Engine Installed & Inside Cleaned

July 7th, I got up early in the morning, still dark out, and put a ramp I made on the bed of the truck and pushed my engine into the bed. This day was to put the engine back in the boat. The engine, a Yanmar 2GM, has been sitting in the garage at the house for the past 1.5yrs.

The marina staff were busy a good part of the day launching three boats so I had to wait a while. Once they got to me, the owner put a boom on the end of the forklift, got the engine out of the truck and into the boat. The engine was set just below the companion way, where it sat for two weeks.

Ramp fittings on end of 2x8 board 10' long

Making sure I got spacing right

Pushed into the truck bed

ready to go at the marina

quietly waiting

Fast forward to 15 July, I left the house early, again. It takes about 1.5hrs to get to the boat. By the time I arrived, it was almost 7am. The tarp I had over the cockpit last visit wasn't doing too well. Water was pulling it down and stretched over the rails, it was tearing apart. I was sure water got in the boat from recent rains.

Once the tarp was pulled off the boat, I got to work. I've been doing a lot of work on the boat for the past couple years so it was getting dirty. I took everything off the boat that wasn't put away somewhere. I vacuumed then cleaned/dusted the galley and the salon/v-berth areas.

that's a lot of stuff

cleaned out nicely

been a while since it was this empty

a glimpse into some of the mess

Next thing I did was having to move the engine. While I can write about it, this video explains how that worked out.

Once the engine was in place, I started to put things back into the boat. I started by vacuuming the cushions. Not only were they dusty, but they also had some fiberglass pieces on them that needed cleaned up. I plan to replace them in the future but they will be usable for now. I started to clean things and put things away, but after a while, the sun was getting low so I just piled stuff into the quarterberths where I will organize during future visits.

One thing I should mention, it was HOT out. The thermometer on the boat said 95-97° most of the day. I was sure I was drinking water about as fast as I was sweating it out. My clothes were getting soaked and my eyes were burning from the sweat and red/sore from wiping it off.

I cut out the old seacocks and hammered out the thru-hulls from the cockpit drains. I used a reciprocating saw I just bought in order to cut through them, then a dremel to cut through the nut holding the thru-hull out. I ended up going to Home Depot to buy some 1.5" hose and using that for now to keep water draining out of the cockpit when it rains. This solution will work out temporarily until I can get the new seacocks installed.

With the engine out of the way, I was able to check the bilge. Turned out, it was full. I routed the hose for the manual bilge pump back into the bilge, went up on deck and pumped out most of the water.

Lastly, before leaving, I decided to try setting up the dodger for the first time. The previous owner told me a little about how it went together, but I haven't set it up myself yet. Trying to get the hand-holds on were frustrating so I left them off for now. I'll try looking at them again next time. The cover was very tight against the frame. I'm looking to replace the dodger canvas in the future to a different color. Right now, it'll work out for now to protect the companionway and to divert rain water away from a couple spots that are a little leaky.

I didn't take pictures of the dodger but will post here when I visit next time.

But here is the dodger laid out in the driveway as I was identifying the pieces.

Weekend Work

Earlier this past week, I ordered a 3 gal. day tank, some hose and a couple connectors.

The tank is pretty strong and sturdy. Pushing on the sides, it wouldn't give at all. It's made by Attwood.

One of the first things I did was drill a hold in the center and installed the brass fitting to be used as the fuel return.

After work this past Friday, I loaded up the truck and headed to the marina. The boat was moved from the yard dock to the next dock over. I grabbed supplies from the truck and loaded them onto the boat. I met a couple on the next boat over and they helped me out with a couple things like raising the boom for the topping lift to keep it out of the way. Having the raised boom allowed me to stand in the cockpit without my head hitting it. Along with the immediate neighbors, there were a few more people coming by to take a look at the boat asking questions about what kind it is and to take a look at it. I got plenty of compliments.

I spent Friday and Saturday night in the forward berth.

The next morning was nice. The temperature was cool and I could hear geese squawking nearby. I had to take a picture of them. I later walked around the marina and saw them cleaning themselves on the shoreline on the other side of the marina.

One thing around here that seems to be plentiful is the spiders. They're quick in setting up their webs.

I emptied the lazarette to test fit the tank as I was considering to have it stored there.

I first worked on getting the return line setup. The hose on the return line mounted on the injectors didn't have a usual hose clamp but instead had a binding clamp that took some time to undo. I couldn't undo it while mounted from the engine so I took the return line off the injectors altogether.

It took some time but I finally got it off. I wasn't reusing the hose anyway so I cut it away from the line. Good thing. One I got it off and detached the other end from the tank, I pulled it out from around the engine and saw some duct tape on it. No telling how long that was there.

I then worked on the feed line. The line and handle on the tank is under the engine. Everything was accessible from the front, which made it easy to work with.

At the moment, I have everything tied into the tank from the front. The tank actually fits under the companion way stairs when in place. Once the hoses were setup, I went to my truck with the little tank and filled it up half way from a 5gal can then brought it back to the boat and hooked it all up.

