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 Busy lithuanian bees are still at it and getting close to something now. Will they be able to finish it with their own stock after all their suppliers shut down? Will they be able to ship it across countries to deliver it? They still think so, but only time will tell.
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Apr 9, 2020 21:26
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Hello boat thread, been a while. I'm gonna launch in just under a month from now so it felt like time to post some project photos to brag about how I'm Doing Things. Back when I first bought the boat I posted about how I felt suspicious towards this thing right here:  As a quick recap, the engine is a Volvo Penta MD7A from the same year as the boat (1979), and one of the most common causes of death for these things is that the engine block eventually rusts out from the inside, because from factory these were using seawater cooling, pumping salt water straight through the engine block. Thankfully the original owner saw this coming and had the engine converted to closed loop freshwater cooling via an aftermarket kit from a company called Martec, and what we're looking at is the heat exchanger where seawater is used to cool the hot engine coolant.  Here's a view from the top so you can see how it's mounted on the engine. In this boat the engine is mounted basically under the stairs into the cabin, and it's quite easy to remove some paneling to get at both the top and the front of the thing, which is obviously great. Getting to the back of the engine requires using a hatch under the floorboards in the cockpit and is a more awkward affair. The only commonly serviced component that's annoying to get at is the oil filter, which is quite far down on the port side of the engine - you have to stretch in there from the front, it's a tight space and generally somewhat obnoxious. Only have to do it once a year though so I can live with it. Anyway I removed the whole heat exchanger from the engine by simply unscrewing two bolts that fastened it to the mounting bracket and removing all the hoses, spilled a bunch of glycol mix in the bottom of the engine bay in the process and took it home for cleaning.  The Martec kit uses an electric pump for the closed loop, while the seawater circuit uses the engine's original impeller pump. This electric pump was apparently manufactured in September of 1990, which means it turns 30 this year. Fits well with the original owner's claim that he had this installed in the early 1990's. As far as I know it works perfectly but I have to wonder how long these things last.  Regardless, the whole adventure seems to have been completely unnecessary since the drat thing looked almost pristine on the inside. Some gunk around the hose fittings and the hole for the zinc anode but I can't see any meaningful obstructions to the cooling channels at all and there's no scale buildup or anything of note that I can see. I did solve a cold case from last fall, The Mysterious Disappearance of the Impeller Wing, which sure enough was where you'd expect it to be at the bottom of the heat exchanger. I'm gonna order a new gasket for the bottom cover (the company that made these is still in business and spare parts are available - they even sell new kits like this one still) and some new hose clamps, then put the whole thing back together and let it keep trucking, I guess. It is annoying that I can't see where the copper discoloration is coming from but it's hard to argue with 30 years of flawless service and I can't see anything wrong with it. Still, it is reassuring to know it's not clogged up with debris or scale. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Apr 12, 2020 |
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Apr 12, 2020 23:00
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TheFluff posted:Regardless, the whole adventure seems to have been completely unnecessary since the drat thing looked almost pristine on the inside. Some gunk around the hose fittings and the hole for the zinc anode but I can't see any meaningful obstructions to the cooling channels at all and there's no scale buildup or anything of note that I can see. I did solve a cold case from last fall, The Mysterious Disappearance of the Impeller Wing, which sure enough was where you'd expect it to be at the bottom of the heat exchanger. I'm gonna order a new gasket for the bottom cover (the company that made these is still in business and spare parts are available - they even sell new kits like this one still) and some new hose clamps, then put the whole thing back together and let it keep trucking, I guess. That's quite frankly, impressive, considering that it looked to be leaking Finest Green from the outside!
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Apr 12, 2020 23:57
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Looks like the hoses are weeping at the fittings, if the rubber is circa 1990 it’s probably not its best self. You might also look at water dripping from above through the cockpit access hatch.
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Apr 13, 2020 05:38
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If the problem with the design is that it's rusting out internally, why does it continue to use the impeller for the seawater circuit? Does that not defeat the purpose?
