More preventative maintenance - and the weather is not that bad...

For the technically minded or chronic insomniacs: The boat came with a great built in oil change system fitted. The one downside is that it has a pump with an impeller drive and everyone reports that the impellers fail regularly. We haven't experienced this yet (maybe we change the oil more often than others so the pump gets used a little more and the impeller doesn't get "set"?) No matter, a new impeller is a stupid price and having to change it just as you are ready to pump out the old hot oil is far from ideal.

$35 plus shipping for an impeller smaller than the picture above with the associated seals. Hum

So, when the manufacturers (Reverso) had an offer, we bought a new gear driven pump to replace the original. Finally got around to fitting it. Of course, nothing is easy. The fittings for the pipes that run to the engine, wing and genset were wider apart than on the original and the backing plate was wider. Getting enough slack in the hoses to couple them up was real fun. Real fun. Finding a position that allowed holes to be drilled through the backplate in the original bolt positions was also amusing. Really amusing.

Doesn't look that different considering all the effort but it makes the captain feel good:

Whilst doing this, it was a good time to change the wing engine and genset oil. The wing, as it was about 10 months old. The genset, as it had run about 80 hours since the last change and during the winter when genset use is less frequent, we try to swap the oil regularly.

What else - well, it was time to adjust the valve clearances on the main engine and genset. The main is of course a little chunkier than the genset engine (6.8 litres and 6 cylinders versus 2 litres and 4 cylinders). The level of pain to do the job is inverted though as access to the genset valves is harder. The main engine kind of sits in the middle of the engine room making things very simple. In case you feel tempted, here is what you have to do:

Got that? Good, you can do it for us next time. We have the special John Deere tools mentioned above so you have no excuse at all.

Of course, one job always leads to another. For some time we'd known that the exhaust elbow on the wing engine was getting corroded (mentioned in an earlier post). The cast iron elbow has cooling water sprayed into it (ie hot salt water) and that, together with any carbon build up inside, is a real corrosive cocktail. Typical lifespan is reported as about 5 years so after 7 ours had done well.

We had already bought 2 new stainless steel elbows (stainless lasts a little longer) in readiness as the genset has exactly the same elbow fitted. The plan was to replace them both this year. Well, whilst running up the wing engine after the oil change, we noticed that the corrosion was worse and at high rpm, a weep of fluid was being forced out. Means we have to wrestle the exhaust hose off soon and then replace the elbow. More fun to come. Anyone fancy popping over and acting as the tame gorilla needed to get the exhaust hose free?