71 Ericson 29

[toddster]

Shafted Again!

Argh. It turns out the new shaft keyway doesn't match the keyway on the engine coupler. I could probably make it fit, with the smaller keystock, but... Guess I'll order up a new split coupler. And so it goe$.

As long as I'm waiting for more part$, it seems like a good idea to replace the shaft log hose, and throw a couple more clamps on there too, if they'll fit.



However, I am not having any luck finding any in this size. The smallest hose I can find on line is 1-1/2 inch ID. The log is 1-3/8 and the stuffing box is 1-3/16. Seems like 1-1/4 ID hose would be the best match. Anybody got a handle on such an animal?

I think I'd more inclined to re-use the old piece than to try to squeeze down a piece that's too big.

[sastanley]

toddster...I built up my shaft log to the bigger stuffing box..it is much beefier. I know I know, more time & $$...but that is a few layers of glass & some West System..you are already proficient with that. I seem to recall as a youngster there were lots of 'chunks' missing out of the back of the keel..years of bottom paint will hold anything together!

Here is a link to the shaft log business...

http://www.moyermarine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4044&page=8

Things with the shaft log start about #186, but you can see the built up repair in #264. Then the nice fancy new thick hose fits real nice. As you'll see the "while I am here" rear-seal replacement ended up being just as big of a nightmare!

[romantic comedy]

That hose for the stuffing box is not ordinary hose. I found mine from Buck Algonquin. Look around, ask around, people know what you need.

[toddster]

Yeah, I know. I suspect this previous piece is 1-1/2 inch stuff that someone forced closed with the hose clamps. Nobody makes smaller any more. Same story I got everywhere on the west coast when I went to get a new shaft. "Nobody makes them that small anymore."

Yeah, I'm pretty much buying a whole new boat, piece by piece, to fit my new propeller

Anyway, waiting for parts. Waiting for epoxy to cure so I can prep the sides for paint. Screw it. I'm loading up the hobie and going sailing for the rest of the day.

[toddster]

Now I'm In Hot Water. Or am I?

Help me Afourians for I have transgressed... and I am too tired to trust my reasoning on this. Yea, though the blessed Afourian is destined to be smudged with grease, and with oil, and even with questionable fishy-smelling substances from the bilge, all the days of his voyage... Yet I in my hubris imagined what a fine thing it would be to have hot showers on board. Verily did I purchase a Seward water heater. But Lo! This square object almost but did not quite fit into the boat-shaped locker next to the engine, where I had planned to install it. Fear not! I thought... it will simply have to go into the voluminous lazarette, even though that will add yet more weight to the port side of the boat.

Now today, I was laying in the lazarette, doubled over with abdominal cramps from working in these strange and unnatural positions, having tabbed in a support for the heater, pulled cable, and all but finished the installation. I had no choice but to actually think for a time, while waiting for the cramps to subside.

As it stands, the heat exchanger inside the water heater is now at least several inches above the FWC heat exchanger. Possibly even as much as a foot (I don't know how the H/E is arranged inside the case.) Am I going to now have to relocate the FWC heat exchanger out to the lazarette, to keep the coolant cap at the highest point in the system? Or could I get by with some sort of auxiliary fill cap at the water heater and some sort of bypass valve in the engine compartment?

It wouldn't be all that difficult to move the exchanger out there - just two more hoses to run. But not very convenient to add coolant. Rats! That locker on the starboard side was just perfect, but the darned thing wouldn't fit in.

[ndutton]

Header tank

This happens all the time. The solution is a header tank mounted at the highest point in fresh water side of the system.


You can have one custom made (I did)


or buy one ready made


When choosing a location for the header tank consider good fill access to the top, route the hoses in a continuous upflow direction so air naturally finds its way there. If such routing cannot be done and there's an unavoidable air trap add a bleed valve to purge the air easily.

[toddster]

Ah. Interesting. Thanks Neil. So there is actually an off-the-shelf solution. I wonder what would be the effect on the old filler cap at the FWC H/E? Seems like a potential for constant coolant leaks.

Coincidentally, your schematic diagram looks almost exactly like the actual physical layout of my system, except my (horizontal) H/E is currently sandwiched between the port side of the engine and the bulkhead. (A bulkhead and the exhaust standpipe are in between the engine and the water heater.) I was going to move it to the starboard side bulkhead, where there is more room, and on the same side as the water pumps, as per your diagram. Had the water heater fit on the back side of that starboard bulkhead, most of the hose runs could have been shortened up to about 1-foot or so.

