I removed the old teak portions under the cleats, then prepped the bow for installing
the new alu rails .
I also cleaned up the cleats .. They might just do it for now, but I probably should bring them home in December to rework them in our shop ..

I reinstalled the main winch base (rotated 180 deg) ..

Then I drained the engine coolant ... darn it came out brownish .. usually that means some sort of trouble.. I saved some of it and will show it to the mechanic tomorrow .
I also have him check the coolant mixture, as it's is still possible that his guys didn't use the correct ratio last year and therefore the rost inhibitory effect of the coolant didn't "click in"

I now think I will remove the end caps on the heat exchanger tomorrow evening .. just to be sure - I was planning on doing so this this year anyway, but once I saw what's involved in doing so, kind of decided against it last week... :-)
If everything goes well with installing of the new rails tomorrow , I' ll definitely take the end caps off ...
I think I have enough time