Luna, The Story of a Forgotten Catalina 30.

[jviss]

only lit for a few seconds before burning out (after I let go of the knob).

This is most likely a bad thermocouple.

 

[mikeracca]

This is most likely a bad thermocouple.

I was thinking the same thing at first, but when I manipulated the control valve to produce a larger pilot flame, the thermocouple worked perfectly. Either way, the oven side of my stove is rusted beyond repair and I’m in the market for a new one.

 

[jviss]

I was thinking the same thing at first, but when I manipulated the control valve to produce a larger pilot flame, the thermocouple worked perfectly. Either way, the oven side of my stove is rusted beyond repair and I’m in the market for a new one.

Good luck, these are not cheap! Check out the marine consignment shops.

 

[mikeracca]

Good luck, these are not cheap! Check out the marine consignment shops.

The only thing that has been cheap so far on my boat has been my own labor. Lol.

 

[mikeracca]

The part finished! 16 hours 25 minutes. If I had to print another one I would change the taper on the countersinks to make them a bit deeper and a slightly steeper angle. This will be close enough for now. I will next work on the drilling and tapping of the holes for the hold down hardware.

 

[kappykaplan]

Very nice!

 

[BigEasy]

Way cool!

 

[DArcy]

The name is a nice touch. Since you printed the part with solid fill you can easily drill the countersinks to whatever size you want. I very often print holes undersize then drill them out to full size.

 

[mikeracca]

Thanks for the compliments guys, and now to give you a bit of reference on how these 2 parts are to be used. Here is my assembled throttle , and think of boat in the area with the gap.

 

[jeepbluetj]

The part finished! 16 hours 25 minutes. If I had to print another one I would change the taper on the countersinks to make them a bit deeper and a slightly steeper angle. This will be close enough for now. I will next work on the drilling and tapping of the holes for the hold down hardware.

Very nice. Are you planning some coating to help with UV exposure? My PLA prints have degraded outside significantly. (The boat ones get painted. Backyard stuff doesn't)

 

[mikeracca]

Very nice. Are you planning some coating to help with UV exposure? My PLA prints have degraded outside significantly. (The boat ones get painted. Backyard stuff doesn't)

Not at first… The other parts I made for my MacGregor seemed to take being outside quite well, and they were the same white filament as these are made with. If there is an issue, I will simply print another and paint it.

 

[mikeracca]

Today was pretty ok. I was able to get the cables off the engine, but I didn’t have time to get them fished out of the hull. I had to remove the brackets from the engine to succeed, but that’s all good as they can use a soaking in my EvapoRust. When I got home I worked on the throttle assembly and got it fully reassembled and ready to go back into the boat. I will have to drill 4 new holes in the boat, but it’s all good. I will get pics when I get it installed on the boat. Another bit of good news is the nipple that I thought was extra on my #1 injector was actually the only one, I just need to rotate the fitting around and get it hooked back up.

 

[MikeHoncho]

I got some of the new parts for the printer yesterday, which is good. A new and upgraded hot end, a new feed tube and today I’m getting a upgrade, a plate sensor so I don’t have to worry about the work surface being perfectly calibrated manually, this sensor will auto calibrate the plate and adjust the position of the head accordingly. So that should make printing much less failure prone. I do have a pretty good track record with it so far, but a few prints have failed because they didn’t stick to the plate properly.

Now to the boat. I got the tank cleaned out and ready to go. Well to be honest I didn’t clean it, a friend did. He had a car that he couldn’t fix, and I had a tank that needed cleaning so we traded jobs. I fixed the car, he cleaned the tank. He cut an inspection hole in it and that allowed us access to everything inside, we got all the goo out, most of the staining and found no corrosion. He is going to fabricate the access cover today and the tank should be ready to go back in here soon. One step closer to starting the engine!

Oh and the biocide I put in the fuel turned the fuel really nasty! The fuel went in a beige color, and when I siphoned it out it was completely black. This was the original fuel I pulled from the tank. I have a friend who has one of those garage heaters that will burn anything for heat… well he is getting a few more gallons of old diesel to keep his garage warm. The first 5 gallons I gave him, he said worked great.

I always wanted to get one of the auto-levelers. Leveling is a big pain in the rear. I upgraded the table to a ceramic/glass one and that was a good upgrade.

 

[mikeracca]

Ok, so today went pretty good. I was able to get the diesel filler hose out of the boat, but I missed WM’s closing time by 1/2 hour… oh well. They will be open again later. The hooks for keeping my ropes nice and neat work perfectly, I got 2 installed. I replaced my rope for the back stay adjustment as well. I ordered my new gauges, and cables for my engine. The cables were 11’ for the transmission and 12’ for the throttle, the original cables had readable numbers on them. I am going to modify my transmission linkage to go with the thin cable instead of the thick stupid expensive unit. And lastly I got my throttle/shifter mounted back in the boat. It fit perfectly and I am very happy with the way everything turned out.

View from the companionway.

View sitting behind the wheel

And with the sticks removed.

 

[kappykaplan]

Looks great, @mikeracca !

 

[mikeracca]

Not much to report today, I cut my old cables and set the brackets in the EvapoRust so it can do it’s thing over the next day or two. I also got new fuel filler hose and a new fuel filter/water separator. Next up will be my order from CD with my new cables and gauges. Once I have those a new panel will be in the works as will a new engine wiring harness.

Here are the before pics of the engine brackets.

 

[MikeHoncho]

Not to be Debbie Downer but confirming the deck is in good shape with minimal rot?

 

[mikeracca]

I have not found a single soft spot in any of the decks inside or out. My only leaks are my windows and one of the deck fills. The deck fill didn’t start leaking until we cleaned the decks so it was likely caused by the cleaning. I will be working on rebedding them here soon.

 

[mikeracca]

So the brown delivery truck dropped off a brown box full of goodies. I have 3 of the 4 gauges for the new panel, and the 4th should be here in a couple weeks. A sending unit for the fuel tank… I’m going electric. And my new cables for the shift and throttle. So now I just need to get everything rigged up and ready.

So this means I am going to be starting work on creating a new custom built panel as the commercially available ones are either way too expensive to simply not what I need or want. I will be most likely creating this in fiberglass using a 1x6 as a plug. There will be a totally new wiring harness to go with.

 

[mikeracca]

Not much done today… I got a new diesel deck fill as my old one looked pretty nasty inside as well as the o-ring was pretty rotten. Got that bedded all nice and neat in the hull, and did some cleaning. Pretty much all I did. Oh yea, I tried installing my new 30a shore power plug, but I need to reshape the hole in the hull a bit to get it to fit, this new one requires a slightly larger hole, and it has a small tab that needs to also be accounted for. So next time at the boat I will bring a dremmel.