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Old 01-18-2018, 06:01 PM
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Launchpad McQ's Catalina 30 Atomic 4 Saga

Hello fellow A-4ians! It’s finally time to give back to the community for all of the wisdom, advice, and encouragement I’ve gleaned from this forum. This thread has been years in the making, literally. For the past 3 years, I’ve been lurking in the shadows, reading dozens of threads while learning, fixing, tinkering, tweaking, tuning, and sometimes cussing at my Atomic 4. My original intent was to document the rebuilding process and then “thread dump” the entire entertaining narrative with pictures so that it could be read chronologically without interruption from humble beginning to victorious end, and all would be the wiser. It hasn’t worked out as planned.

If you’re reading this thread you probably fall into 1 of 2 camps: Camp 1 is the number of experienced, helpful, friendly, and frequent contributors to this site reading for entertainment. To this group I want to say thank you. Without you all, this engine and possibly the entire boat would be in a San Francisco scrap yard. However this thread is really written for those in Camp 2. Those considering fixing up an old boat with an Atomic-4 and looking at that block of rusting metal wondering, “what did I get myself into?”

If you’re in Camp 2 and reading this thread for perspective, or maybe even motivation (like I usually did) let me assure you that when armed with the combined wisdom of this forum and a little resolve, anyone is capable of rebuilding, maintaining, or improving an Atomic-4 powered boat. Seemingly all of the common “problems” you could ever encounter with this engine have already been thoroughly identified and the necessary repair techniques well documented (valve sticking, overheating, poor performance, etc) on this forum by the collective braintrust of frequent contributors People often say, “If I can do it anyone can do it.” Believe me when I say my IQ pales in comparison to most of the chimpanzees at the zoo so there’s no excuse to be intimidated by the tasks. Without further ado, grab a beer and some popcorn because this is going to take a while. Here’s my saga:

***Late 2019 Update*** If you'd like to skip the backstory of all my clueless ill-fated attempts to fix the engine that ultimately led to a full-rebuild, skip to the bottom of page 3 to see the motor getting pulled out of the bilge.
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Last edited by Launchpad McQ; 09-24-2019 at 12:51 AM. Reason: Updated
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Old 01-18-2018, 06:16 PM
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Old 01-18-2018, 06:37 PM
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  #4   IP: 209.133.66.84
Old 01-18-2018, 07:05 PM
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In 2013 after much discussion with my wife, I accepted a job in San Francisco. The only problem was that we live in Denver and for a variety of reasons, didn’t have any intention to relocate. The job would require frequent travel and I would only be in San Francisco a couple days a week. Therefore, I needed a place to sleep and didn’t want to spend that time in hotels. A friend working for the same company suggested, “Why don’t you buy an old crappy sailboat off Craigslist? You can fix it up when you have time, sleep on it a couple nights a week, and when you’re done with it you can just sell it and get your money back.” The seed had been planted.

The Craigslist search turned up a handful of boats under our modest $6500 budget but whenever I was able to get a seller to commit to a meeting, there was always some serious deficiency with the boat that would require significant time, money, or both to rectify. (One boat had suffered a fire, then sinking, and still sported a one-inch hole in the hull). Having lived in Colorado my entire life, I didn’t know much about boats but I did know one thing; we could not afford to pay someone else to fix whatever problems we inherited with our purchase. Then one day it appeared:
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Me: “Honey I found our future boat!”
Wife: “How much?”
Me: “$6500! Its within our budget!”
Wife: “If it doesn’t need any additional work…..”
Me: “How much work could it need? It says the motor was rebuilt in ’09. I’ll bet it just needs a new set of spark plugs and some gas!”
Wife: “Seriously, the motor is called an ‘Atomic?’ Don’t you see the irony in that?
Me: “Yeah I’ll bet because it’s so powerful, like an Atomic reactor!”
Wife: “What is ‘Standing Rigging’?”
Me: “I don’t know but it’s standing!”
Wife: “What does ‘haul-out’ mean?”
Me: “I don’t know. Maybe it’s sailing slang for partying on a boat for 2 days straight, ya know, like, ‘hey everybody lets get some beer and go out for a haul out!”
Wife: “What’s a ‘Genoa’?”
Me: “Isn’t that like pepperoni but more expensive? You know I don’t cook fancy stuff.”
Wife: “No, it sounds like part of the boat, and apparently it’s torn. How much is that to fix?”
Me: “Why are you being so negative!? It has BBQ grill! I mean a real BBQ, like, for BBQ-ing! I’m going to go look at it. I’ll call you after I’m done.”
Wife: “Okay just don’t buy it before we talk about it more.”
2 Hours later….
Me: “We’re boat owners honey!”
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....and so it began.
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Old 01-18-2018, 07:09 PM
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"like an atomic reactor" That made me laugh. Welcome to the madness.

James
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Old 01-18-2018, 07:24 PM
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I need a "like" button
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Old 01-18-2018, 09:59 PM
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Unhappy

Oh yea, it's time to break something!

I mean, like:
break a bolt,
break some skin,
Break Out Another Thousand,
Break out the beer.

Lookitmeeeeimonaboat!
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Old 01-19-2018, 08:47 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lat 64 View Post
Oh yea, it's time to break something!

I mean, like:
break a bolt,
break some skin,
Break Out Another Thousand,
Break out the beer.

Lookitmeeeeimonaboat!
...in that order..
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Old 01-24-2018, 10:41 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Launchpad McQ View Post
Despite all of my efforts up to this point to rehabilitate this engine, I’m now in the middle of a complete tear-down, machining, and rebuild. However, I realized that I’ve already forgotten much of the work I’ve done and if I don’t start writing this thread, I may never get around to it. I hope you’ll all forgive the awkward timing of “arriving-in-the-middle-of-the-story.”
He does not need any encouragement to pull the engine - this thread is a recounting of how he got to be in the middle of a complete rebuild.

