Too Good to Be True, the Saga Continues

So, that which sunk a ship had other consequences.  Once I discovered that the engine had been under water, I resigned to the notion that all of the electronics had to be replaced and so it was true.  The final piece of electrical gear to go was the starter.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t the starter itself, but the solenoid. It developed an internal short and didn’t have enough pull to engage the bendix and close the contact to the starter.

Greg, a friend with scuba gear, volunteered to dive into the 49 degree water and change out her prop.  Just to say I helped, I dawned my wet suit and a snorkel and almost like a Loony Tunes character I was out of the water before my fins hit.  Brrrrrr!  Incidentally, on a near high rising tide, there wasn’t a hint of salt in the Everett marina.  So we dried off and I hit the starter.  The engine roared to life and then died. I only had the speed control set at perhaps 30%.

I decided that it was a governor problem, so I pulled the speed control plate to investigate.  Under it there was a bar, that was clearly part of the governor and was sticky.  I worked it with a screw driver until it was moving freely.  I thought perhaps a piece of corrosion was making it sticky, which appeared to be the case. 

So, Carrie, the girls, and I took her out for her first sail since the repower.  It worked pretty well, but he engine stalled a couple of times at idle. We had a relaxing sail on a 72 degree light breeze under mostly overcast skies.  After the spring weather we’ve had, I had not complaints. Afterward, we proceeded to Jetty Island. This time, it wouldn’t rev up, so we limped back to Sojourn’s slip instead.

Later that night, I took the fuel injection pump out.  What a mess! There was rust in it and one of the springs had shattered into a dozen pieces.  I can only surmise that corrosion caused stress risers which cause the spring to break.  I’m amazed at the number of pieces the spring is in and have no explanation. The rest of the pieces are still in it as I was fearful of not being able to put Humpty back together again in the absence of a clean work bench. It is Memorial day, so I’ll have to wait until later in the week to see what the damage to my wallet is going to be.

Noise Comparison Beta vs. MD7a

I’m fortunate to have pretty good hearing.  While I can’t hear a dog whistle, at age 40, I still find old school CRT type televisions annoying because I can hear the scan frequency.  My wife, and most adults I’ve asked, have no idea what I’m talking about. 

It comes at a price though – I’m sensitive to noise in general.  With two notable exceptions, I find most machine noise to be annoying.  Being a mechanical engineer and former auto mechanic, machine noises that sound like something is loose or malfunctioning, or just shouldn’t be, are the worst. My old tired MD7a with it’s “missing the third jug timing” was one of those. (The MD7a has the cylinder timing of a 3 cylinder, with one of the cylinders missing.) So after reading all of the forums and sales literature about how quiet the Beta is, I was very excited to find a good deal on a Beta.

MD7a

So the Beta is installed and the jury has rendered a verdict.  Although I have access to it, it didn’t occur to me to take before and after noise measurements with a sound meter, so my phone will have to do.  Quantitatively, the Beta is quieter, but nothing to….well shout about.  Qualitatively, it sounds to this designer of machines for the last decade as a 2 cylinder diesel should, if a little

Beta 14

noisier than I would like. Here are some videos. That said, no effort has been made to add sound insulation (yet) in Sojourn and in fact feels like a lot of vibration is getting transmitted through the hull and reverberating in the open space in the lazarette. I’ll revisit this when I get to sound insulation on my rather lengthy to-do list.

Oh, and the two notable exceptions: A Ducati 900 Super Sport and Packard V-1650 often heard in a North American P-51 Mustang flyby.

Galloping Ghost at Reno (3 min video.) The video doesn’t do it justice.

How Do You Park Your Sailboat?

I was recently dialoging with someone in the Netherlands, and he sent me a photo of his boat.  I immediately asked him what happened, to which he asked to what was I referring.  I was referring to the fact that it looked, to my apparently novice eye, like his boat ran aground at high tide and miraculously speared the keel in the mud to keep it from falling over, to which his response might be interpreted, “how do they park boats where you live? “

He points out that this Westerly Centaur 27 has twin keels and thus can do this quite easily.  If you look closely, there is a small shaft of light showing between the keels.

No news, I’m sure, to old salts here in the states, but interesting to me.  Thanks to Ruud for being kind enough to permit me to post the photo.  It was taken on a sea called Waddenzee where this is apparently a common sight.

