Bomb Site

It doesn't take long to reduce a cabin to a stripped-out shell.

Provided motivation levels remain elevated, we should have this all shiny and new within a week or so.

Blocks

Now there is no chance of us going anywhere for a while, I've started on a few of those small jobs that I have put off because they might interfere with actually sailing. First up, varnishing all the blocks in the running rigging.

Starting to strip back the blocks for varnishing.

On the engine front, I today reassembled the oil cooler. The injection pump, however, is headed to the USA (not far, in fact, from Kamalii's old home) for a rebuild. The fact is I'm not 100% certain the pump is the issue, but I'm 90% certain, and the only other thing it could be I can't test without the pump back in action, so I'm just getting it done. If nothing else the engine is going to be running like a dream after all this.

And lastly, today we moved Isi and Sarah out of their cabin so we can start stripping it out for painting. I've already done a lot of filling and prep work, so hopefully we will have it all done fairly quickly,

Racing Mods

Kamalii is a fairly beefy girl, carrying a few more pounds than a younger lady might be comfortable with. (Waits for slap about the head...)

So I thought we would get rid of some dead weight. Let's see, what's heavy but not very necessary? I know! The engine has two inlet manifolds, I'm sure it can get by with just the one, so lets gid rid of one of them. Good idea! And while we're at it, that fuel injector pump looks big and heavy, let's dump that as well. And is that oil cooler really necessary, I mean, how cool does oil really need to be? Out it goes!

But seriously. While we were away we had a repeat of the Xmas problems with air getting into the fuel lines after the engine was at rest for a while. I had thought this was a result of an air leak through the new fuel supply hoses I had fitted, but just could not find any such leak. Then, a few days after we got back, I went to start the engine up so we could move to a new slip in the marina and....Clunk! The engine was locked up. A quick check revealed that the sump was full of diesel, up to the point that it had flooded the cylinders. Oh shit oh dear...

There is only one way that much diesel could have gotten into the sump - through a fuel leak out the injector pump drive. And if the fuel was leaking out when it was running, air could be getting in when it was sitting stopped. It all fits. So, big breath, fingers crossed, and...

Injection pump removed. We had to take off the left side intake manifold to get it out.

There was a lot of diesel sitting in the tunnel where the pump mates to the drive, confirming our suspicions.

Cleaning out the oil cooler was a job I planned to do over the winter. However, some slight oil emulsion was showing itself in the engine coolant which made me suspect a leaking seal in the oil cooler, so while I was in the mood for ripping the engine apart...

Oil cooler unit with core removed. This was a job we planned to do over winter in any case.

Oil cooler core unit all cleaned out. There was quite a bit of crud in the cooler, though not enough to cause performance problems.

Sure enough, one of the O-rings that seals the core unit against the housing wall had split, which would have allowed oil to seep into the coolant when the engine was running. Easy fix. Phew.

So now I have to either get the injection pump serviced, or replace it. Based on my experiences to date in NZ with this sort of thing I suspect it will be easier and cheaper to buy an exchange unit from overseas. The local Cummins office does not even carry part numbers for old engine models that were not sold directly in the NZ market - bloody useless.

Easter Trip

Well cyclone Pam was a bit of a fizzer. That's good.

We headed away for an extended Easter break, and while the weather was a bit light on the wind we did manage to get some nice sails in. It was just the family on board (hooray for that autopilot!) and in a great development Sarah got enthusiastic about helming, and proved to be quite capable.

While it would be great to get another month in with sailing before we retire for the winter and start on some of the big inside jobs, we have had to call it quits a bit early due to some engine issues. See my next coming post...