April 19, 2010

During the week I came up with an idea for trimming the lip around engine hatch cover that seemed pretty simple: mount a piece of wood onto my circular saw to function as a guide, and run it around the hatch. It actually worked, and I was able to trim the lip and pull the new hatch cover off the mold with no problems.

Saturday I cut a piece out of the hardwood hawse pipe to allow clearance for the windlass motor. I'll have to check it when the motor is installed and adjust as necessary. Sunday I went out to Napa with the goals of getting the engine running for a while, cleaning up the batteries, working on the frozen seacocks some more and installing an inline fuse in the supply wire to the windlass switch.

Marine diesels die not from wearing out, but from rusting out due to lack of use. The engines in fishing boats that run 24 hours a day almost 7 days a week will go 10,000 hours without an overhaul. Since the engine in Circadian hadn't been run since December, it was definitely time.

To run it while she was 6 feet above the ground required getting cooling water to the raw water intake, but not under pressure which can cause damage. So, I brought a large bucket into which I inserted a garden hose supplying water and the engine's raw water intake hose which I managed to disconnect from the seacock without too much trouble. I had equipped the end of the garden hose with a shut off valve so I could control the volume of water in the bucket from the engine room. I filled the bucket and then tried starting the engine. It started right up, ran perfectly for a few seconds and then quit. This pattern was repeated several times. Had to be a fuel problem. I went through the bleeding procedure; no change in results. Finally I noticed that the shut-off valve below the auxiliary fuel filter was closed. Duh! Ran perfectly once that was opened. Ran it for about 15 minutes to warm it up and get everything lubed. I decided a running engine was a milestone worthy of a nice lunch at Cuttings Wharf, so after cleaning up I headed over there.


After lunch, I started wrestling with the frozen cockpit drain seacocks again. Last week I was able to spray some PB Blaster into one through the drain plug fitting. It did the trick and I was able to move the handle and open and close the valve. Yeah!!! The other one was hard to get to behind the generator, and of course the plug was frozen tight. After about a half an hour of painful contortions and considerable loss of flesh from about the knuckles, I gave up on trying to remove the plug. Instead, I sprayed a lot of PB Blaster right down the cockpit drain. Hopefully enough will find its way down to and around the ball valve that it will free it up. I'll find out in a week or so.


I poured some baking soda onto the corroded battery terminals, sprayed a bit of water on it, and went to work on the fuse. I had to do it twice thanks to the crappy quality of the fuse holder I got at Worst Marine. The yard chandlery had a better one which I got installed without a problem. Some more cleaning up, and I called it a day.