What is this, the Red Green School of Atomic 4 Repair?

So I fired up the engine again today, just because I could and also because I just wanted to hear it again. :)

Also, I figured I should do one last re-torque of the head bolts just to confirm. The Moyer Manual says to do it at least three times, and I had done it twice last time. This time, only two nuts needed maybe 1/4 turn before the torque wrench clicked. All the others clicked immediately without turning, so I'm going to declare the head good and torqued.

The other thing that I just remembered was that the manual says to re-check the valve tappet clearances after running for a while. So I guess maybe I should do that before dropping the engine back in the boat. It will be way, way easier to check the valve clearances with the engine on the stand in my shop, rather than in the engine box on the boat!

Yesterday, I applied the first coat of Bilgekote to the bilge and today I started fabbing a new battery box for the two house batteries. I also went back to working on the new engine bulkhead that I made a couple months ago. It's been sitting in the back of my shop gathering dust, while I was working on the engine. I coated all the pieces of the new bulkhead with clear penetrating epoxy sealer; next I'll paint them all, then assemble the whole thing. It's going to look so much better than the crappy old one that was in there.

I also roughed out a new table top for the dinette table. The old one is ugly - particleboard covered with brown, fake woodgrain plastic laminate, with an aluminum edging. It just screams 1968.

Yesterday I tore apart an old desk I had bought a few years ago - it was made entirely of solid wood - I think it's either "Danish" teak, or it might be angelique, but whatever it is, it's a very high-quality hardwood and planes beautifully. It's going to make a beautiful table top. And I'm going to use some of the other bits and pieces for various other small projects around the boat.

Bill...great update..sounds like you have a good plan. Some pics of the table would be sweet. :D

Inching closer to getting the engine back in the boat...

Went back up to the boat again today - another crazy hot day. This time, though, I brought along the cheap box fan I bought at WalMart yesterday and laid it down on the open forward hatch. It helped a lot - both to keep the heat inside the boat down and to move the paint fumes out. I was still sweating like a race horse, but not quite as profusely as last time.

I fit the new battery box that I fabbed up last week, and epoxied in a support for it. I also laid down two more coats of Bilgekote bilge paint, so that should pretty much be done, except for one or two small spots that need just a little more work.

I need to fix the attachment point for part of my centerboard pennant system. There is a spool hanging on the bulkhead above the engine, and the line goes down a copper tube next to the engine, then into an enclosed pulley that turns it about 70 degrees, then forward, under the cabin sole to another enclosed pulley that turns it down outside the hull, where it then attaches to the centerboard.

The first enclosed pulley is attached to a hunk of wood that *was* epoxied into the hull next to the engine beds. Looks like it let go some time ago, and someone (probably the prior owner, I'm guessing) stuck a couple screws through the fiberglass tab into the wood to try to hold it in place.

So next weekend, I'll go back up to the boat and install the prop shaft and stuffing box, and hopefully re-epoxy that wooden block for the centerboard pennant. Then I'll do the final bits of bilge painting that need to be done, and then she should be ready to receive the engine!

So the week after next, if all goes according to plan, I'll take a day off work (oh, I'm heartbroken about that) and head up there early. I'll have the yard fire up the crane and drop the engine back in, and then do some hooking back up of various connections. I'll probably have to finish the job the following weekend, but once the engine is in, I'll re-launch, despite the fact that there's no cabin sole and lots more interior woodworking, painting and varnishing to do. I figure I can do that in the slip at the marina - I want to stop paying this monthly yard fee and get her back in the water!

Even if the cabin is still a wreck, at least I can still day-sail her...

Rust -

I feel your centerboard pain , I dealt with similar issues prior to my recent launch.

It sounds as though you are rounding third base - stay the course.

Floating Laker.

You're gettin' there Bill..Taking off work to work on the boat sure is unfortunate isn't it? :cool: (I took off most of Friday and went sailing with my buddy, who as it turns out was hiding me from my house for a surprise birthday party..:D)

The feeling as you motor away from the travel lift slip in a couple of weeks will be one of the best feelings possible. ;)

Just the other day, my wife was asking whether I was finally done ordering parts and stuff.

Unfortunately the answer is "no."

Still need to order a good sea strainer for the raw water intake.

And still one "big ticket" order to go - all new canvas. Sail cover, dodger and bimini. I've got an estimate from a good canvas maker - about $2,500. :eek:

Pretty much have to do it, though. The sail cover and dodger both are totally shot and probably are close to 20 years old. And she doesn't have a bimini. Some previous owner, a couple owners ago, fabricated what I like to call the "Jed Clampett" sun shade. Four stainless poles with two cross-members and a big sheet of Sunbrella across. It's very effective at shading the cockpit, but a pain in the arse to set up and very ungainly-looking. And it's pretty worn out also.

It is funny you say that about parts...we took the family out sailing this weekend and had a great time and the engine ran flawlessly. Now that the family event is over, I am getting ready to rip it all apart again to start the FWC install..I am making up my Moyer list for Ken right now! :p

Neil turned me onto a (relatively) cheap raw water strainer that is simple and plastic and easy to mount & clean.

It is available on ebay from the "boaterbits" store...$30-ish

edit - use this in the ebay search engine. "BOAT RAW WATER INTAKE STRAINER FILTER "

HA!

Talk about timing. Hehehe...

I just pushed the button on an order including a Groco bronze sea strainer and associated fittings.

I just decided that was the one I wanted. It's more expensive, but hey, waddya gonna do? What the boat wants, the boat gets. It's a quality item.