But, maybe I have read that wrong.

Peter
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Old 01-25-2018, 01:02 AM
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Quote:
With the crankshaft roll pin sheared off I don't see any way this will be resolved in situ. The engine is coming out of its hole sooner or later, may as well get after it.
Yep Neil you're absolutely right. Although if I had started this thread in 2013 when I was actually at this point in the process, I would've been in complete denial about the necessity of removing the engine to make it operational, and tried to find every excuse to repair it somehow in the boat.

*Spoiler Alert*
At this point, the engine has been removed from the boat for a complete rebuild, although in a much more entertaining way than you can probably imagine. Read on. Here we go!
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Old 01-25-2018, 04:13 AM
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After a month of frequent Marvel Mystery Oil squirts into the cylinders via the open spark plug holes, I figured that the piston rings would've been unstuck from the cylinder walls by this point, or they wouldn't. Either way, I'd have a resolution to the question of why the engine wouldn't turn. However, the dilemma remained that I only had 1/2 of the crankshaft timing roll pin upon which to leverage my homemade socket/breaker bar set up and rotate the engine by hand. It was my last hope before things got expensive. I felt like Dennis Quaid in the movie remake Flight of the Phoenix when he's trying to start the engine of the wrecked-and-rebuilt C-119 airplane in the Gobi desert with his last remaining shotgun shell before the charging tribe of horseback-riding bandits overruns the crew and certain death results. With a firm yet gentle grip of the oversized breaker bar, I oh-so-carefully started pulling, hoping for the engine to give up its stubborness in reluctant submission and rotate. And....Bam! As you can probably guess, the breaker bar broke free of the crankshaft with a tremendous "clank!" and I went flying across the salon while somehow managing not to impale myself on the breaker bar itself or slam my head through one of my leaky portlights. I rushed back to the flywheel, inspected the front of the crankshaft to discover my fears had been realized. I had just sheared off the other 1/2 of the roll pin and in so doing, eliminated any hope of getting the engine to turn without a complete teardown...or did I?

Maybe it's my Polish ancestry or my unwillingness to accept defeat but I knew there had to be something else I could do to get this motor to rotate without spending money. I had a 3' galvanized steel pipe, an 8 lb sledge hammer, and a 6-pack of beer onboard. Shouldn't that be enough? As it turns out, yes it was. All the sudden it dawned on me to remove the starter, place one end of my breaker bar pipe through the starter cutout hole in the flywheel cover and onto the teeth of the flywheel to gain more rotational leverage, then hammer on the other end of the pipe with the sledge hammer (it works especially well when you're hammering out of frustration). You'd think this would be a terrific way to destroy a perfectly good flywheel by chipping off some teeth but surprisingly the galvanized steel pipe was no match for the seemingly hardened steel teeth of the Atomic flywheel. I could hardly believe it but with every successive bang of the hammer, I felt the flywheel turn a few degrees. Victory!

After a few more squirts of MMO in the cylinders for good measure, I was able to re-install the starter, attach a cheap trigger-style remote starter up to the starter solenoid's terminals (bypassing the keyed ignition switch and infamous failure-prone rubber Catalina "trailer plugs" in the engine wiring harness) and get the engine to crank. So I had just improved my situation from a no-crank, no-start problem to a crank, no-start problem, and I couldn't have been happier. I sat out in the cockpit that night with a beer in hand, basking in the glory of a small victory and patting myself on the back for the stroke of Polish ingenuity when my well-intentioned dock neighbor came walking down the dock. Remember that guy? That guy from post #12? Yeah, that guy. As I enthusiastically recounted the story of the day's success he listened patiently and replied, "Good job! Well, I guess you'll be removing the head tomorrow to take a look at the valves. At least head gaskets for that thing are probably cheap. I think there's a website called Mayer's or Moyer's or something where you can get parts for it. Just Google search 'Atomic 4' and you'll find 'em." "Why the hell would I do that!" I thought to myself. I just went through all that effort for the exact purpose of not removing the cylinder head. He could probably see the indignant look on my face, when he immediately followed with "You've gotta at least take a look at those valves. If you don't, you're just wasting your time." That night I got online, came to this forum, and started reading through every thread I could find that sounded remotely like it applied to my situation. Of course I'd soon find out there were many threads that applied to many different problems I'd inherited with this neglected motor. I just didn't know it yet. By the end of the night I came to the conclusion that my neighbor was probably right and I needed to take a look at the valves to ensure everything was in working order. Next order of business:

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Off with the head!

What I learned
  • If for any reason you were to shear off the crankshaft timing roll pin like I did, because of interference with the flywheel studs, it's very difficult if not impossible to replace the pin in place. More importantly, the pin is used for visually setting the engine timing to Top-Dead-Center so when it's broken/missing, it's a PITA to get the timing right. (More on that later)
  • A trigger-style remote starter is a very useful piece of equipment on a boat, especially when the ignition switch is up in the cockpit and you're trying to diagnose/fix ignition related issues by yourself down in the engine compartment.

What I'd do differently
  • Avoid shearing a fastener that doesn't want to move and thereby making the situation exponentially worse (Unfortunately I'll learn this lesson the hard way in an upcoming post)
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Old 01-25-2018, 08:29 AM
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Obviously I was not as aware as Peter that this was a 5 year old saga so I'll stop making suggestions and enjoy the story.
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Had my hands in a few others
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Old 01-25-2018, 10:00 AM
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Dang, I missed that too. I was thinking Launchpad and I would be rebuilding A4's together here. Oh well, I get to read on and learn from his amusing mistakes!
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