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Apr 13, 2020 14:53
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meltie posted:That's quite frankly, impressive, considering that it looked to be leaking Finest Green from the outside! I know, right? I was expecting a horrifying mess inside but nope.   Hard to get a photo of the tubes but I tried. This is after some rinsing with water but no cleaning. Not perfectly clean in there but not gunked up either. Big Taint posted:Looks like the hoses are weeping at the fittings, if the rubber is circa 1990 it’s probably not its best self. You might also look at water dripping from above through the cockpit access hatch. The hatch is much farther back and I think dripping from above can be ruled out, but I agree that replacing the hoses is probably a good idea in general. They seemed fine, supple and without any cracking that I could see, and I don't know if they're all original (the hose clamps at least are of several types and brands where some seem newer than the others, so it's possible that at least some of the hoses have been replaced at some point) but permeation is probably a thing for these at least and it's not like it's a huge project to replace them. Might as well. Upon closer inspection I did notice that the bottom half of the expansion tank (not visible in the pictures, it's mounted outside the engine bay on the other side of the wall next to the heat exchanger) had a pretty ugly buildup of something that looks kinda like rust or a fine iron dust - reddish brown and looking sorta muddy in consistency. I'm inclined to think it's parts of the poor engine block since I suspect the zinc anode in the heat exchanger hasn't been changed as often as it should but there's nothing to be done about that now other than rinsing it out and keeping up with changes in the future.  Here's the current anode after one season - thinking I'll just scrape it clean and let it run another year, but then again a new one is  so might not even be worth the effort.
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Apr 13, 2020 15:10
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TheFluff posted:
Replace it now and keep the old one in the spares box!
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Apr 13, 2020 15:12
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Crunchy Black posted:If the problem with the design is that it's rusting out internally, why does it continue to use the impeller for the seawater circuit? Does that not defeat the purpose? The mounting procedure of the aftermarket kit includes modifying the factory coolant loop so that the seawater intake and exhaust remain as normal - intake from the S-drive, exhaust into the exhaust elbow - but the incoming seawater is rerouted so that instead of going from the pump through the cooling channels in the engine block it goes directly to the heat exchanger and then out into the exhaust elbow. So it passes through the impeller housing (which seems to be made out of brass or something, not cast iron like the engine block) but never through the engine block itself. It doesn't even touch the thermostat housing. Here's the manual for the kit with some diagrams if you're really curious. Only 4 pages with text in both English and Swedish.
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Apr 13, 2020 15:21
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TheFluff posted:The mounting procedure of the aftermarket kit includes modifying the factory coolant loop so that the seawater intake and exhaust remain as normal - intake from the S-drive, exhaust into the exhaust elbow - but the incoming seawater is rerouted so that instead of going from the pump through the cooling channels in the engine block it goes directly to the heat exchanger and then out into the exhaust elbow. So it passes through the impeller housing (which seems to be made out of brass or something, not cast iron like the engine block) but never through the engine block itself. It doesn't even touch the thermostat housing. Yeah, this is a great modification, and there's a reason they still make them. No seawater goes through the engine, which saves a shitload of corrosion and galvanic issues on the spendy bits. The block will scale up when it gets hot, and removing the scale from the cooling passages is nearly impossible without pulling the block out of the boat. The HX is anode-protected and made from marine bronze, so it takes all the corrosion damage instead of the block/WP. We ran a Volvo TAMD41B for years, and we had all sorts of corrosion/cooling issues because of the raw water cooling. These days, most inboard systems, even if they're raw water-based, are using a heat exchanger, and you aren't pumping seawater through the block. On bigger commercial boats, they'll use often keel coolers instead of raw water cooling, but those are subject to impact/ice damage and reduced cooling capacity due to biological growth. Raw water cooling can clog with ice, plus the HXs are still subject to scaling. Seawater, man... it loves to gently caress everything up.
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Apr 13, 2020 17:10
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Ahhhhh okay I get it. I was thinking more like a classic style water pump where it'd be mounted on the front of the block and not having ingress of the seawater to the block would be impossible. Its clear from the diagram it's all hose-routed. Carry on.
