headgaskets

[Lazlo24]

Long story short. Been working on and off on a 1994 175hp . Bought it with a busted gearcase. Sorted a used gearcase just to find out that the shiftrod was broken. Lifted the power head and replaced the shiftrod.
Started it up on muffs today and it seems to get water in to combustion chambers. It smokes white and 4 out of 6 plugs seems to be “cleaned” as the motor runs. What would be the likely culprit? Head gaskets would be my first guess but are there any other way of getting water in to the cylinders?

[Queequeg2]

A head gasket could certainly be the problem. If it was used in saltwater there could also be a hole between the cylinder and the water jacket. Did you check compression? You probably need to pull the head and take a look. A lot of people shy away from pulling the head, but I've found it to be rather easy to replace head gaskets as long as you have a torque wrench. If the head is warped, you probably have to have it milled. But to clean up the old gaskets and light scratches you can google some nifty ways sheets of sandpaper on a flat surface. I've done it just as maintenance and never had an issue.

[99yam40]

holes in head or exhaust plates

[Lazlo24]

Just pulled the exhaust plate and apart from some minor salt and soot buildup there was no problem. I’ll see when I get time to pull the heads

[panasonic]

Going to bet $20 that its head gaskets! Lol

Break any bolts getting exhaust plates off? Hopefully not. If you didn't perhaps you will have good luck getting head bolts out without breaking any.

Good Luck.

[Lazlo24]

Only one bolt broke and luckily on an easy access place so it won’t be to much of a problem.
Not so worried about the head bolts but the water jackets bolts are a little bit worrying