Pre-Season Chores

This past Thursday (3-10-11) I got home from work around 1900.  The wind had been blowing fiercely all day out of the SE and we also got around 2" of rain.  The water level at our dock was high, about 3" below the dock, which is about 3.5' higher than normal.  Usually La Vida Dulce's deck is level with the dock.  Look at the second  picture and you'll get a good idea of how much higher it was. The boat was way up there and Cheri was waiting in the cockpit for me with a 5 gallon bucket that I could flip over and use as a step to get aboard.  We tied a leash onto the bucket handle and clipped it to the railing on our boat so it wouldn't try to swim away.  Sit bucket, stay.  Good bucket.

When I got aboard I found that the marina had killed the power for our dock because of the high water.  Cheri had fired up the diesel heater to keep things warm and we kept it going through the night.  I wasn't sure how much power this thing would eat up through the night so we limited the use of lights and went to bed early, around 2130.  I woke up at 0200 and found that the power had been restored and we had both systems running now, the Espar diesel heater and reverse cycle system, so the boat was plenty warm.  I secured the Espar heater and took a look outside, found the water level had dropped about 6", the dock lines were doing OK and everything was as it should be, so I went back to bed.

 Friday morning Cheri had an appointment in DC and while she was out Brian Butler from Conlyn Marine Services came down to the boat to take a look at the engine.  Conlyn is the local Yanmar dealer and they're located right at Herrington Harbour North.  Brian's a real nice guy and spent about an hour going over things, explaining everything  to me and answering my questions as he went.  At $92/hr this was money well spent.  I told him about our fun experience with the prop shaft coming loose so he took a close look at that.  He explained that the shaft has to be installed so there's no run-out or vibration when it's turning.  Oops.  When I did the repair we were floating around outside the breakwater and I neglected to get my dial indicator and check the run-out.  Turns out I got lucky because it was dead on.  Brian also checked the hoses, alternator belt, coolant, oil and filter and the fuel filter, the motor mounts, turbo charger and the tranny.  We fired up the engine and ran it in gear and inspected the exhaust, which looked kinda smokey to me.  He said the smoke is normal when the diesel is cold and it did clear up as the engine warmed up.  He noticed some fuel droplets in the exhaust which indicated the injectors needed attention but said it wasn't a problem just yet and could wait until next season.  He gave me a list of things to do which included changing the oil and oil filter, replacing both primary and secondary fuel filters and replacing the alternator belt.  The belt was still in good condition but needed to be tightened up and he suggested replacing it and using the old one as a spare.  Brian said that over-all, the engine was in really good condition.  It's got 3,600 hours on it, which is high, but he said that Yanmars last forever and take all kinds of punishment.  With basic maintenance it should last a long time.  That's just what I wanted to hear.

That afternoon I changed the oil and oil filter.  On a car's engine you change the oil by pulling the plug at the bottom of the oil pan and drain it into a container.  It's a quick and fairly easy process, takes maybe fifteen minutes and removes almost all the old oil from the engine.    On our boat there is no access to the bottom of the engine and the oil has to be sucked out through the dipstick tube.  I found a spot on-line where they suggested using a hand pump with a hose pushed over the top of the dip-stick tube.  It's really clean and simple but from what I know of engines, the dip-stick tube does not extend all the way to the bottom of the oil pan so there's no way you're going to get all the old oil out.  Not even close.  As soon as you put in your fresh clean oil it gets contaminated with the old oil and will circulate dirt throughout the engine, which is just what we're trying to avoid.  You might as well run that old oil for another season or two and save yourself the time.  I got a pump that uses a skinny little tube that gets stuck down the dip-stick tube and forced down into the bottom of the pan.  This pump is pretty cool because once you've built up suction it continues to pull oil out until it's 8 quart reservoir is full at which point a float switch will break vacuum and stop the process.  Hopefully.  Our little Yanmar engine holds something like 6.3 liters of oil (1 liter = 1.056688 quarts, US, liquid - I had to look that up) so we're not going to fill this baby up even if we get all the oil out.  I hooked it up, made vacuum and watched.  This is a slow process because of that skinny little tube and took forever with just a dribble of oil coming out.  When it started sucking air like it was done there was less than 5.5 quarts in the reservoir.  I pumped it a few times to get better vacuum and really jammed the hose down hard to get more oil.  I went through this about 5 more times before I finally felt confident that I had gotten as much of the old oil as I could.  After replacing the oil filter I added about 6 quarts of 15w-40 oil, ran the engine for a few minutes to circulate the oil, checked the dipstick and found the level to be perfect.  OK, this took way too long and made a mess too.  The technique I saw on-line could be modified to get all the oil out and would be way better than this.  I think I'll try that next time.

Sunday I worked on the fuel system.  Our engine has the primary fuel filter mounted on the engine compartment door in the galley.  This is comprised of a glass bowl with a 30 micron Racor filter inside.  The top has a T handle that screws off for access to the filter and the bottom has a brass plug that can be removed to flush out the bowl.  To the left of the filter is an electric fuel pump with a toggle switch that can be used to prime the system after you change the filter.  You need to prime the system to get any air out of the lines that might cause the engine to stop running.  The previous owner had used 10 micron filters in the primary and when we bought the boat there was a bag of 20 spares.  They must have really bad fuel down in the BVI.  Brian Butler told me not to use the 10 micron filters because it puts too much pressure on the fuel pump and the secondary filter catches the finer stuff anyway.  I asked him if I could trade him my 10's for some 30's but he said he had no use for them.  Bummer.

While I was playing with the engine Cheri was  getting a head start on the Spring cleaning.  We decided we wanted to really go over the boat with a fine toothed comb, really spiff it up before the warm weather got here.  We were originally planning on starting on it around April 1st but guess what?  April Fools!  Something else came up on the schedule and all of a sudden we only had 2 or 3 weekends to get it done.  We had planned to take it on together since it's such a big job but with the change of plans we decided to divide and conquer.  Cheri doesn't fool around with Spring cleaning and tears stuff apart to expose all the hiding places, cleans out the cracks and crevices with a toothbrush, scrubs everything down and then oils all the wood.  She managed to get through the forward head and our stateroom in the time it took me to service the engine.  No, I didn't plan it out that way.  I just work really, really slowly.

Next thing to take care of is the cooling system.   I'm going to pull the heat exchanger and take the core to Conlyn where they'll put it in a chemical bath to remove any build-up inside.  I'll replace the hoses connected to that and also replace the impeller that pumps the water through the heat exchanger. The plan is to get this done this coming weekend.  Of course the weatherman says it's going to be really nice this weekend with temperatures in the 70's and ten knot winds.  Figures.  Might just have to go sailing instead.