With the hoses connected, I opened up the line to one of the two Racor filters and squeezed the priming bulb to it to pull fuel through the line. The first start of the engine was a success. The engine ran nicely for about a half hour. After that, it would run for a short time then stall out. I was able to move the boat back to its slip. During the short trip, the engine continued to stall several times but I eventually arrived and quickly secured the dock lines in place.  I later unscrewed the bleed nut from the fuel filter and injector pump. Air hissed out of the fuel pump more so than the injector pump but I feel that it was bled nicely. I didn't restart the engine after this bleed as I was also working on another project.

The raw water pump on the engine had a leak of its own. When I installed a new impeller, it would leak when the engine was running. There was some buildup of corrosion on the housing, likely form spending much of it's life in salt water, that I wanted to clean up. I saw a post on a Cape Dory owners forum where someone used vinegar to clean corrosion off bronze pieces and they came out looking like new. So, I pulled the pump off and took the plate off along with the impeller.

I put the pump housing and the cover plate in a pot with vinegar. The parts started bubbling as the acid from the vinegar was eating away the corrosion from the parts.

After leaving them soak for about a couple hours, I pulled them out and wiped them off and used a wire brush to clean up some more. I think they turned out very well. Compare the photo below with the screw on the bottom with the one above with the corrosion around it. When I took the picture, I didn't use a wire brush on that part and it still cleaned up nicely.

When I was installing the impeller again, I remember the new one came with a small packet with lubricant. I no longer had this, or any other packet, but I remember it was glycerin. I read somewhere that using dish soap was good to use as it's mainly used to get it started when pumping the water, then the water itself is what keeps the impeller moving freely. I didn't have dish soap either. I thought about it for a while. I didn't really want to go find a store with soap and lose my parking space as it's very limited. Then, I realized I might have some. I went to my truck and got a tube of Aloe gel that I had in case of sunburn. Guess what one of the main ingredients is... right after water, it's glycerin. So I dabbed some of it into the impeller chamber and smeared some of it on the face of the place while installing a new rubber gasket and put it all back together. In case anyone is wondering, the cover plate is a Speedseal that was installed by a previous owner. Much easier to remove than what I've seen with other boats that have many screws to undo in order to change the impeller.

I think everything looks SO much better now that it's cleaned up. The seal looks like it's seated much better than before too. I then reinstalled the water pump back on the bracket and onto the engine. I didn't start it to test yet as I wanted to check a couple other things on the engine first. I tried to take off a cover that housed one of the engine zincs but it wouldn't budge and the other was even harder to get to. I have a bit of an oil lead that I believe is from the valve cover gasket. I was going to take the cover off to clean up around the area but decided to leave that for the next time I visit the boat.

Tragedy Strikes

Guess what?

There's an issue with the boat.

Here's how my day went with the boat.

This morning, I saw the marina webcam showing my boat at the yard dock. I gave a call to confirm they were ready for me to move it to my slip. This picture shows the boat in the lower left.

In the middle of the picture, by the buildings, is the fuel dock. After work, I drove the hour to the marina to move the boat. I got a couple new dock lines from the truck and took them to the boat. I started the engine, uncovered the tiller, untied the dock lines, then motored over to the fuel dock. I loaded up the fuel tank with 10.38 gal of diesel. I know I put in 5 gal before and there was still some fuel in the tank so I'm guessing the tank isn't as large as I thought. So it's probably 20gal.

Anyway, after I filled the fuel tank, I motored over to the slip. I just missed it and had to back up and try again but it worked out. It takes some time getting used to the tiller. While I was at the slip, I sorted the dock lines and making sure the boat wasn't too far forward causing the bowsprit to get in the way of the walking space on the dock. I routed the shore power cable to the bow and connected to the power box for charging but didn't get to turn the power on in the boat.

Here I got dock lines sorted.

Looks good among the other boats at the dock.

Now, where the bad part comes in. While I was looking things over, browsed at the bilge. It looked orange. I was reminded of a picture I saw on a Cruisers Forum post. While I thought of it, I wiped down the front of the tank, where a piece of wood (or something else) was epoxied into place. I noticed some weeping through and further down I noticed some drips. I couldn't see anywhere else where there was a leak like from the water. Looks like I got a fuel leak. I made sure the bilge pump was turned off at this point to make sure I wasn't inadvertently spilling fuel

This picture shows where it looked to me that the fuel was leaking into the bilge. After wiping it up, I saw very slowly it would get wet again to start dripping.

To show just how much of a pain it would be to replace the tank, this shows how it is mounted. From the opening panel, under the engine, toward the back of the boat. It would require removal of the engine, and possibly the floor to get to it.

So with that, I got things ready again and pulled out of the slip and motored back to the boat yard dock. Gary, the guy I mentioned earlier, said they would help in some way. Right now, I'm thinking I might as well put it back on the trailer and get ready for a lot more work. I'm thinking the refit I was planning to start in a couple years may have just been moved up in scheduling. I was thinking to work over the planned refit over a few years. I've been working on a list of projects so it'll take some time to go through it all. Other than the fuel tank, there's refinishing the mast, new chainplates, new chartplotter, and much more to keep me busy.

I did at least enjoy motoring around the marina, although it would have been nice to do more than a few minutes here and there only to pull it back out of the water soon. I'll send an email in the morning to Gary and see what he says. I'm hoping they will at least be able to drain the fuel tank for me.

Last view before I left this time. Sad, I know, but some things like this is needed. At least doing a refit, it will allow the boat to last much longer. We'll see how it goes.