14th April 2014 - Back From The Last Work Trip Of The Winter

Living in the UK at anchor with a dog and a toddler - what can possibly go wrong?!
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Jeff
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14th April 2014 - Back From The Last Work Trip Of The Winter

Post by Jeff »

I'm back after 4 days and 4 nights on Towser. Much accomplished. Very very tired!

Had hoped to arrive on Thursday, re-connect the fuel return line, and fire up the engine prior to putting the engine bay back together so I could then crack on the the large list of other jobs I had.

I connected the fuel return line, and the engine wouldn't turn over let alone start. It moved a little, stopped, and hissed at me. I suggested the previous diesel leak (see previous thread) had possibly caused a cylinder to become filled with diesel and hence stop the engine from being able to turn over. Engineer concurred - the only possible cause. Solution: remove (again) all the injectors and pump out the content of the cylinder(s).

36 hours later the engineer who I was waiting for to come and help perform the above admitted he was still tied up with another job and couldn't come until much later - so I set to and removed all of the injectors myself. Quite a task also involving the removal of the entire fuel return system = 6 banjo joints.

1 hour later I found 1" of oil in the bottom of each of the cylinders - not diesel. The daft engineer had replaced the oil and diesel I'd pumped out by pouring in new oil directly into the filler cap - without taking into account that the injectors had been removed at that time. Arg!

Not a happy camper I went and politely told the engineer what he'd done. He looked a little sheepish and gave me 15 litres of oil free of charge, and leant me some tools.

Towser now started up but still was running rough at idle.

I tweaked the timing of the injector pump back and forth to see if the timing was out by a fraction. There's a little play in the fixings of the pump to allow this to be done. But in fact the sweetest spot seemed to be where we'd put it in the first place.

It then dawned on me that since we got the pump back I'd not touched the idle adjustment screw and had left it set as it was back from the refurb. This was just under 500rpm. At 600rpm the engine ran smoother than a smooth thing. So I turned up the idle adjuster so it now idles at 600, perfectly, no hunting, no asynchronous vibration.

Phoned Lancing Marine just now and they said "oh that engine should never really be run under 600rpm".

Super - we're back in action!!! But it does likely mean that we didn't need to have bothered having the injectors done in the first place!

I'm stoical about it. The engine seems good now so I'm happy. And we have new injector tips which can't be a bad thing.

I'm also much more of a diesel engine expert than before now.

I then finished off all of the interior joinery jobs which I started 2.5 years ago so as we stand Towser has no leaks, no missing joinery and no engine problems.

Also installed the new sunroof cover from Caroline of Hotwells Canvas (http://www.hotwellscanvas.co.uk).

Also installed 50m of Grade 40 8mm anchor chain, spliced to 20m of 14mm nylon.

Also antifouled.

And installed the jib.

And installed the new curtains.

Towser is looking lovely!

Some pictures:

The New Sunroof Cover
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New ceiling panel with new vinyl and new hardwood trim on near edge
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Engine work in progress. Check out the new curtains!
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Slave labour (my old friend James) 'helps' me antifoul
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All done
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Looking nice
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Galley/saloon ceiling looking aft. Finally finished!
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Galley/saloon ceiling looking fwd. Finally finished!
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