motors that have been on fire/replacing water deflectors

[johnyrude200]

Ran into a motor today that apparently had a fire near the cylinder head (guessing some strange gas leak that pooled near the aft and reached an ignition point). Cylinder head, coils, temperature sensor clearly were incinerated, but the cylinder is fine (looks normal) with no significant scoring (smooth to the touch by fingertip all the way around, no slop in the pistons, no evidence of an internal overheat. No dis-coloration of the intake or exhaust bypass covers, just a lot of soot.

So do I just use needle nose pliers to remove the water jacket deflectors, and replace the components of concern accordingly? Have plenty of good used components to do the job with. Have to say this if the first motor I’ve seen melted water deflectors on. I’ve seen plenty of obvious overheated motors with melted pistons due to internal overheats, but in this case it seems to be an external heat source.

Thanks everyone.

[billw]

I have never seen a serious external fire on an outboard, luckily; although I once saw a Yamaha 225 engine cowl launch a couple of hundred feet straight up, due to an explosion. My personal feeling is that the external fire probably wouldn’t have caused that to melt. I would be more suspect of an over heat internally, on an engine that seems to have been mistreated enough to have caught fire in the first place. Again, just my two cents. I guess if it has stellar compression, it would be good to go with just the new deflectors…..You basically have nothing to loose by trying.

Long live American manufacturing!

[fleetwin]

I’m with Bill, an external fire would not have melted those deflectors….If it did, the aluminum probably would have been melted also… What engine are you working on? Pictures?

[johnyrude200]

Ill post a pic or two once I get going today, but through my travels have seen a number of incinerated motors pass through here. Ill post one of a 225 where the whole manifold and carburetors are melted. We know that wasn’t internal! “

But this one is an oddball to me.

[Author]

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