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.)

A Sorry Sight

Being only 30 feet long, Sojourn is moored at what I think of as the entry level dock.  I say entry level as most of her neighbors are like her, less than 32 feet and seasoned.  A few docks away are the bigger slips and more expensive boats.

What is striking is the number of apparently neglected boats on the dock. There are no less than 10 boats on D dock with no canvas at all protecting their sails from the ravaging UV of the sun. Two of them have seen their sails shredded in the time Sojourn has been in Everett- just 5 months. Ironically, one of them bears a sail repair advertisement.  I didn’t want to embarrass the owner, so I didn’t post the image. 

What, by the way, is the nautical term for these neglected and deteriorating vessels?  Airmen call their aeronautical counterparts ramp queens.

That Which Didn’t Sink a Ship

I’m now finished with phase two of Sojourn’s repower project.  The engine bay is clean and painted and Sojourn is waiting to be powered by Kubota (in the absence of wind of course).

I cleaned the engine bay, first with Greased Lightning, which I’ve found to be a very good surfactant in the past, then simple green and scrub brush, vacuuming the resultant gray foam with a shop vac to keep it out of the bilge.  I then coated it with two coats of Interlux BilgeKote on two consecutive days.  The only two problems I had were that the shaft packing was dripping too fast for the bottle and the rag I placed under it and there were traces of grease showing up in the roller.  Time will tell if the latter causes any adhesion issues.

One thing I did in preparation was remove the shaft flange so that I could modify it. The Volvo had a metric bolt circle slightly different than the imperial one of the Technodrive. I would not bother to modify this eighty dollar part if I didn’t essentially have a machine shop at my disposal.

Getting to the subject and title of this post, I woke up in the middle of the night realizing that Sojourn’s slip is subject to river currents and there was nothing preventing the prop shaft from working its way out of the stuffing box should a current cause the prop to turn.  Could the bilge pump keep up with a 3/4 inch hole in the hull?  Perhaps for a while, but not something I wanted to learn empirically, so I stole away on my lunch break to check on it.  Thankfully, it hadn’t moved.  I installed a piece of hose and hose clamp on the prop shaft and headed back to work anticipating a better night’s sleep tonight. 

The next time an opportunity presents itself, I’ll have to remember to offer a little extra wine to the old man in the sea.

Sojourn’s Repower Underway

I’ve embarked on a sojourn of a different sort – repowering Sojourn. As I write this, she leans slightly to starboard in her slip, burdened by 340 pounds of cast iron sitting on her cockpit seat.

I had planned to get a chain fall, some additional muscle and some other tools to remove the old Volvo MD7A, but the decided to go down and get started. I disconnected the control cables, wiring, exhaust, fuel and cooling hoses.  I then removed the bolts from the motor mounts and prop coupling and the motor was free, save the forces of gravity and being something of a square peg behind a round hole – or was it the other way around? By calibrated eyeball, the opening was about 2 inches shorter than the distance from the bottom of the flywheel to the top of the valve cover.  Further, the flywheel was too low in the hole to get a three-jaw puller on it.

To expose the flywheel, I tied the main halyard to the alternator bracket and hoisted, tipping the engine up, giving me the clearance I was hoping for.  The three jaw puller I borrowed from work must have weighed 45 pounds and seemed adequate to remove the wheel from one of those earth movers you see on Big Machines. After applying most of the muscle and all of the cajones I had, it would not budge.  I had screwed so much energy into it that I was having visions of it popping off and subsequently harpooning the forward bulkhead.  In fact, I damaged the crankshaft stud pretty badly.

Plan B was to remove the valve cover, rockers and injector lines. Now, at least, it was a smaller peg.  And, it was halfway out of its hole.  I decided to keep going.  I tightened the halyard a little more and gave it a tug.  The engine practically popped onto the battery box.

The impatient man in me wanted to keep going so the engineer did a seat of the pants calculation.  340 pounds.  7/16ths halyard. 5 inch winch. 12 inch handle. Some friction. – about 70 pounds of armstrong.  I figure I give it at least 50 pounds of armstrong on the last crank when hoisting the sail.  A 7/16 line, even as old as this one should have 1000 pounds of breaking strength. I went for it.

The impatient man re-rigged the halyard, tied a line between the end of the boom and the halyard to keep the engine from swinging toward the mast and proceeded to crank the winch.  As soon as it pulled free of the battery box, the whole boat listed to starboard with the engine swinging likewise.  I think I heard a goose in a very good Homer Simpson voice say “Dohhhh!”  The impatient man tied a line between each of the cabin top winches and the halyard.  This worked very well. I continued cranking the winch as the old Volvo emerged from the companionway.

Before I knew it, Sojourn’s old engine (and perhaps someone’s new anchor) was sitting on the starboard cockpit seat and there was an  empty hole under the cockpit.