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1996 Response exhaust hose rant.


96Response

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Well after noticing that the bilge had slightly more water than normal, I found that one of my rear exhaust hoses had worn thru from the bilge area. Now why in the world would you design something so difficult to change out that should take 10 minutes.Wrapping the hose in some type of scuff resistant material would have made this last much longer. Bad enough that they didn't design a quick release floor section that you just pull the pins from the motor box/dog house. You have to take out the gas filler tube from the rear deck, remove gas tank hold down bolts and brackets. drain the gas, jack up the gas tank as far as you can then become a contortionist and figure out how to get 2 hands in there to loosen 2 hose clamps that could have been located in a different position so you could do these with slightly less of a pain in the but. Whomever designed this at Malibu defiantly never works on anything after it has been assembled. I could change out my hose on my 1975 Nuatique in 10 minutes with one hand and a beer in the other. Man i miss that boat. ooooooooooooooooookkkkkkkkkkk i feel better. Until the hose comes in and i have to do all this in reverse. Man am I glad i did my engineering and design internship somewhere other than Malibu. 

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If you had interned at Malibu maybe you could explained all this to them.  It appears that a lesson in logic could of helped them out.

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@96Response: Sorry to hear the '96 RLX is that much of a challenge.  The Echelon exhaust hose & swapping out the tips for bigger ones did not require a fuel tank removal.  The pipes actually kept the hose off the floor so as not to allow it to wear.  Is you boat have HDS or is it pre HDS?  That may be the element that makes it less than ideally serviceable.  The hose clamp install orientation is certainly critical for post assembly ease of access.

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It has the HDS box. I  figured out how to do it without a complete tank removal. I  had to remove the fuel fill from the deck and then lift the tank up and let it rest on 2 x 4's to make just enough room to fit one hand in there. I found the key to success was a Palm Ratchet. This made the task at hand a little less miserable. If they would have just changed the hose clamp orientation it would have made this much less difficult. but on the bright side, I had a fellow co-worker over whom is a master mechanic and we both had a great laugh at how manufacturers DO NOT put much thought into the necessity for  servicing  what they make. Don't get me wrong I love my Malibu, but I have seen some things they could have and should have just put a little more thought into . I mean not being able to pull the dog house without removing brackets is a bit unclear to me. A simple hinged bracket with a pull pin is a very simple design. Nautique has been doing this since the beginning of time. Just saying !!!!!!This off season I will be making new brackets to do so, also this will make it easy to remove the rear access panel to change packing, grease the rudder and anything else needing attention to in that area.  All said and done I am still impressed with the overall quality. You guys with V-Drives, I can only imagine how fun those are to work on. LOL. 

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They seemed to be fine actually. Just had a rubbed area in one spot. After I was back there working i discovered the shower pump had a leaking fitting that i believe was causing most of the water in the Bilge. it wasn't all that bad once i figured everything out. 

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