71 Ericson 29

[toddster]

No additives. It sits for maybe a week between these episodes. Will check the plugs again - I cleaned them after the restricted exhaust episode turned them pretty black. This stuff is black globs. It's hard to calibrate the quantity. If there's no wind, it spreads out into a narrow ring, with my boat at the bullseye, halfway across the fairway - maybe 20 feet - before it breaks up.

But really, my next scheduled fiasco is making a straight traveller fit into the space formerly occupied by a doubly-curved (but no longer manufactured) one. New mainsail should arrive in about a week!

I've got the old plugs as a spare set, but maybe I should pick up a new set and drop them in.

[toddster]

I kept cleaning the plugs, adding, MMO, and sailing. Eventually the black stuff has mostly gone away.

But... I had to motor and motor-sail for two long days last week. When I peeked into the bilge, it was full, with scummy black oil blobs floating on top The water came from ice-box melt and the stuffing box. The float-switch was stuck due to bilge scum. I floated an absorbent pad on top and pumped out most of the water from below.

So where should I start looking for oil leaks? Nothing obvious appears. Rear seal?

Also the fuel consumption seems high. A bit more than a GPH. (There were a couple of hours when I had to crank up the RPMs to overcome a big current, but not the two whole days.) I suppose the adjustable jet kit is in my future, but should I try other things first?

[ILikeRust]

I would look at the reversing gear housing cover and all the seals around that - where it meets the block and where it meets the oil pan.

I also would take a good, careful look around the accessory drive and water pump.

Also consider whether the oil pan itself might be leaking - we've seen oil pans corrode through.

[toddster]

NAPA Marine Parts?

Today, I installed starter switch number three, since I've had the boat. Worked fine yesterday, dead today. I didn't realize that these were such a high failure item. I've gone through more starter switches than impellers!

So instead of sailing, I went to NAPA. Wandering up a likely aisle, I found myself standing in front of a display of Marine electrical parts. Who knew?

So I picked up a new starter switch, which appears identical in every way to the dead switch, as well as to the automotive switch on the next aisle. Except the price was $28 for the "marine" item, as opposed to $12 for the regular one. A gullibility detection experiment? We'll see, I guess. I wondered if I should add an extra one to the spares inventory, but I guess I could always hotwire the thing, if needed.

Also, I've decided that the Moyer engine warning system thingy needs an "alarm silence" switch. That buzzer gets pretty annoying, when trying to troubleshoot a starting problem. Or during a transient overheat (which is another problem to look at before I go on any long voyages. It seems to go off at about 180 or 190 degrees, by the gauge. Usually cruising temp is 160.)

Oh, I know, I can just disconnect the ground wire (which I did) but that, of course, involves sacrificing another small screw to Neptune (which I did.) Fortunately there was one (1) more of the right size in inventory. Well crepe. I just now realized that I threw away three more of them when I tossed the old ignition switch in the trash. Must be losing my scavenging instincts.

Anyhow, I still got a couple hours of sailing in.

[ndutton]

I've decided that the Moyer engine warning system thingy needs an "alarm silence" switch. That buzzer gets pretty annoying, when trying to troubleshoot a starting problem. Or during a transient overheat (which is another problem to look at before I go on any long voyages. It seems to go off at about 180 or 190 degrees, by the gauge. Usually cruising temp is 160.)

Oh, I know, I can just disconnect the ground wire (which I did) but that, of course, involves sacrificing another small screw to Neptune (which I did.)

Instead of disconnecting the ground and thereby defeating the coil parameter, installing a single pole toggle switch in the wire attached to the quick connect tab on the EWDS brain box will serve to silence the buzzer and still allow all the display lights to function.

BTW, it's supposed to be annoying.

[toddster]

Aye Aye. (It was the buzzer ground.) I was thinking of thinking of some clever circuit that would activate a flashing LED to indicate that the alarm was silenced, but I had finished my beer by that point.

[toddster]

Here's an idea that's been growing on me. I spotted this in several photos on the blog of a guy who sailed an Ericson 29 across the Pacific.


