Hi All,
I thought I might try and contribute something on the chance it could help someone out down the line.
On my Mercruiser 120 there is a bellows or tubing that connects the Exhaust Elbow to the "elbow assembly" which is connected to the gimbal housing. See item 42 in the below picture for an example. I had the bad fortune of needing to replace this as it was all burnt up. Unfortunately, searching any manual term for this part tends to bring up results for the exhaust bellows - I have even seen other forum posts looking for information on this part only to be answered by well-intentioned veterans who mistake that they are asking about the exhaust bellows.
Anyways, once I had ordered the correct OEM replacement part, I found I could not for the life of me fit the mouth of the exhaust elbow tube around the elbow assembly (item 33). I tried force, grease, everything. After quite a bit of searching, I did find some deeply buried advice to boil the part for a couple minutes to make it more pliable. This ended up doing the trick for me and I could finally wedge it on with some grease/force. I'm sure this is something many people already know about but given the procedure and part are sort of a misnomer of themselves, I figured I'd try and offer this one up to any frustrated boater. My NOS part must have slightly contracted over the years such that I could not for the life of me get it to mount.
Best,
Pieter Swart
Chanhassen, MN