Sojourn’s Exhaust

The Beta’s exhaust comes out on the opposite side of the prop shaft  as the old Volvo and thus my muffler.  I needed a tail pipe that went up about 8 inches, to starboard 9 inches and aft about 17 inches to the muffler. Moving the muffler is possible, but not attractive as it would encroach on storage space in the lazarette. To solve my geometry problem, I designed a tailpipe in Solidworks consisting of a flange, a bent piece of 1-5/8 stainless exhaust tubing, a 1-1/4 pipe nipple, and a 1/2 pipe nipple.  I made the flange myself and had Stan at Stan’s Header’s in Auburn bend the tube. I cut the threaded ends off the nipples and milled a hole in the larger.  I then welded the parts together.  Voila.  After wrapping it with some exhaust lagging, the hole exhaust project cost me $125 and about 2 hours. 

As I’ve said before, I purchased Sojourn as a learning project and am getting my money’s worth.  On that note, I was surprised to find that my old tail pipe actually had evidence of rust, to the point of rot, from the outside than the inside. In fact, if you look closely, there is a hole in it. I have also noticed that every time I started the engine, that the exhaust lagging would steam.  I’ve since learned that the lagging is hygroscopic (has an affinity for water) which causes it to absorb water from the air, of which there is much on a sailboat. Hopefully the stainless will last longer than the carbon steel did.

Other’s who have converted to Beta, will likely recognize that Beta recommends a 2” exhaust for this installation.  I decided to try to save a few hundred dollars and reuse the old exhaust.  If the 1-5/8 doesn’t keep me within allowable back pressure, I’ll have to upsize.  Stay tuned.

It’s Working!

I’m behind in postings as I’ve been sick and working on Sojourn. It isn’t done yet as there are still small details (like connecting it to a prop shaft) to finish, but I’m happy to report…..

It’s working. It’s working!

And it’s fantastic! There was no crawling half into the lazarette with a can of ether, no smoke, no smell, and no embarrassing oil sheen.  There was just a 10 second pause for the glow plugs, then voila. 

And to top off an already good evening….

Four Feet Closer

One of the fringe benefits of my job is access to a rather well equipped machine shop.  The shaft line on the Beta sits about 1.9 inches lower than it does on the old Volvo and therefore the new Beta needs to sit 1.9 inches higher.  Beta Marine advertises that they have a solution for this, but having already purchased this on the secondary market, visions of hundred dollar bills danced in my head.

I found a piece of 6 inch aluminum C channel and drew up some feet in Solidworks around this material.  I cut it into 5 inch lengths and a few hours on an mill and this is what I ended up with.

I was worried that the timber under the engine beds would be rotten after 37 years, so I wanted a good hold to the fiberglass itself.  I decided that six #14 stainless wood screws should do the trick.

Despite a cold soggy morning, the afternoon turned out to be delightfully sunny and almost, dare I say, warm. Annie and I headed to the marina to install the new hardware. 

To my pleasant surprise, nice dry pink wood chips came out of all 24 of the drilled holes.  I wonder what species they used that might have pink wood. If six screws was going to be enough in rotten wood, this felt very reassuringly solid.  After screwing down all four feet, I rigged the engine to the Halyard for the last time and set the engine on the new feet.  So, Sojourn is four feet closer to having a running Kubota power plant.

Forward Progress

We, here in the northwest, had a break from the dismal excuse for spring weather on Saturday.  It was one of the first dry days we’ve had in a while, not to mention one of the first this month above 50. Our good friend Bill was available for a quick afternoon trip, so I seized the opportunity and off to the marina with a shiny red engine and a sense of enthusiasm we went.

To solve the problem of handling the engine between the garage and trailer and then the dock, I made a frame out of 2X4 timber and strapped it to the engine with motorcycle straps.  The result was a akin to a double ended wheelbarrow, which worked very well. The problem of getting it from the dock into the cabin and subsequently into the engine compartment was solved for me by virtue of the fact that Sojourn is, after all, a sailboat.  We rigged the main halyard to the engine sitting on the dock.  I manned the winch, while Bill and my slip neighbor, Matt, guided the engine over the gunnel and down the companion way.  Short on time, we left it there for the night.

Sunday, the weather returned to its less than spring-like dampness, wind and gray, but not so much to prevent me from moving the engine from the cabin sole to the engine compartment.  This went with out a hitch, even by myself.  I ran a motorcycle strap between the end of the mast and the halyard to keep the engine from swinging toward the mast.  The lifting eyes were ideally located on the Beta and permitted me to get all four feet on the beds in one shot. To scoot it back into position and adjust the feet, I rigged it though the deck hatch and put some tension on the halyard.

Voila, a shiny red engine in its new home.  (Sorry, my final image was too fuzzy to post.  Stay tuned.)