[Surcouf]

so a follow up on first week ends of sailing: As I broke the 2 bolts holding the coil on the block, I fabricated a plate to mount it on, and fixed it on the same 2 gear casing bolts that hold the "arm" on which the rpm cable is held on to. Issue is that this way, the coil is close by an inch from the exhaust pipe.

A week ago, I had to motor 3 hours, and after an hour, the engine started to make a strange song and started to die on me... Detailed inspection of the engine (thank God for that rebuild, I now really know what I am looking at), and I find a very small oil leak on the top of the coil. I assumed that the coil overheated. Waiting 15 minutes with all hatches open; engine re-started right away and 2 more hours of motoring with the main hatch open, and the A4 ran like a charm.

I purchased in a car parts shop rolls of exhaust insulator resin bands, wrapped that in addition of the original ones around the exhaust pipe at the level of the coil, and added a thin aluminium plate around a foot of the exhaust to cut on radiant heat. I also move the coil away from the exhaust, bringing it very close to the distributor.

Good lesson: moving the coil away from a water cooled block, toward a hot exhaust is NOT a good idea. Best would have been to mount it on the wall of the engine bay. Maybe next winter...