I need to replace the exhaust elbow on my Volvo D2-55. A Volvo part is horrendously expensive in Au, not much change from $1,000. It may be less if I order from overseas, but freight on such a heavy item is likely to cancel out any savings.

Does anyone know of an Australian manufacturer of aftermarket marine exhaust components? Online searches haven't turned anything up for me, but I can't believe there isn't someone out there...

Mate that is a fairly simple looking (image is small) four bolt rectangular flange with a pipe shaped outlet with one or two smaller water inlets.

I would be taking the original to my local marine fabrication and welding shop and asking the guy to make one out of stainless for me.

I can't see more than $200 in it and it will last a lot longer than the original.

Making wet exhaust elbows out of cast iron just does not make sense. The hot salt water sucks the guts out of the cast iron and turns it into a brittle piece of honeycomb.

This was discussed on this forum about a year and a half ago.

Diecon " http://www.corcooling.com.au/ " in Brisbane make marine cooling components but mostly for Kubotas. You could try them.

Ramona said..
Yes the cast iron is meant to be sacrificial.

Why is that so?? Is it so the rest of the wet manifold does not erode??

QldCruiser,
I've just got some Volvo parts from the US www.marinepartsexpress.com , they were half the price of local Volvo suppliers, postage was $95 for about 4kgs.

It took about two weeks for delivery from placing the order, arrived as ordered yesterday.

The customer service was great responded to a few questions I had quickly.
Better than Seamech (Brisbane) who I approached 3 times to get a quote, I'm still waiting for them to come back to me!!!

IN Mexican land on H28 a few Bukh's DV 20's have gal pipe exhaust made up I noticed mine has as well

BlueMoon said..

There was a reason why it was better to make them out of steel/gal pipe(IIRC) rather than SS but cant remember at the moment, cheers

I'm not absolutely sure but if you use marine diesel it has more sulphur than road diesel . So they say stainless steel will last longer and perhaps cast as well with road diesel.
But this was from a UK site some where it may be different on OZ . I have no idea if the recipe is different here for either or the same for both marine and road diesel

The cast elbow on a Nanni/Kubota I had chaffed it, so I had a s/s flange made and pipe with water injection tube welded to it. I made sure the water injector tube projected inside almost to the end of the pipe ensuring the water flow would be in the exit direction.

Then there was a short length of rubber exhaust hose connected to a light gauge s/s muffler/water trap. It lasted about three months while I was chartering regularly before the hot salt water chewed it out.

I then measured the amount of water that would lay in the hose if there was no water trap. It was minimal so I made a judgement call to just go with the hose only with a high loop just before exit from the transom to prevent flushing from a following sea.

It worked quite fine and there was no significant increase in exhaust noise as once the water is mixed with it, it kills the bark. I must say though I never did get in a big enough following sea to know if there would be a flush back.

That was that boat. For most yachts I think it is still a good idea to have a water trap on the exhaust as long as it is not made of stainless steel. Hot salt water kills stainless steel.