It's never mentioned explicitly (as far as I can tell - half of the blog is in Danish) but it appears that he's replaced the lower drop board with an instrument pod and relocated the engine gauges there. The lower board (and maybe the second) would be locked in place all the time off shore anyway, so no real loss of function. Not sure about the inconvenience of stepping over it while at anchor or in-shore. Maybe one could arrange to "unplug" the electrics and stow it?

I wouldn't do it quite like that, but it does neatly get all the wires out of the sail locker, shorten up the wire runs, and provide easy access for maintenance. And my hatch boards need replacement soon, anyway.

After a few years of use, I've realized that the sailing instruments need to be on the centerline, too. I've had a few close calls (and *ahem* a firm grounding) because I was hiked out to starboard, and couldn't read the depth gauge over on the port side. They'd probably go up high though, in a pod above the hatch. But I still need to decide whether to stick with the sliding hatch and drop boards arrangement, or try to fit a watertight hatch in there.

[toddster]

Arcturus Atomic 4 in 2016

Haven't really used the engine much this year, but did a few upgrades at one point.

The main thing was cleaning up some of the tangled wiring and hoses in the engine compartment. Well, there's still room for improvement, but it seems safer than it was before. Installed a proper grounding bus and cleared away all the scabbed-on ground wires from the engine. Installed a fuse block for the previously unfused engine circuits. Bypassed the sketchy non-functional cockpit ammeter with a short 4-ga. wire directly to the starter lug. Upgraded to Groco strainer. Then finally installed the Moyer EWDS, which added a bunch more wires after I'd just got done cleaning up all the extraneous wiring!



I was mildly unhappy with the EWDS package configuration. All the wires come straight out the back, which means it can't be mounted flush. Seems like they ought to come out one of the long sides, instead. I ended up making another hole and mounting the box in the water tank compartment, with the wires sticking into the engine compartment. Then I used the protruding screws to attach cable and hose clamps.


Sort of engine-related: I made a new enclosure for a new main hot bus and got rid of the rats nest of hot wires inside the galley cabinet. Left a little room for expansion.

[alcodiesel]

Nice looking work Toddster. I just realized you are Ericson Toddster, too! (I am not supercharged, thus a little slow on the uptake)

[ndutton]

There were two nylon mounting bushings included in the EWDS kit to mount the module with wires and ethernet port in the orientation you preferred.

[toddster]

Yes. Sorry, but I found mounting the box out on the end of those skinny bushings to be a pretty sketchy proposition. If I had wanted to suspend it in space, I'd have replaced them with a couple of plastic blocks. But the unit would stick out way too far and access to the connectors would still be poor. I might have used the same plastic material to make a bracket, so that the side of the unit was flush against the bulkhead and the wires pointed down, but by the time I thought of that, the hole was already drilled.
Moral of the story: Relax and have a beer before drilling holes.

[ndutton]

The bushings were intended to allow mounting the module with it's back against a bulkhead without deflecting the mounting flanges, not suspend it in space.

Sorry you found it not to your liking.

[toddster]

Ah, I see. Somehow that didn't occur to me either. That would have been the next iteration. Another 90°. Makes more sense now.

[ndutton]

Took a few pictures today of the intended module mount using the provided bushings.

[toddster]

And I found those spacers rolling around in the chart table. But that's not today's problem.

No coolant flow upon startup last week. As suspected, the Sherwood R30G raw water pump needed a new impeller. Also the cam was worn and broken, which probably caused the impeller to shred.

So: new impeller, new cam. Still no flow.

They appear to have sent me a brass cam instead of a bronze one. (No choice was offered.) But it seems to fit just the same.



All hoses are clear. There is some suction required to overcome resistance from the water flow sensor. Some pressure required to fill up the standpipe. But I can't even get more than an anemic trickle with the output hose removed, and it's easily stopped with a finger. No pressure developed.

It's pretty easy to blow air through the pump. Maybe too easy? The only trick I have left is order a new case cover, which shows some wear. But how would this suddenly change from last month? And that would put me half way toward the price of a new pump...

Anybody have any other ideas?