fund razor

Great point. I have a bunch of bolts... but 8 perfectly matched of the correct length, thread and size? Not so much.

I work on mine at night most of the time too.
On lots of jobs you are gonna get surprised and you will end up running for an unexpected need. Can't avoid it.

This should not have been one of those jobs. I ordered a kit that was to include all necessary elements.

At the end of the day... it was ok that a mistake was made with the order. It is not ok that the customer was treated like a piece of crap.

I'm a good customer. I only expected to get what I paid for.
Nothing more, nothing less.

fund razor

Ok... it's my busy week.

I decided to let ebay deal with him.
They have a mechanism for "I paid but my entire order didn't arrive."

My request was that the ad be amended to show only the items that he actually ships so that future customers can have some protection.

Island Time

Where "Less is Moore"...Now thats funny!

fund razor

Ok... still getting powdercoating off of the mating surfaces.

Going with MCs suggestion.

Now that the coating is off I can see that one of the four castings is really cobbled. Like they had a void in the casting at the mating surface so they globbed some more metal in the spot and tossed it back on the grinder.

Took the file to it but there is way less mating surface on that one.

If he wasn't gonna send bolts... I don't suppose he is gonna ship a replacement manifold.

Maybe I will just have to put that one on the engine that is the less "popular" of the two.

fund razor

Ya know... at the end of the day... nothing personal against Dennis (who I have never heard from again good or bad) but the manifold castings are lame.

The risers are actually well cast. Clean and sharp. Good consistancy of the metal. Fairly precise.
Two out of four of the manifolds are really poor castings. One is frightening. I have worked on it with a file, but I'm still scared of it. It looks like they were short on metal so the added some later. Eek.

The other two manifolds are ok. Not great.

Knowing what I know now... I wish that I had gone with stock replacements. My time in trying to make these cheap chinese castings look flat is really adding up.

Wish the manifolds had been done with the same workmanship as the risers.

Maybe the aluminum ones are better.

fund razor

I am actually thinking about ordering an Osco to use instead of this one really crap one from Dennis. I don't think that he would replace a crap casting since he wouldn't ship 16 bolts.

For a couple hundred extra bucks in might be worth not worrying about losing a block because of a poor quality GLM manifold.

fund razor

They are in. Went with what Dennis shipped instead of a new one.

Started bolting them up on the outboard side of the port.

By the time I got to the inboard side of the starboard I knew I had a problem. The old manifolds JUST slipped past each other in the center. There was just enough room between the other manifold and the studs on the side you are working on to slip the manifold that you are installing past the studs.
The new one wouldn't fit. So I got out my tape measure.

The EXACT REPLACEMENT manifolds from GLM (per Dennis' ad) are actually 1/4 inch wider. (each) So the "exact replacements" are not the same size. Ahh.

This means that I gained 1/2 inch in the center and 1/2 inch on the outside for a total of 1 inch lost free space.

Can't get the oil filter out from under the SB side anymore without removing a manifold.

Can't pull the engines without removing the manifolds anymore.

Had to switch from studs to bolts on the inboard manifolds to get them on.

Getting either inboard manifold off is going to be a trip.

Not sure how you guys interpret "exact replacement" but I took it to mean that they would fit in the same space... not be larger in width. Especially when dealing with twins in an 8 foot beam.

They do make my engines look bigger.

And they seem to kind of run, sort of.
(Think I have corroded points on SB)

And the stainless riser bolts give me some much needed bling.

Wobble

POINTS...........

Fund, you seriously have to get rid of them, either different distributors or a points elimination kit.

Sorry to read about all the hardships on what should have been a straight up swap out.

fund razor

Points= OMC ESA system (electronic shift assist). There are a couple of electronic ignitions that are OMC ESA friendly, but I am not sure which. They seem to fail fast enough with points.

I switched from points to magnetic breakerless on my last boat (with a merc alpha) and was very happy.


On the hardship issue: it's a boat. What else should I have expected. I'm just glad that I had enough creativity left by that time in the day to figure out how to make a sling out of bungees to hold the manifold up next to the mounting holes to use the studs as bolts.
Neither one of those inboard manifolds are coming out without using vice grips to remove the studs WITH the manifolds.

But I wish that Dennis' ad had said "suitable replacements" rather than "exact replacements."

They seem suitable... that's the important thing.

They are NOT exact.

But at the end of the day I am glad that I caught this because I did see a tiny bit of rust in one exhaust port in one head to go with the tiny bit of rust in the manifold. I am sure that I had a ticking time bomb on my hands.

Seems like the thing about wet manifolds is that by the time they are leaking OUT, they are already leaking IN.

Wobble

I don't care for wet joint manifolds for just the reason you mentioned. Dry joint is the only way to go in a boat IMHO.