Saturday August 16, 2014

Saturday August 16 Work day on OA. A foggy start to the day. There is “Atlas” (mega yacht) and a number of other boats in the bay all 59’ plus, some of them rafted with friends. You can see dinghies being loaded with puppies for shore duty. They have been here for three sleeps and they leave for new bays and adventures or perhaps shopping at Sullivan Bay around the corner in the next major bay.

We have finished are project for the day and sit down to rest are weary bodies. We start the genset and it falters and dies.  This is not a good thing as we have a small freezer and such and we (run one hour in the Am and PM) and have accumulated much laundry for cloth washer and dryer. To add to the power drain I have had power tools running most the day. Diesels engines need (in our case the GENSET MOTOR) water to cool them, air to breath, and fuel to burn. This sounds all very simple but it’s not. There are a number of safety shutdowns on the engine and these  are inter locking micro switches  that will protect the engine from catastrophic events for engine overheating, low oil pressure, etc. You always start with the most simple cause of engine failure and in this case check the header tank for water (ok) oil level(ok)and fuel not (ok)maybe the fuel pump, but let’s see if I have knocked a fuel valve off with my clumsy foot (ok). Check out the glass see through fuel bowl and it’s not as clear as it should be. Shut of all fuel tanks, turn off the oil stove, spin off the top and extract the filter and discover it is heavy and black. This is good as this may be a simple fix. The bad is how did I not change this filter out sooner as at the wrong time this could have serious consequences. 

Pen knows that to continue boating in comfort and not cutting a trip short she prepares the boat for the nearest parts port McNeil 30 miles away I continue work on the engine assuming that it is a fuel problem.  I have changed out the primary filter and cannot get the little girl to run up to speed and no I have not fixed it and now resort to remove of the proprietary glass fuel filter on the engine. 

Wow What a Great Day!

I check to make sure I have a spare and I do. I installed and still no go and I bleed off the fuel injectors working from simple to more complicated bleeding of fittings and try to restart and the engine. It continues to run a little better and I can see the air bubbles in the glass bowls starting to disappear and all of a sudden she is purring like a kitten. I could have saved from smelling like diesel fuel tank and spent the evening watching last sun in peace, if I had been paying attention to a small maintance detail.

Cant't Ask For Better!

Still time for a Gunk (see earlier blog for an explanation) camera on board for perhaps a good sunset shot. A Long day with lots of physical work that is much more productive than a workout at a fitness centre. I just practiced fluffing up my pillow.