Winterizing the diesel on land

[Loren Beach]

Since Sean has designated this forum for 'mindless chatter"... This might qualify.

Afternoon before last we hauled the boat for a bottom job and some drive train maint.
Freezing weather has been here for the last several days and the yard (quite properly) wanted to know how I wanted to protect the engine on the raw water / heat exchanger portion.

They like the idea of running some pink anti freeze thru the whole system, but we needed to use the diesel to get into the slings for lift out.
So, with the blessing of the Travelift operator, I got aboard while it was in the wash down area and put the hose end into the jug of antifreeze. Rotated the thruhull valve to the flush postion and screwed in the other end of the hose to it....
and sat down in the cockpit, 10 feet off the pavement and started 'er up. After a few seconds at idle, the exhaust discharge burped out some pink and I shut 'er down. After that I opened and closed all the thruhulls once to let out water that might be trapped inside each ball valve.
It felt quite odd start the engine while up while so far off the ground!

Since we had already pumped the fresh water system dry, this should hopefully keep the boat safe for the couple weeks or so that it will be out while the yard uses little breaks in the weather to do their outside portion of the work. Not the ideal weather time of year, but prices are lower and the workers are less rushed in the "off season", and the boat is not going anywhere until spring, in any case.

Inside work will include new motor mounts and new bellows on the PSS shaft seal (11 years on the first one).

And that's the news from Portland, OR


Loren

 

[Frank Langer]

Loren, it sounds like your process was fairly thorough and should work. I'm curious about how you decided your PSS bellows needed replacing after 11 years (mine is about 5 years old, so am wondering what to watch for).
Thanks,
Frank.

 

[Loren Beach]

Liability and Bellows

I have spoken to the PYI reps occasionally for the last several seasons and asked them about the life of this bellows. They used to say, in general, "10 to 12" years, and now they say that 8 years is better. I asked if this reflects any problems with the bellows or just advice from their lawyer to limit their liability -- Hemming and Hawing, and no one will say so in plain language, but I quickly got the hint that it was the lawyers speaking...

The last time I had this conversation, I was told that at around a decade, just plan on doing this at the next scheduled haulout. So that's what we are doing.

FWIW, the present bellows seems to have ample "spring force" and looks like new to me.

What the heck, it is time to check the cutlass bearing anyway... and the shaft has to be disconnected to lift the engine and change out the mounts. Etc, and so it goes...

As the old timers in England used to say: "In for a penny, in for a pound!"

Cheers,
Loren

 

[Frank Langer]

Thanks, Loren, that makes sense. With the number of projects and maintenance tasks on any older boat, it is always a challenge to identify what really needs doing to avoid significant problems, and still leave time and money for the extras to upgrade and personalize the boat.
Frank.