Remove exhaust elbow on 325 Aft Cabin

[Hold'n On II]

I may be too late to save the floor support but will reply for future reference.

As another poster stated, both the elbow and manifold can be removed as unit, but you'll have to drain the system of coolant.

All you need is a 2x4, a scissors style car jack and some webbing or rope (I suggest webbing with a cam buckle). Place the 2x4 across the opening above the elbow, with the scissors jack on top of that. Run the webbing or rope through the exhaust manifold tubes, then up and over the jack. Raise the jack to take the pressure off the assembly. Remove manifold bolts and the unit will swing away.

When reinstalling, you can use a couple of the old small elbow studs as guide studs for lining up the replacement assembly. I suggest cutting a groove in the end of each so they can be removed with a screwdriver. Install the guide studs finger tight in the two end manifold bolt holes in the block, then hang the assembly as it was when you removed it and guide it back into place (It's good to have a helper).

Once the assembly is lined up on the guide studs, you can cut the bottom portion of the corresponding bolt holes in a new exhaust gasket and hang the gasket over the guide studs, then install manifold bolts, then remove guide studs and install the last 2 bolts and torque them down.

[Thekaj]

Reporting back the results. I did go ahead and cut the beam, giving me enough room to remove the elbow, install a new one, and then bolt on a bar to reinforce it. The photos show just how much the elbow was under the beam. I’m pretty happy with the results, with the exception of how much paint I scratched off it. . It’ll allow me to just remove the bar when I need to inspect/replace the elbow again. I’m still amazed that the boat was designed with that big of an issue accessing a part that occasionally needs replacement.

[Viper]

Source of the post.....I’m still amazed that the boat was designed with that big of an issue accessing a part that occasionally needs replacement.

You'd be surprised how often techs run into things like that, boy do I have stories! It's an issue with every brand no matter the size of boat. You'd think bigger boats would offer extra room for accessibility but somehow the architects still manage to make things difficult. I guess they must think nothing's ever going to fail. I've always thought that part of an architect's education should have an on-hands component where they shadow a tech for a season to see what it's like trying to access hardware. Designing with accessibility in mind would result in happier techs, and you wouldn't have disputes with customers when you hand them an invoice for a few hours work on something that would otherwise take much less time. It seems that only when a boat owner does their own work do they realize just how long a seeming easy task can take. This is exactly why I never give job estimates over the phone site unseen, you just never know what you'll run into even with vessels of the same model/year.