Everything has been very helpful and much thanks go out to all of you. I bought a 97 TE with the peninsular engine this past summer and have been working through a checklist of things from my inspections, the survey report and many of the posts from the board. The boat I purchased was kept in a fresh water river just up from the ocean for most of her life. As a result the mechanicals are in exceptionally good condition for their age. The trip home was about 17 hours and things ran reasonably well along the way. I have been through some of the usual things like patchy bottom paint stripping, wetsand/compound/polishing of the hull and general cleanup maintenance tasks since the fall. During the trip home, I noticed temps getting a little warm (and climbing above 160-170) after more than 1/2 hour at higher engine loads (75-80% wot) Slightly lower loads (65-70%) made this go away and temps stayed normal. The first 10 hours everything was fine at 65-70% wot in the gulf of maine and cape cod bay. As soon as I got about 1 mile from the northern entrance to the cape cod canal, the temp began to climb again so I had to back down to 50-60% wot to keep her cool. Just the water temp difference from north shore to south was able to cause this. The obvious here is that there was reduced cooling flow for some reason. I cleaned out the strainer which was a little clogged with barnacle shells and things improved slightly, but there is definitely more to the issue. Over the remainder of the season things slowly got worse again but I was always able to maintain 50-60% wot without warming up. I also noticed an increased amount of exhaust vapor from what is expected. (my best friend has had the same boat/year/engine since 2002 so I am more than familiar with things.) The two obvious problems are the heat exchanger, cooling lines (salt water side) and water pump impeller. Impeller will be changed in the spring and the heat exchanger will be taken off and cleaned. There is very reduced water flow now that she is on the hard which is probably the biggest cause of the issues with cooling. I can't even get antifreeze to pump up from the strainer right now. Quite likely impeller parts are all over the system. I have had to resort to pumping antifreeze into the salt water side of the cooling system. Will feeding this into the heat exchanger output (side by pencil zinc) be sufficient to get all lines treated? I have gotten enough in to go all the way back to the strainer and forward to the exhaust, but want to be sure. I am taking all lines apart to clean/check them but need to have the boat winterized and covered asap until the spring. Water pump, impeller, lines, exchanger are all on my early spring to do list but I need to get things protected for the next ~4 months of winter.
