Hoisting the engine

[Kelly]

Ground bus?

Bill,

Lots of pretty colors in there!

As to the possible ground bus, you should be able to follow one of the bigger wires all the way back to ground. Your more-than-questionable(!!) wire looks to be one wire from a two-wire double insulated wire with the second wire going to the upper bus bar. Just reinforces your thought that the bottom bus is ground.

Can't wait to hear about your first start!

[ILikeRust]

As to the possible ground bus, you should be able to follow one of the bigger wires all the way back to ground.

Except for the fact that when I pulled the engine, I unhooked lots of wires without taking too much time to carefully label where each one went, figuring that I would figure it out later.

Which I am now doing.

I have concluded that the bottom bar is the common/neg/ground. All the pretty colors come from the main switch panel and then off to the various itesm all over the boat.

There is one white wire that is a big bigger than the rest (probably about 10 ga.) that is connected to the white bus bar with the other end not connected to anything. I'm thinking that previously was connected to a ground point and it was one of the many I yanked when I pulled the engine.

[ILikeRust]

Unfortunately, it appears that I am a moron. I can overhaul an engine, but evidently I cannot properly operate a stupid digital video camera.

So although I was confidently shooting lots of great video today, this is all I ended up with that was usable.

[youtube]B5ISIkNcIbk[/youtube]

The long and short of it is that the engine started surprisingly easily - in fact, I was cranking it to make sure I had completely filled the cooling loop and getting the air bubbles out - I did not intend to try to actually start it yet - when it started sputtering to life. I pulled the choke and it fired right up and purred like a kitten for 20 minutes.

I was all paranoid about the year-old gasoline in the tank for no good reason. I opened up the Racor filter/water separator and discovered that it was dry as a bone - evidently, the gasoline that had been left in it a year ago had all evaporated out. I was concerned that the electric pump might have a hard time getting itself primed, but with just a little cranking, away she went.

I still have a few things to sort out - I probably will change the way some wires and hoses are run; I've got some things temporarily hooked up for now. But she ran! And she ran beautifully!

Inching closer to splashing the boat for the first time in nearly a year...

[TomG]

Congratulations, Bill! I've enjoyed following your rebuild and I know you must have a wonderful (and well-deserved) sense of satisfaction. Well done!

[Loki9]

Congrats! When I first fired mine up just a few days ago, it brought the whole boat to life. It was very satisfying.

[ILikeRust]

Geez, YouTube was messing with me. It should be the right video now.

After warming up, she held steady at about 170 degrees F. It will be interesting to see how the temp goes when I finally get the boat back into the water. I could see the affect on the temp when I changed the opening of the ball valve to the thermostat.

Still plenty of work to do, but this is a major milestone for me.

The shifter cable had completely seized from sitting so long. I couldn't budge it. I concluded it would be easier to take it out of the boat and bring it home to work on it in my workshop, so I had to crawl head-first into the starboard quarterberth and dig into the deepest bowels of the boat, underneath the cockpit and below the gas tank, to unbolt the damn thing. The cable is held in with these fat u-bolts, and the bottom one was almost, but not quite, entirely inaccessible.

After I brought it home, I clamped it in the bench vise and tapped the end with a hammer to get it moving. I soaked a whole mess of Kroil into any gap or opening I could fine - I removed the grease fittings on both ends and flooded both ends with Kroil. That got it moving pretty well. Then I put the grease fittings back on and pumped fresh grease into it until the old dirty stuff started smooshing out.

It looks like nobody has greased it in many years. I'm thinking the previous owner might not have been aware he needed to do that. The lower fitting is, again, so nearly impossible to get at anyhow, I can't blame him, really.

Anyhow, it works nice and smoothly now.

Still lots to do...

[jpian0923]

Is this proof that even a moron can overhaul an A4?

Well, I did it...maybe that was enough proof!

[mpleahy]

I wish I'd taken pictures of my hokey carpenter rig. Boat on the hard, mast down, I built a small derek over the companionway and with a borrowed chain hoist and some straps raised the engine onto a dolly on planks over the cockpit. I then built a frame that leaned against the gunwales tall and rugged enough to lift the engine and cart. With dock lines to the far winch I pushed the frame out so that it pivoted from the ground enough so that I could lower the engine into my pick up. The best part was when I asked my wife to assist me by holding the line with one turn around the winch. It was 9pm cold and dark except for my two 40 watt clip lights. She was in her nighty when with a panic stricken look she said it was getting too heavy. We managed but I realized I should have taken two turns around the winch.

Lumber, screws, and borrowed stuff $50. The image of my half naked wife giving it all for her dopey husband...priceless.

[sastanley]

Dude...nice!

[Kelly]

Congratulations Bill. This is a well-earned milestone in your epic rebuild.

Now if you can master the digital camera, you will truly become a force of nature, not to be taken lightly. But as for now...

[ILikeRust]

Now if you can master the digital camera, you will truly become a force of nature, not to be taken lightly. But as for now...

Yeah, well in my defense, even my wife, who chose and bought the camera and uses it way more than I do, agrees that it is counter-intuitive and told me she had the exact same problem when she first got it and started using it.

The issue is that the screen shows either a little red circle or a little green circle to let you know whether you're recording or not.

Now, it seems to me that red means "stop" and green means "go." So that when you see the little red circle, you are stopped - i.e., not recording. And when you see green, it's going.

Nope. It's the other way round.

So every time I thought I was starting the camera, I actually was stopping it, and every time I thought I was stopping the camer, I actually was starting it. So what I got video of was all the periods of time in between the things I thought I was getting video of.

I've got all kinds of great shots of my feet, the floor, the countertop - about 15 minutes of an extreme closeup of a paper towel (the camera has a very good macro feature, I now know) and several minutes of a very good closeup of a ginger ale can.

She told me to just remember "red record" - i.e., if you see the red dot, you are recording.

I will take the camera with me next time and see if I can't do better...

[Kelly]

She told me to just remember "red record" - i.e., if you see the red dot, you are recording.

Reminds me of the old sailing line, "red right return". Keeps you straight when returning to port and wondering about all those red and green markers that keep distracting you...

...until you move to France where it's the exact opposite. Arrrrgh!!

[sastanley]

Bill, I think I understand the problem now....if the ginger ale can had been a beer can, you'd have figured out the camera a lot sooner..

[jpian0923]

"So every time I thought I was starting the camera, I actually was stopping it, and every time I thought I was stopping the camera, I actually was starting it. So what I got video of was all the periods of time in between the things I thought I was getting video of. "

Post it!

[ILikeRust]

"So every time I thought I was starting the camera, I actually was stopping it, and every time I thought I was stopping the camera, I actually was starting it. So what I got video of was all the periods of time in between the things I thought I was getting video of. "

Post it!

It's pretty boring. 20 minutes of an extreme closeup of a paper towel, with the sound of the engine running in the background, and occasionally, me talking to myself.

And then the camera swinging around - my feet, the companionway, the sky, the cockpit, back onto the countertop.

I've already deleted most of it anyhow.