Still stuck at the dock!
26 March 2011 | La Cruz Marina
Sunny and hot
We started in early this morning on Zephyrs engine. I disconnected fittings and blew air through them and ripped out fuel lines until I had changed out every fuel line on Zephyr(except the copper lines). Cut new ones and installed with hose clamps. Then a quick lunch and on to the water lines we had found so badly rotted out. These lines are so tough that they have to be cut with a hack saw becouse there is wire running inside the rubber lining. With them cut, on they went and hose clamped on.
Next--time to bleed the air out of the lines and there was lots of it since I'd blown through all the lines making sure there were no obstructions. That alone took quite some time. Once done, with Tracy on deck, i turned the key and after a few seconds she fired up. She ran and ran and ran. I checked the engine for leaks and found that one of the fuel filters was leaking so we pushed the off button and nothing happened. The engine wouldn't stop. So I grabbed the switch and turned it off manually. Heaven only knows what is wrong with it. It's an electric switch and the wires looked fine so who knows. Any way, off with the leaking filter and on with a new one. Bleed the system and turn the key. Again she starts right up and runs great--for about 6 minutes when she suddenly looses power and shuts herself off. It's like deja vu all over again.
It was time to throw in the towel and call in a "professional". I wandered up to the offices and sit here using their wifi as it's the fastest around. I'm lucky that the office lets me use their net or I would be back to really slow speeds. I called Butch(he fixed our water pump several months ago) and he will be at Zephyr tomorrow(yes--on Sunday) to see what the problem is. That's the way it works down here. These folks will come out any day(even Christmas) to make some money and get the work.
So tomorrow, we should be up and running. Then comes several days of testing the engine, early in the AM when the winds are less and if we break down, we can tow Zephyr back to the dock like we did yesterday.
So here we sit. We've done everything we can think of and still success eludes us. Tomorrow is another day. Maybe Tacos on the Street for dinner. I guess we will see.