I call all the local Marinas close to me to see if they have any slips so that I can repair the exhaust, but I can find no marina with an open slip. I keep making the circle bigger and bigger but to no avail. Next, I call the local TowBoat US office and they direct me to Wilmington City Marina near downtown Wilmington, I’d bet they have some kind of deal between them because I called them earlier and they said they were closed and under construction. The search takes all morning, but finally, I’ve got a slip. The Tow Boat shows up around 2:30 pm and by 5:30 pm we are at the marina and I’m tied up. By 6:30 I’ve unwrapped the high-temperature fiberglass insulation from around the exhaust pipe and I can see that the pipe has corroded to paper thin at the elbow where the water is injected and that is where the crack is. It’s complexly fractured and separated from the elbow, frankly, it’s amazing that it held together for the 4 hours it took to get up into the Cape Fear. But now, how to fix it as quickly as possible. I’m only an hour and a half drive from home, which is 3 days by boat. The exhaust pipe is threaded into a flange that is then bolted to the exhaust manifold, I try using my big pipe wrench to unscrew the pipe, but it’s not moving and I don’t want to make things worse by breaking it, I move on and try to unbolt the flange, but like the pipe itself, it’s not moving. I can remove the elbow and muffler pipe by loosening the clamp on the exhaust hose. But, how am I going to fix this…
I get online and start searching for expandable marine exhaust hoses. If I can get a flexible hose over the existing fractured pipe and clamp the other end over the elbow, then that could work. The potential difficulty is the different diameters, the exhaust pipe is 1 ¼” and the outside of the elbow is slightly over 2”. If I build up the diameter of the pipe and get a 2” flex hose that might do the job. I know that the exhaust gases are hot so it has to be something that is meant for high temp. On Volvo’s website, I find a flex hose, almost a bellows that is expandable in the middle, it’s 2” inside diameter, which might work and the West Marine near Wrightsville Beach has one. Now I need to get some exhaust repair tape to build up the diameter on the pipe, which is available from any auto parts store. I give Uber a call and by 7:30 pm we are on our way. First to West Marine and then to Auto Zone, by 9:30 I’m back on the boat. After a quick dinner, I put on the lighted miner’s hat and commence implementing the plan. By 11:00 the repair is in place, but I’m dubious that it will hold up. It took a lot of tries to get the flex hose over the outside of the elbow and secure it in place, the clamping area is less the ¼” wide. 