Our 1967 42 Commander's history has been an interesting one. I know that it sat on land for at least 6 years just prior to us purchasing it, and I've heard that prior to that, it sat for a period of time as well... with all of the sitting, I started seeing over the years that the mufflers might be taking a toll from sitting...
Sure, the cast iron is pretty thick, but how about the baffles? In spring over the past few years, and especially the first few years that we'd start the engines, I'd notice brown water, along with in some cases, larger chunks of flat metal being ejected from the back of the boat. Clearly not a good sign. With both engines and exhaust manifolds having been replaced already, it's pretty easy to figure out where the debris was coming from. Over the past couple years, I've also noticed that the starboard side sounds like it's running straight exhaust - i.e. the baffles are shot. So, it's been on my list for a while to replace the mufflers as I figured it was just a matter of time before the cast iron perforated, and then started leaking water into the boat while underway.
Fast forward to about a year or so ago when Lee Dahlen contacted me asking if I'd want a pair of mufflers from his stash of parts that he no longer had use for... "Absolutely!" It took us a while, but finally we got through some challenges in our personal lives, and managed a trip out to North Carolina to pick the mufflers up.
Yeah, yeah... I'm still getting mufflers that are ancient, but in checking them out, we're getting mufflers that are in much better shape than what I'm dealing with now. So, here we are... step one, prepping the mufflers to be replaced... here are some pictures.
ABOVE: Wire brushing the mufflers. It's important for me as my son gets older, to have him involved in boat projects. This was a good one for him while I was down in the shop working on our aft cabin stairs. He used a wire brush wheel and a corded drill to remove what little surface rust was on the mufflers.
ABOVE: Ready for primer. Atter being brushed, we wiped them down, and stood them up in the garage on a tarp to get them primed.
ABOVE: Primed... ready for paint.
ABOVE: Ready to go! Okay, okay... it's a bit blingy, but hear me out.... in my experience, the factory mufflers were always painted silver. Not sure of the logic behind that but they could be painted pink or purple... you never see them for the most part. So, my logic.... go with copper as it will match the rest of the copper exhaust pieces we have already (F-pipes coming off the manifolds), elbows, and straight pieces. Yeah, I know... no one is going to see them, but maybe sometime in the future when someone has to do something under our bunks, they'll see and maybe appreciate the small amount of time that was taken to make things look nice.
NEXT STEPS
I may or may not (probably not) paint the "Chris * Craft" black on the mufflers, and then they'll go out to our marina. As long as we are pulling the mufflers out, I'm also having the exhaust hose and clamps replaced. The copper exhaust will get polished so they looks nice - matching the copper tubing on the engines. Hopefully that will be happening between this week and next, and we'll be ready to hit the water by the end of the month. For those of you in northern climates, you can appreciate our excitement of our family... I've NEVER had a boat in the water before April - almost surreal, but we'll take an early, slightly chilly start to our season.
C.
1967 42 Commander
"What If..."
Looks great Chris. I am jealous. I have been putting this off. Need to find a set like that. You found the gem!
@STERLING SHRIBER Harpurs shows them on their site. I just saw this a minute ago. Maybe they have some
An update.... I will not be physically putting the mufflers in the boat. I don't know if I mentioned it, but I wanted to be clear. With that being said...
ABOVE: Reay to get installed
Winters up north for a boater are... long. Don't get me wrong, putting the boat away in fall gives me the chance to get all of the neglected home stuff from the boating season done, and it's nice to shift gears and see the snow. But, along come February... well, time to call it quits and look forward to spring. It's that time, and for us.... a bit early of a splash perhaps.
As I am having our marina workshop install the mufflers, I got a call a few weeks ago asking if we'd want to go in early as there was some room inside the shop (only spots for two , maybe three big boats)... "Uh, yeah!" So out to the boat we went this weekend to clear out the aft cabin & salon (for access to the entire exhaust system), and to wash, wax, and paint the hull. Mission accomplished, but one thing was a bit challenging...
Access to the port side exhaust runs is pretty easy... empty out the bottom shelf of the storage at the base of the stairs, and pull up the two wood panels. Voila. mostly easy access to the clamps, and all the beautiful copper exhaust pieces. On the starboard side... you'd think it'd be the same... just take out off of your stuff under the sink behind the sliding doors, and pull up the boards hiding the exhaust. You'd think. Turns out, they nailed 4 boards down. So, what I thought was going to be the last little 5 minute task to be nice and open everything up, turned into about 45 mintues of digging out two nails from one side of one board, the prying it up, then prying the other 3 boards up and removing them...all held in with nails. Needless to say I will be putting them back in with screws. lol
Now, I know that there is going to be a challenge to get the F pipes off, and everything fitted back together (why I'm not doing it), but hopefully by the end of the week we are ready to go - all new clamps (I was given a picture today of a clamp for the exhaust hose by the outlet at the transom that had broken in two just with minor fiddling), new hose, polished copper tubing, and... some blingy mufflers to match!
C.
Yeah… you know what they say about “the easy jobs?” Those take the longest!! 🤣🤣
Another update, because I just got a pic from the marina... a little more bling for the engine room... they are going to polish the F-Pipes and elbows..
ABOVE: One F-Pipe done...
This is giving me a bit of shiny exhaust envy! Mine has stainless F pipes (rough finish, not polished) and everything else is fiberglass. Nice for durability and low maintenance (and the big 2 stage water lift mufflers are nice and very quiet). But the polished copper certainly wins for looks.