I won't go into details, but although I got the boat in at its usual time...mid June...it took a month for me to get the sails on her and I didn't get out to go sailing until yesterday. I hate feeling like I should sell her because I am not using her, but this summer has blown by at light speed. Fortunately I get most of my sailing in in September and October anyway.
Yesterday we gorgeous...80 degreees and sunny with a nice breeze...but I could see that the sailboats really weren't moving around very well...which turned out to be some solace. I started the diesel and stripped the mainsail cover. A few minutes later the engine alarm went off. Like a dope, I had forgotten to open the raw water seacock. I shut it down, opened it and started it again and checked the exhaust. No steam and water seemed to be coming out nicely. It went off again. Shut it down again figuring I had wasted the impeller.
I am lazy and I never pull my impeller out in the winter. Some claim you should, but I did the first year and didn't notice any issues so I stopped doing it. I did change it the first year just for maintenance as the boat came with a few spares. That was about five years ago. I pulled the pump and the impeller was 100% fine. I changed it anyway and put it back in place. Staring at the front of the engine, I decided to tackle the job of changing the front zinc. I had never changed them because the front is on a stub of pipe, when I tried to get it before the stub started to come off in its entirety and I didn't want to make a major project out of it at that time. In addition, when I tried to change the back zinc the square boss on the plug literally just sheared off. Luckily I had purchased a spare from Calypso off his old motor when he pulled it a few years ago during a repower. When I pulled the front zinc I thought for sure that I found the problem. The zinc was still 80% intact, but the end had come off as a disk and was loose. It seemed to be in a position to act as a check valve blocking the flow to the block while allowing flow to the exhaust elbow to continue unabated. To get at the zinc it was much easier with the alternator pivoted up and out of the way so I ended up changing the vee belts too. No problem. Might as well do some deferred maintenance I thought.
Up into the cockpit again. I fired up the engine confident that, sans its check valve, it would work fine. Two minutes later the alarm went off again. Puzzled, I looked at the engine and found that the thermocouple for the alarm appeared to be on the same cover as the rear zinc, so I decided to change it out for the spare in case there was something funky with the zinc there also. That zinc was also about 80% and there was some sediment in the cover. When I unbolted it, the water that came out was hot, but there was water thankfully. Scratching my head I decided to prime the pump from a bucket, like I do when I put antifreeze in it for the winter. No problems there. The pump was working like a charm. I did notice a few puffs of steam and some black discharge in the exhaust, but I took that as a positive sign that I was finally getting flow through the engine block.
My next thought was. Damn...because my poor Triple Play has been sitting on the mooring there must be a jungle on the raw water intake. I crawled into the starboard lazarette and tried blowing into the hose. No dice. Time for a swim in Winthrop harbor! At least the water is up to a balmy 68F by now.
Yesterday we gorgeous...80 degreees and sunny with a nice breeze...but I could see that the sailboats really weren't moving around very well...which turned out to be some solace. I started the diesel and stripped the mainsail cover. A few minutes later the engine alarm went off. Like a dope, I had forgotten to open the raw water seacock. I shut it down, opened it and started it again and checked the exhaust. No steam and water seemed to be coming out nicely. It went off again. Shut it down again figuring I had wasted the impeller.
I am lazy and I never pull my impeller out in the winter. Some claim you should, but I did the first year and didn't notice any issues so I stopped doing it. I did change it the first year just for maintenance as the boat came with a few spares. That was about five years ago. I pulled the pump and the impeller was 100% fine. I changed it anyway and put it back in place. Staring at the front of the engine, I decided to tackle the job of changing the front zinc. I had never changed them because the front is on a stub of pipe, when I tried to get it before the stub started to come off in its entirety and I didn't want to make a major project out of it at that time. In addition, when I tried to change the back zinc the square boss on the plug literally just sheared off. Luckily I had purchased a spare from Calypso off his old motor when he pulled it a few years ago during a repower. When I pulled the front zinc I thought for sure that I found the problem. The zinc was still 80% intact, but the end had come off as a disk and was loose. It seemed to be in a position to act as a check valve blocking the flow to the block while allowing flow to the exhaust elbow to continue unabated. To get at the zinc it was much easier with the alternator pivoted up and out of the way so I ended up changing the vee belts too. No problem. Might as well do some deferred maintenance I thought.
Up into the cockpit again. I fired up the engine confident that, sans its check valve, it would work fine. Two minutes later the alarm went off again. Puzzled, I looked at the engine and found that the thermocouple for the alarm appeared to be on the same cover as the rear zinc, so I decided to change it out for the spare in case there was something funky with the zinc there also. That zinc was also about 80% and there was some sediment in the cover. When I unbolted it, the water that came out was hot, but there was water thankfully. Scratching my head I decided to prime the pump from a bucket, like I do when I put antifreeze in it for the winter. No problems there. The pump was working like a charm. I did notice a few puffs of steam and some black discharge in the exhaust, but I took that as a positive sign that I was finally getting flow through the engine block.
My next thought was. Damn...because my poor Triple Play has been sitting on the mooring there must be a jungle on the raw water intake. I crawled into the starboard lazarette and tried blowing into the hose. No dice. Time for a swim in Winthrop harbor! At least the water is up to a balmy 68F by now.