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Apr 13, 2020 18:29
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lol replace that zinc you cheapass
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Apr 14, 2020 14:38
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Big Taint posted:lol replace that zinc you cheapass LOL, yup. Definitely replace it. You don't want it fracturing and dropping into the HX.
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Apr 14, 2020 15:26
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While you've got it apart you might as well. Especially if you're the real, special kind of unicorn boat owner that actually does annual maintenance you can add it to your list.
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Apr 14, 2020 20:51
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Big Taint posted:lol replace that zinc you cheapass oh fine  no but seriously though I realized basically as soon as I posted that how dumb it would be to reuse that thing, I already have a replacement too Crunchy Black posted:While you've got it apart you might as well. Especially if you're the real, special kind of unicorn boat owner that actually does annual maintenance you can add it to your list. It's actually easy to replace it with the heat exchanger mounted on the engine, no idea why it hasn't been done previously since the original owner was pretty meticulous about things like oil and filter changes (which is probably the reason the engine is still problem free after 40 years). He was the sort of person who bought Volvo Penta OEM engine oil and OEM filters though. There's also some annual maintenance I can't avoid doing (like filling the seawater circuit with antifreeze) so while I'm down in the engine bay anyway it'd be really stupid not to do an oil change and check the impeller at the same time. Original owner said he changed the fuel filters every year (both the water separator and the one mounted on the engine) which is kinda impressive but I don't know if that's really necessary. It's really cheap but bleeding the fuel system is always sorta messy and mildly obnoxious.
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Apr 14, 2020 22:41
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Supposedly Yamars built after X (1995 maybe? guess) don't even have an anodeCrunchy Black posted:Especially if you're the real, special kind of unicorn boat owner that actually does annual maintenance you can add it to your list. That reminds me, it's year 4 of boat ownership, just rolled over 300+ hours on the engine, I should probably get around to replacing the oil, fuel filters, change the oil, replace the impeller.... also need to repack the stern gland I was hoping to get the boat hauled out this spring after we bought the house and have the yard do all that (plus a new coat of bottom paint) but then this pandemic thing happened.... probably should go ahead and do the impeller next time I'm at the dock... I try and run the engine for 10 minutes every time I'm down there to shake the rust off, at least once a month. Does anyone have one of those self-priming, power drill-powered oil pumps, so you just stick the line down the oil stick pipe and slurp out the old oil, rather than try and find the drain plug. Engine accessibility is not a strong suit for my boat.
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Apr 21, 2020 00:35
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Yanmar switched to Monel for their HX, so there's no need for an anode (there). They still corrode and eat the manifolds. Kinda like lifetime transmission fluid, IMHO.
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Apr 21, 2020 02:10
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Hadlock posted:Supposedly Yamars built after X (1995 maybe? guess) don't even have an anode I have an oil drain pump but it's hand-driven, not powered. Almost exactly like this one. Works well as long as the engine is at least somewhat warm when you do it, not too much effort. You don't get quite all of the old oil out but I don't think it's really that much of a problem. Also comes in really handy to clean out any spillage from the bottom of the engine bay. In other news I left the heat exchanger with my dad (quarantined retiree happy to take on small projects) and he gave it a cleaning with citric acid which revealed the nice copper underneath all the green. Did find some manner of sea creature inside as well.  Did a bit of gelcoat repair and misc cleaning, next week I'll try to tackle some bigger gelcoat cracks around the tiller mounting. Never removed a rudder on a sailboat before so it might be exciting. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Apr 22, 2020 |
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Apr 22, 2020 15:13
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idk if you specified but this is out of the water, yes? I'd never try to remove a rudder that wasn't gudgeoned on in situ.
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Apr 23, 2020 20:39
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Pulling the rudder is most definitely a dry dock job.
