May 16, 2011

During the week I continued working on clearing out the house. After work on Friday I went over to Hydraulic Power Sales (HPS) to pick up the face plate with shaft for the helm pump and its new seals. Unlike repairing anything that says "marine" on it, the tab was a very reasonable $50 total for all the seals plus the labor for removing the old shaft seal and pressing in the new one. I also got some tips and education from Matt about hydraulic oil and seals. It's always great to work with real professionals. They didn't even flinch when I told them the parts were from an old British pump. They determined the sizes and hunted down the somewhat esoteric parts from one of their many suppliers. I'm sure I'll be back for some new hoses when it's time to install the new WH autopilot now on order.
With my attention now on the helm, I decided I needed to do something about the ugly black helm seat, since I knew I'd be spending a lot of time in it or next to it. I was even tempted to replace it, but new seats are too costly. I had considered a good deal I found on Craigslist, but realized the cost in time and money involved in the long drive to get it just weren't worth it. In the end, I decided to just sand and paint the old seat with white epoxy. It made a huge difference for very little time and money.
Saturday was filled with more work on clearing out the house and replacing a headlight and wiper blades on my little truck. I brought a large box of old computer hardware to the local Goodwill and lugged seven boxes of old records to the shredder.
A series of squalls blew through over the weekend, but on Sunday I headed out to Hidden Harbor anyway, figuring I could put the helm pump back together even in the rain. I could also check on the effectiveness of my efforts to keep everything dry. The unstable weather produced a spectacular sky, with constantly moving patches of clouds, rain and full sunshine. Lots of flowers, too. It made for a beautiful scenic drive and lots of eye candy for this week's blog.

Everything was dry on board Circadian, which was nice, but not a severe test since the rain was only intermittent and of short duration. The helm pump reassembly went smoothly and once it was sealed up tight and refilled, I scrubbed off the remnants of the old hydraulic oil leaks with paint thinner, wire-brushed the case, masked it, and sprayed it with hammer-finish paint.

While the paint was drying I re-tested the shower sump drain connection, and it still leaked despite the copious use of Lifecaulk when I had assembled it last week. I disassembled it again, cleaned it up and tried using the old reliable butyl caulk. STILL leaked! Third try was smoothing the mating surfaces and using teflon tape. STILL LEAKED! Sigh! The plastic tapered end of the new fitting just wasn't soft enough to make a good seal with with the bronze drain fitting, and it apparently was made of HDPE or something similar, meaning no sealant would stick to it. I'll just have to investigate what other types of fittings are available.

All that frustration with the sump drain burned up enough time so that the paint on the helm pump was dry and I could pull off the masking tape and aluminum foil, remount the wheel and test out the refurbished pump. With the new spotless paint, I would quickly learn if there were any leaks.

The big moment had arrived and I turned the wheel. It spun freely and didn't move the rudder. A moment of cold panic and nightmarish visions of major problems and expenses ensued before I realized that the problem could simply be that the pump needed to be primed and the system bled. I vaguely recalled reading somewhere that turning the wheel back and forth, stop to stop, would bleed the system. Of course the wheel wasn't turning the rudder yet, so it never hit the stops. Nonetheless, I opened up the reservoir and turned the wheel back and forth. I could see the fluid level gradually going down, so the pump was probably getting primed. I refilled it, and continued turning the wheel. Small bubbles began to appear in the fluid. The rudder turned! Encouraged, I continued turning the wheel back and forth. It now turned the rudder to the stops. I maintained some pressure at each stop, and things gradually firmed up. When there were no more bubbles in the fluid, I buttoned things up, gave a huge sigh of relief and rejoiced that I now had my steering back. Best of all, there was absolutely no sign of any leaks.

After cleaning up, I headed back home a bit early so I could get a long-overdue haircut that I forgot to get done on Saturday. I was tired, but happy about being able to check off a major item on "the list." While the sump drain problem was frustrating, any leakage went directly into the bilge, so it wasn't a cruise-stopping issue.