Hmm... I suppose the heater might fit if I shucked off the outer casing and wrapped it in soft insulation instead. Good thing I didn't think of that at the time

Right now, it looks like buying a little more hose and putting the H/E itself next to the water heater would be the cheapest option.

[ndutton]

IF
you decide to go the header tank route, replace the existing HX cap with one of higher pressure, like 12- 15 lbs. and use a recovery style low-to-zero pressure cap on the header tank. That will effectively seal off the HX making it leak free and allow the header tank and recovery system to work properly.

[toddster]

OK. I'm going back to painting for a couple of days and let that one stew. At least the end is in sight of most of these jobs.

Bah. Bilge-pump through-hull just snapped off when I bumped it with the sander. Why can't all the "can't launch without" parts all break at the same time so I can get them ordered in time?

[sastanley]

toddster...because it is a boat that's why.

At least it broke off now and not in the middle of some river somewhere during a storm, while you are pumping rain water out of the bilge.

So Neil, while we are on this subject of teh FWC...my HX & low pressure cap seem to push fluid to my overflow bottle just fine, but it never sucks it back in..seems like a one-way road.. the top of the HX & the top of the overflow bottle are at roughly the same height. Isn't is supposed to pull the antifreeze back in when it cools off?

[ndutton]

You are correct Shawn, the coolant should be drawn back in when the system cools. Small differences in recovery bottle height should not matter. Some thoughts:

• Could be the pressure cap is either not a recovery type or the recovery portion of the cap valve is stuck closed. It should open with very little vacuum.
• Any kink or restriction in the overflow hose? It has to work under pressure and vacuum and the two are very different in magnitude.
• Is the overflow reservoir vent obstructed in any way (usually a hole in the cap)?

[sastanley]

I have the white Sendure bottle, the top of the bottle has a 2nd nipple, I assume for venting, so it is open.

One of the things I did was make the run between HX & overflow bottle as short as possible..no kinks in the clear tubing, and I used real hose clamps not those spring loaded things..the run is about 10" long.

Maybe the cap is the issue. Guess I'll have to research how those work & which one I have. I did install the little gasket in the top of the cap per instructions that Sendure supplied with the overflow bottle.

This little anamoly came to light this weekend when I shut the engine down after a hard run without the normal idle cooling period..the coolant temp went thru the roof and half filled the recovery tank..(among other things which involved mopping up 2 quarts of antifreeze from the bilge, but we won't go there just now and pollute toddster's thread any further...)

[toddster]

To suck fluid back from the expansion tank, the cap has to have two different spring-loaded valves. The cap on my (old, old) sendure tank only has one. It doesn't draw fluid back.

[toddster]

starter / ignition switch woes

Now I'm stumped. Trying to get the motor recommissioned, after sitting on the hard for six months. I replaced all of the PO's wiring with new stuff, except I didn't touch the engine wiring until today. I don't know why it ever worked but it gave me the willies. Now it's wired correctly, and it doesn't work!!!

Right now it's wired as per the moyer wiring diagram. However, as soon as the switch is turned to "on" the engine starts cranking. Multimeter shows continuity between the battery and solenoid wires. So why doesn't it crank as soon as the battery switch is turned on? Multimeter shows that the switch is operating correctly. Energizing the coil makes the engine crank? ***?

Previously, it worked, but the "battery" wire just went to the ammeter. There was a loose hot jumper that didn't go to anything. An extra 14 ga. wire went from the "battery" terminal of the ignition switch back to the house panel . But it worked that way??? Next step, I could try to recreate that, but... jeez.

[Mo]

oh!

First, lets get this part straight....I am not an electrical dude at all....that said, sounds like you are directly wired to starter from the battery switch. Right now you turn on power activating the solenoid and turning over the engine. Double check wiring diagram from ignition to starter and battery to starter. Could be something as simple as a wire on the wrong side of the ignition switch. If you changed a switch from a key to pull type it's also easy to make a mistake. Neil Dutton or Hanley are pretty sharp on this. Not sure if they are around this weekend.

It is in the wiring though.