.

I will be off line for a few days now, so our story will continue sometime next week. . .

Thanks again to all who have contributed thus far.

 

[ExcaliburII]

A further update

Right, the new gimbal housing and a few other bits have been on order for over a week now, so I've been occupying my spare time cleaning up all the stuff that will have to go back on when the new housing arrives. As you do.

I finally got round to the Y-pipe over the weekend and gave it a good clean off prior to touching in some of the missing bits of paint (or so I thought). Scraped away at the corrosion underneath and - bingo!

I have wirebrushed off the area, and only slightly enlarged the hole to about 3mm dia whilst poking away the corrosion products, so whilst I am at having to deal with all this hassle in the first place, I am to finally find what I now believe is the cause of the original problem - ie a relatively substantial leak which suddenly appeared overnight. The exhaust pipe has clearly corroded from the outside due to many years of being splashed/semi submerged in bilge water and our last day's run was the tipping point when the corrosion broke through and in came the water (the inside surface of the exhaust is perfect - no corrosion at all).

So it's back to my friendly welder tomorrow to get the hole bunged up and the whole area built up with weld.

The new housing can't take much longer to get here. Can it? . . .