Hiding away and fixing things when it was wet and windy and weeping

Wet and windy indeed. Here is the windy bit and why we decided to remove the bimini cover just in case because initially there were F9 gusts in the forecast:

What about the rain? Well, the Sunday forecast was pretty conclusive:

and that was going to carry on through to Monday evening too:

Not at all tempting.

What keeps you amused when it is that miserable? Gin perhaps? Oh no, instead the wing engine was dismembered:

and treated to a small session of valve gear adjustment:

Who needs alcohol when there are other fun thing like this to do?

We did treat ourselves to lunch at the remarkably good value Anchor Hotel on one slightly less soggy day. Plenty of trips to the Co-op for fresh stuff too, only their idea of fresh and ours was not quite the same. If we saw things with a "best before" date a couple of days away, it was a treat. Some of the stuff on the shelves was already rotting. Seems that the fresh produce either gets horribly delayed on its way there, gets a battering on the poor roads or perhaps the Co-op singles out Tarbert as the place to ship all the soft / mouldy stuff to?

Now for the weeping bit of the title. The captain went to check the belt tension on the genset after fitting a new coolant pump to it earlier this year and to add some paint to areas he had put some "primer" on.  All was well, but he spotted that the thermostat cover was weeping a little, there was a trace of wetness (coolant) underneath it. The bad news was that it had to be fixed as directly underneath it lives the alternator. Alternators and coolant - not a match made in heaven.

We have ranted on many times about the massively stupid positioning of the genset which is too far aft so you cannot get behind it to reach things. Guess what, the thermostat cover is on the wrong side and wrong end of the genset for access. Had it been the wing engine that had such a weep, it would have been very simple to access it. Instead, the captain pushed himself against the two bulkhead mounted water strainers and manfully accepted the pain. OK, there might have been a little moaning.

You can see the bits of corrosion under the cover plate.  Getting the plate off is easy enough, as is removing the thermostat. Scraping the remains of the gently cooked gasket from the side of the manifold working almost blind was not. To get to see the thing involved more physical pain as you have to lay on both water strainers. The resulting bruises were impressive.

Without the cover and thermostat, duly cleaned up:

As the thermostat was out, we treated the genset to a new one - no desire to repeat this performance soon! We had a gasket and thermostat in our spares and even better, a can of gasket remover which really helped to free the baked on stuff which was hard to reach and hence apply any pressure to with a scraper. The cleaned up cover and thermostats, showing the new one sitting on the spring ready to go into the engine:

A thin smear of blue Hylomar gasket sealant on the new gasket just to "be sure to be sure" and rebuilt, then refilled with coolant and the first coat of paint too:

No more weeping, well just a little as the captain unwound his body and headed for the shower. We would love to get hold of the idiot who mounted the genset so far aft and force him / her to work on the outboard side of the thing. It would be so sweet....

A small gin helped afterwards.