I'm always thankful for the help and company of a good friend when starting off a project day. Two heads are always better than one and it helps me to stay focused.
My buddy Nat found himself with the day free and spent it helping and watching me get a few things done.
First we knew we had a raw water flow issue as that's what failed the survey/sea trial. So we started with that and agreed getting the defunct non operational water heater out of the way would be a good start. First we disconnected the wires at the circuit breaker panel, then cut the coolant hoses and drained the engine coolant.
Then with good read engine access we removed the raw water lines from the rusted exhaust elbow and found it bone dry and mostly rusted up. A quick screwdriver cleaning of that and we moved on to taking the raw water hoses off the heat exchanger.
We ran the engine for a bit to check flow, and still had very little with occasional spurts. So it wasn't entirely the heat exchanger stopping us so I moved onto the water pump which has a brand new impeller installed 2 weeks ago and that checked out fine. So I pulled the intake hose from the pump and blew. I found it to be a bit difficult but could get bubbles through. We tried putting it into a bucket but no water would come through. Even after sucking to prime it as a syphon.
We check the strainer and it was clean, so the only thing left was the thru hull. The only prot was the thru hulls are crusty and due to be replaced at my haul out in a few weeks but I need the engine to run to the haul out. Two of the three thru hulls under the galley sink are stuck in the open position and one of them is seeping slightly!
So my solution was to go for a swim with a screwdriver and clean it out enough to get some water flow. Of course I had my board shorts in the car for surfing but no mask and finding the flush mounted thru hulls was a bit of a hassle. After switching off AC power around my dock I dipped my toes in and all was well. I dove under and couldn't feel them. I hung from the toe rail and used my toes and eventually found them. A few free dives under and I hand it a good as I could get it.
I climbed back aboard via the swim ladder and fired up the engine again. This time our raw water hose pointed into the sink was gushing water at any speed. We hooked it back up and got a much improved flow out the stern of the boat.
Still not entirely satisfied and knowing maintenance had slipped for at least the last five years I opted to pull the heat exchanger as we'd had most of the hoses loose already and it was an easy 5 min job. Once in hand and opened up in the cockpit sole I was glad I did. It was mostly block on the raw water side. I brought it home to acid dip it and grabbed some new zinc pencils for it too.
I went to west marine and grabbed a new bilge pump, zincs, dock lines, and wood plugs. Back at the boat now last sunset I poked with a long skinny awl at the base of the mast, which was always just a little damp. Knowing there should be a water drain hole somewhere I eventually found it, and was rewarded with a blast to the face. It shot a stream easily 4ft across the cabin and took over 10 minutes to fully drain. Surprisingly the base of the mast has very little corrosion on the outside and shows no signs of buckling.
Anyways after a 5 year hiatus from boating it felt great to be back aboard and under my own vessel again fixing problems and figuring out new systems, and where some of these stray wires went. https://youtube.com/shorts/Yd8JEvsPdy8?feature=share
My buddy Nat found himself with the day free and spent it helping and watching me get a few things done.
First we knew we had a raw water flow issue as that's what failed the survey/sea trial. So we started with that and agreed getting the defunct non operational water heater out of the way would be a good start. First we disconnected the wires at the circuit breaker panel, then cut the coolant hoses and drained the engine coolant.
Then with good read engine access we removed the raw water lines from the rusted exhaust elbow and found it bone dry and mostly rusted up. A quick screwdriver cleaning of that and we moved on to taking the raw water hoses off the heat exchanger.
We ran the engine for a bit to check flow, and still had very little with occasional spurts. So it wasn't entirely the heat exchanger stopping us so I moved onto the water pump which has a brand new impeller installed 2 weeks ago and that checked out fine. So I pulled the intake hose from the pump and blew. I found it to be a bit difficult but could get bubbles through. We tried putting it into a bucket but no water would come through. Even after sucking to prime it as a syphon.
We check the strainer and it was clean, so the only thing left was the thru hull. The only prot was the thru hulls are crusty and due to be replaced at my haul out in a few weeks but I need the engine to run to the haul out. Two of the three thru hulls under the galley sink are stuck in the open position and one of them is seeping slightly!
So my solution was to go for a swim with a screwdriver and clean it out enough to get some water flow. Of course I had my board shorts in the car for surfing but no mask and finding the flush mounted thru hulls was a bit of a hassle. After switching off AC power around my dock I dipped my toes in and all was well. I dove under and couldn't feel them. I hung from the toe rail and used my toes and eventually found them. A few free dives under and I hand it a good as I could get it.
I climbed back aboard via the swim ladder and fired up the engine again. This time our raw water hose pointed into the sink was gushing water at any speed. We hooked it back up and got a much improved flow out the stern of the boat.
Still not entirely satisfied and knowing maintenance had slipped for at least the last five years I opted to pull the heat exchanger as we'd had most of the hoses loose already and it was an easy 5 min job. Once in hand and opened up in the cockpit sole I was glad I did. It was mostly block on the raw water side. I brought it home to acid dip it and grabbed some new zinc pencils for it too.
I went to west marine and grabbed a new bilge pump, zincs, dock lines, and wood plugs. Back at the boat now last sunset I poked with a long skinny awl at the base of the mast, which was always just a little damp. Knowing there should be a water drain hole somewhere I eventually found it, and was rewarded with a blast to the face. It shot a stream easily 4ft across the cabin and took over 10 minutes to fully drain. Surprisingly the base of the mast has very little corrosion on the outside and shows no signs of buckling.
Anyways after a 5 year hiatus from boating it felt great to be back aboard and under my own vessel again fixing problems and figuring out new systems, and where some of these stray wires went. https://youtube.com/shorts/Yd8JEvsPdy8?feature=share