I need to take a good look at what I actually am going to need as far as hose and fittings. As I recall, the Moyer FWC kit requires 5/8" hose. And I recently bought a bunch of 1/2". :rolleyes:

Then I have to figure out where the sea strainer and heat exhcanger are going to go - not a whole lot of places to hang things in my little engine area. Oh yeah, and some wiring stuff, too - I need to figure out where to locate a bus bar or two. I'm thinking a bus bar is the best way to wire up all the things that need to connect to the engine and batteries, rather than the stack of wires the previous owner had attached to the battery terminals and a couple ground points on the engine.

On the tailgate:

http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...722110720a.jpg


http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...0722110720.jpg


http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...722110720b.jpg

http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...722110728a.jpg


I said to the guy, "I dunno - you think that crane is big enough to lift this engine?"

He replied, without missing a beat, "I could go get the big one."

Apparently, this is their "small" crane.

http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...0722110736.jpg

The view from the inside the cabin:

http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...722110738b.jpg

The mysterious levitating engine!

http://i648.photobucket.com/albums/u...0722110743.jpg

On the left, you can see my shiny new through-hull. On the right, the support for the new battery box I'm not quite done building yet.

Also, all that white stuff: the @"#$*&@^! bilge paint that nearly killed me. That was a lot of work.

The best part is that, even with the PTO shaft and pulley for the FWC kit, there is still enough room behind where the bulkhead will go that I don't have to relocate it. I was not sure whether I would have to move the bulkhead forward a couple inches, but I can attach the new bulkhead I'm making right to the same cleats the old one came off.

After this, I sanded and varnished (actually, Cetol'd) one grab rail on the cabin roof. By 10:00 a.m., it was too stinkin' hot and humid to do anymore, and I was working in the direct sun, so I packed it in and went home.

I started this whole adventure at 5:30 a.m., when I left my house to get to the boatyard by 7:00 a.m.

Looks fantastic Bill! Thanks for all the pictures!

Looking back at that last pic, of course I now see some places I should have painted with the Bilgekote.

Maybe I will go back and do them, once the weather cools down from "pizza oven/sauna" to "pasta steamer".

Looks real good!
 

Nice job there Bill. It looks really good. The compartment is done well also and it will reflect light well. I like it. Let us know when you fire her up.

One thing I forgot to report, that I just remembered. When the two crane guys first showed up, they came by in a pickup truck to check out what the job would require. I had the engine sitting out on the tailgate of my pickup and I was up in the boat getting ready. I could hear them talking as they pulled up in the truck and were taking a look at the engine and figuring out where to hoist it from.

I heard one guy say to the other, "See, that's what they're supposed to look like."

I hope he was talking about the engine itself overall. Anyhow, it was nice to hear.

Bill-
Do the bus bar for both battery stuff and the coil.
It really cleans things up.
What I really like, is that it gets all of those ground wires OFF of every friggin' screw on the engine!
Here's a shot of my Battery Bus. I have the same for the coil. ;)

Bill, good work. looks nice! Did you adjust forward and reverse before you dropped it in?

Jerry, Dumb question: Is that for the positive battery connection or negative? Can you use the same type for both? Looks very neat.

Yes. I think it should be good, but of course I'll find out for sure when I finally get the boat in the water and give it a go. If you watch my video posted earlier in this thread, I demonstrate the forward and reverse with the engine running on the stand, so it makes me think it's probably pretty well adjusted.

If you look a little more closely at the pic, you'll see that there are two separate bars in that block, and the top one has a "+ symbol on it. The way I've seen them, one side is for the + and the other side is for the - terminal.

Jim, Yes..what Bill said. That Blue Sea bus bar does positive on one side & negative on the other. I have the same one, but it is not related to the engine..mine is up in the chart table separating the main battery switch from the rest of the wiring. It is really a nice way to tidy things up.

I chose to use separate bus bars for neg & positive runs for the engine, simply because I already had them on hand and didn't want to give WM anymore of my hard earned money for more fancy Blue Sea stuff. :rolleyes:

Shawn - These folks don't have any kick back gimmicks but they do have lower prices. http://www.defender.com:).

I have found all kinds of marine suppliers out there with lower prices, and in some cases, larger assortments, than West.

In addition to Defender, also check out http://www.jmsonline.net/ and http://www.boatfix.com/.

The one in my pic was from HAMILTON MARINE.
Very clean and works great.
$25 plus shipping...

http://store.hamiltonmarine.com/brow...-/4,28929.html

thanks for the links..& I appreciate everyone's suggestions.

My SOP is to print out the Defender (or similar) price and carry it into my local WM. They pay for shipping and I walk out with Defender's price + sales tax.. :D

Whenever I buy something at the local West Marine now, when I come up to the counter.."Do you have your BoatUS/West Advantage card? Oh, I bet you have a price matching document too.." :rolleyes: - There are a few exceptions...they stopped price matching Amazon.com after I was getting Ancor lugs & fittings at about 70% off their retail, but they will ALWAYS match Defender & other legitimate marine businesses.

I've talked to the store manager about it and said, "Look, I get retail pricing..some poor schmuck comes in from a passage and needs X, Y & Z and you can demand almost any price since he needs it & you have it. I hope you understand that I am bringing in price match documents so I can continue to provide some business for my local store and help keep your doors open, but sometimes I think your retail prices are very high."

"Yep, I understand Shawn and I appreciate that you take the extra time to do the research and still bring us your business..no problem with the price matching."
:cool:
BTW - here is my install..not as clean as Jerry's, but everything on my boat is a work in progress, I may move it as I don't really like the way the wires are routed. (i need newer pics too..this one didn't even have the ground run to the panel yet..:rolleyes: )