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Apr 24, 2020 03:06
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Unless you have a good diver who doesn’t mind looking for pintles and poo poo in marina silt. The first rule of working over the side: You will drop something. Bolts Nuts Pliers A $600 motorola radio Paint brush Life jackets A 20’ air hose
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Apr 24, 2020 03:08
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Crunchy Black posted:idk if you specified but this is out of the water, yes? I'd never try to remove a rudder that wasn't gudgeoned on in situ. Yeah I'm on land. I go in the water May 8th. FrozenVent posted:Unless you have a good diver who doesn’t mind looking for pintles and poo poo in marina silt. 
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Apr 24, 2020 10:30
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I send so much poo poo over the side when I'm working on my boat. It's bad enough when I'm on the trailer where I have a chance of recovery, but it's going to hurt a lot more if/when I get into a slip with 100' of water beneath. If you have a metal detector, you would find at least a pound of stainless hardware and rusty 1/4" drill bits (I lose those like 10mm sockets) around my parking spot.
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Apr 24, 2020 17:11
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Boys who love boys
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3-4 weeks delay.
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Apr 24, 2020 17:52
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FrozenVent posted:The first rule of working over the side: You will drop something.
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Apr 24, 2020 18:58
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There's a reason for the box of misc hardware parts on every boat.
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Apr 24, 2020 19:08
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TrueChaos posted:There's a reason for the box of misc hardware parts on every boat. It’s the poo poo left over from all the times you had to buy a second kit because you’d dropped a loving part over the side. Also did anyone ever do a comparison study between a loving black hole and the grass and gravel at at boat yard? Future archeologists are gonna be like “these idiots thought they could sow hex nuts”
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Apr 24, 2020 19:13
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I once dropped a pry bar off my dad's dock into chest high water. In the time it took me to go inside and change it had disappeared forever.
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Apr 25, 2020 16:15
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Current status: What you're looking at is the rudder head, or rather the tiller head, from the aft looking forewards. I want to get at and repair those nasty gelcoat cracks. For some reason I thought I'd need to remove the rudder to do that but I don't really know why I thought so, it shouldn't be necessary at all.  The tiller itself is fastened to the tiller head with a bolt that also acts as a hinge, fitting in the rearmost hole here (to the right). You can see the wear marks on the tiller head. The bracket or whatever you call it that connects the wooden tiller to the tiller head is made of stainless steel, while the tiller head seems to be something softer. Bronze? I dunno. At any rate, the problem is I can't get the drat tiller head off.  The big Allen head bolt on the left went out without any complaints at all, and the thing that looks like a set screw on the top isn't actually a set screw, it's there to act as an adjustable stop that lets you set the angle at which the tiller rests. The problem is rather the center hole here, which appears to contain a completely rusted out hollow pin of some kind. I suspect it might be a spring pin but I can't see a gap in it. I've tried tapping it with a punch from both directions but it absolutely won't budge even a fraction of an inch. I don't want to use too much violence on it because I don't want to risk damaging something when the time before launch is so limited. Had to give up for the day but I'll come back and stare at it some more tomorrow. Welp. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Apr 26, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 23:22
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Dude, those cracks are nasty but I highly, highly recommend not removing anything else without securing the rudder or pulling the boat. You’re loving with the rudder post and if you’re rudder is a suspended one, ah... yeah. Stop loving with it. It’s it’s got pintles and dudgeons to a fin or the hull keep at it but still be careful. Rudder assemblies can be impressively poorly thought out. There’s a possibility if you take that off and a wave pitches the boat a touch the rudder might jump off the pintles, then best case scenario you’ve got a bent rudder post.
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Apr 26, 2020 15:53
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FrozenVent posted:Unless you have a good diver who doesn’t mind looking for pintles and poo poo in marina silt. I learned very early on in my career as an aircraft mechanic that I would never take a job with any operator with floatplanes or amphibs.  And as a diver, gently caress diving in marinas, there are entirely too many new and exciting ways to get maimed or killed.
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Apr 26, 2020 15:58
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FrozenVent posted:Dude, those cracks are nasty but I highly, highly recommend not removing anything else without securing the rudder or pulling the boat. TheFluff posted:Yeah I'm on land. I go in the water May 8th.
