The Manifold...

A lot can happen in four days.  It was looking to be a great weekend.  Everyone commenting on how excited they are that Spring is finally here.  It's still march people!  This is just a taste.  t will be cold again before Spring really arrives.  That being said I wanted to take advantage of the nice weather.  My goal for the weekend was to make the engine ready to remove.  Talking to a friend of mine at work, who has build engines for race cars, I was able to secure an engine stand.  All that was left now, was to actually get the block out of the boat.  Before I could do that, however, I still needed to remove some components... mainly the manifold and carburetor.  Thursday evening I had some time.  I got to the boat about 5.  Plenty of daylight left.  I started in on the manifold.It was in pretty bad shape. Lot's of rust on the discharge port.  I started on the three bolts holding it on.  The first loosened fairly easily, but kept turning.  It couldn't be pulled out.  Not a good sign.  moving on, the second one was easily removed, but looking closely at it, only half of the threads came out of the block... meaning, of course, that the other half of the threads were still in the engine block.  The third bolt.  Sigh.  the third bolt.  I put the wrench on it.  The wrench couldn't grip it.... as though it were a size smaller than the other two.  That made no sense though.  I got the next size smaller wrench.  Too small.  Hmmm.  Maybe metric was used.  Tried my metric wrenches.  Nope.  Not metric.  A bolt that no wrench will work on.  Some evil trick from God, or the last person that owned the boat (Dad!!).  I wasn't sure which.  Cursing them both, I put the vise grips on it.  With little effort, it turned off.  I then pulled the stud out in one piece.  A closer inspection found the bolt stripped in the respect that it had no corners.  It had been rounded years ago by someone with a wrong sized wrench.  I'll blame my mechanic from years ago who, after working on my engine for a season, found himself in the bathroom, dead after putting a hole in his head.  Hmmmm.
I pulled the exhaust pipe off the muffler, and removed the manifold, carburator, and unknown exhaust component as one big unit.  I was able to remove the stud that kept turning.  Turns out it just needed some pressure.  It was loose from the block already.  Only half of the threads, again, came out of the block.  That's two holes I now need to drill and retap in the block.  I'm ok with that though.  Things like this are exactly why I'm doing this project.