Hoisting the engine

[sastanley]

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.

[hanleyclifford]

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.

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

[ILikeRust]

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/.

[roadnsky]

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

http://store.hamiltonmarine.com/browse.cfm/busbar-dual-w-cover-.25stud-5-10-32term-153621-/4,28929.html

[sastanley]

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..

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.." - 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."

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.. )

[jpian0923]

Bill, On the forward and reverse adjustments...I thought the same as you but when I got the engine back in the boat I had no movement in either forward or reverse.

Under load is a different story than on the bench.

I know you are close to launch so I would adjust both tighter than you think is necessary, and adjust down later. At least this way you will be able to propel the boat once you get in the water.

I'm sure you don't want to be making those adjustments while the boat is drifting.



Thanks for the busbar explanation and pictures. My wiring is a mess and needs some cleanup.

[ILikeRust]

Well, I made no changes whatsoever to the clutch. I removed the reversing gear assembly as a whole unit - I didn't disassemble the clutch or even move the notched ring. So I'm presuming that forward should not be affected - it should be just the same as when I took it out.

As for reverse, I've got it adjusted pretty much to where (as I recall) Moyer says to have it - I snugged the band up to where it allows the gear to spin freely when there is no rearward pressure on the lever, but only about 1/16" clamping movement tightens it down.

We'll see.

I don't see how I can test it now, out of the water - I don't want to spin the prop shaft with my brand new cutless bearing and stuffing box out of the water. They do seem pretty tight, though, BTW.

And I plan on having the boat tied up until I'm sure the engine and drive are working right, before I cast off and head back to my marina.

[jpian0923]

Good plan. Didn't know you kept it whole. My bad.

[ILikeRust]

More baby steps, but progress is progress. I never manage to get as much done as I think I'm going to, and each task always takes twice as long as I think it's going to take.

Went up to the boat today. Bolted the engine to the beds and hooked up the prop shaft. To my surprised and relief, I found that the prop shaft and engine were very nearly perfectly aligned after just plopping the engine in there two weeks ago. A few very minor shifts and it certainly seemed what I like to call "pretty damn good." We shall see when I finally get the boat in the water, the engine running and the shaft spinning, I guess.

Hosed out the bilge and aft quarterberths, because they were coated with all kinds of dust and dirt from all the sanding and grinding I had done on the bilge way back a couple months ago. Then I had to wrestle with my stupid Shop-Vac to suck all the dirty water out, because I don't have any bilge pump hooked up right now - and there are no batteries in the boat anyhow.

I then installed my new Perko bronze sea strainer. Once I hung it on the back bulkhead of the engine compartment, I realized it's slightly overkill for my little A4, but what the heck - "overkill" is my middle name.

I mounted the Moyer pump for the FWC system on the front of the engine and installed the drive sheave and the belt.

One thing I will note is that it's pretty awkward to install both the additional FWC water pump and the T-fitting for the high-temp/low oil pressure alarm kit. The T-fitting with the temp sensor sticks out so far to the starboard side that it bumps into the pump. I'll probably reconfigure the T.

I then hung the alternator on the engine. By that time, to my amazement, I had worked for nearly 6 hours and I was hot, sweaty, dirty and tired, so I packed it in and headed home.

Bit by bit... I won't be able to do any more work on it for at least a week and a half because we're heading north next week to visit family and celebrate my father's 70th birthday.

In the meantime, I'll do some more work on some of the woodworking stuff that I can do in my workshop at home.

[JonnyQuest]

Thanks also for all the links to other suppliers that were posted during the discussion on bus bars-- I just redid some of the loose and corroding connections on my old busbar, perhaps its time to replace the busbar itself

Enjoy the birthday party, looking forward to more postings down the road.

[ILikeRust]

Finally got back up to the old girl today - first time after the hurry-cane that blustered through here a week ago.

There still are some areas without power, and the evidence if Irene's little visit is still - uh, evident. Lots of trees and tree parts down all over the place - lots of places where the chainsawed-off hunk of a tree is sticking out on the side of the road, clearly having blocked the road but having since been dealt with.

Fortunately, my boat - and the entire boatyard - came through entirely unscathed. Just a little bit of water in the bilge, which I fully expected, due to a couple leaks in the cabin roof that I have yet to resolve. In fact, though, there was less water than I had anticipated, so that was nice.

Anyhow, here's how the old girl looked by the end of today:



Got the heat exchanger mostly hooked up. Just need a couple bronze fittings to finish the job. The heat exchange will live pretty much right where it is in that pic, but it will be attached to the back side of the new raised-panel bulkhead that I've made, which will of course be installed across the front of the engine space. When that bulkhead is installed, this same picture will look quite different, because you mostly will see the face of the bulkhead, rather than engine.

Also in that pic is the new battery box I made a few weeks back and epoxied in place today. It appears to be levitating, but in fact is supported underneath by a hunk of 2x6 that I epoxied into the hull a few weeks back. That box will hold the two house batteries. The cranking battery (actually just another deep-cycle battery, but pretty much saved for starting the engine) lives in a box under the port quarterberth, just off the right-hand edge of the picture.

All that wiring down low on the left gets covered by a thin plywood cover. I took the old one off because it looks like hell. I'm going to use the old one as a template for a new one, which will get painted nice and white to match the rest of the nice painted white engine compartment, and then you won't see all that wiring.

You can also see the big honkin' Groco sea strainer I splurged on (yeah, I realize now that it's overkill, but I still like it). Overkill, after all, is my middle name. Yup - Bill Overkill Taggart. That's me.

[ndutton]

It's difficult to know for sure from the picture but it looks like the fill cap on the exchanger is lower than the thermostat. If so, I suggest raising the HX so that the cap is the highest point in the system.

[ILikeRust]

Yeah, the HX is just sort of sitting in there right now. When I attach it to the bulkhead, I will install is so that the top of the HX is just level with the top of the bulkhead - just underneath the lid that goes on top of that whole engine box. It will then be higher than the t-stat.

The expansion bottle will go over on the right side of the photo, on the back side of the bulkhead, in between the engine and the battery box. Also will be mounted right up under the lid.

Still lots to do...

[ndutton]

I halfway guessed as much. That's why I didn't prattle on with all the reasons why.

[ILikeRust]

I appreciate the reminder, though - I might well have merrily forged ahead and decided that it would give me a little more space to install it as low as possible in there, while forgetting all about that whole "air likes to rise to the highest point in the system" issue.

Who, me?