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Apr 26, 2020 16:03
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The rudder isn't hanging on this thing, it's not bearing any load. I've also got the rudder supported from below anyway just in case.
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Apr 26, 2020 16:06
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I’m a deck officer, do you really expect me to read things before I react to them?
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Apr 26, 2020 20:39
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Good luck, Fluff, I'd want to get those cracks addressed before this year's splash, too.
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Apr 27, 2020 00:36
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Crunchy Black posted:Good luck, Fluff, I'd want to get those cracks addressed before this year's splash, too. Thanks! I might need some luck here. Some more cleanup made it clear that it is indeed a spring pin (roll pin?) but it's also completely stuck in there. Spent a long time yesterday with a flat punch and a hammer but to no avail, it's not budging a millimeter. Sprayed a bunch of 5-56 (WD-40 equivalent) on it, will come back tonight and spray some more and we'll see if it'll move on Friday. At least almost everything else is done, just need to test run the engine and touch up a few final bits of antifouling and we should be good to splash.
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Apr 27, 2020 11:15
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Just bought a Lancer 27 with everything ripped out from behind the panel. Let's see if I electrocute myself or if I sink first.
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Apr 27, 2020 16:08
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TheFluff posted:Thanks! I might need some luck here. Some more cleanup made it clear that it is indeed a spring pin (roll pin?) but it's also completely stuck in there. Spent a long time yesterday with a flat punch and a hammer but to no avail, it's not budging a millimeter. Sprayed a bunch of 5-56 (WD-40 equivalent) on it, will come back tonight and spray some more and we'll see if it'll move on Friday. You’re almost certainly going to need heat. Get it good and toasty and broken free and it should come out.
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Apr 27, 2020 16:37
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The nice thing about high vis power tools is you can see them on the bottom for a week or so reminding you to use a lanyard next time. As for the pin this may be obvious but I'd use a c-clamp and the punch to put some load on it, then put a wet rag under the tiller hinge to absorb some heat and hit the top of the shaft with a torch. A steel pin in a stainless shaft is going to be a bastard. Probably worth finding a stainless pin for reassembly if possible.
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Apr 27, 2020 16:51
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MrYenko posted:You’re almost certainly going to need heat. Get it good and toasty and broken free and it should come out. Bibendum posted:The nice thing about high vis power tools is you can see them on the bottom for a week or so reminding you to use a lanyard next time. Good advice, thanks both of you. Don't be concerned about giving me obvious advice, I'm not very knowledgeable about these things and I'm fumbling my way through this furiously googling and asking people as I go. I've been considering heat as a backup resort, but you're right, I should just go for it. I'm concerned though that I'll melt the rudder bushings (teflon, according to the blueprint) and/or the gelcoat and/or the laminate. I was just looking for a new pin and was wondering about whether stainless would be a good idea or not. I don't know what the original pin was made of but the rudder head seems to be made of bronze and the rudder shaft is (according to the original blueprints, which I actually do have) "acid-resistant stainless steel" (A4 or 316 steel? I don't know the formal term for it). I'm absolutely no machinist and I have no idea about which metals should and should not be mixed in an application like this but since the shaft itself is made of stainless it seems like going stainless for the pin too should be safe. Just need to find someone that is willing to sell such pins to a private customers in quantities less than 500 at a time. Should probably go talk to someone at a brick and mortar hardware store that mainly deals with professionals and see if they're willing to play ball. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Apr 27, 2020 |
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Apr 27, 2020 17:14
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Heat, a good punch that's the correct size, and a big dead-blow hammer are your best bets. You'd have to really cook it to get enough heat to damage anything underneath, and you could wrap a wet rag under the head if you're worried. That's certainly the wrong spot for a steel roll pin. If it's not a crazy size, you can buy them in low quantity from McMaster: https://www.mcmaster.com/roll-pins They list them in a bunch of materials, diameters, and lengths.
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Apr 27, 2020 18:32
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