So everything s going cording to plan until I put the dingy in the water … I have never “launched” the dingy that late (day before the real lunch) .. Tony was even wondering about it - especially since I never ran the dingy engine in the yard. I have one excuse for putting the dingy that late in the water - As of Tonys request, the cover was only removed this morning and Tony didn’t wanted me to cut any holes into it as long as he was still working on the varnish of the wood rails…

But I should have test the engine … Anyway I was very confident the engine would start without any problems ..
I could not find the yard guy to move the dingy and the engine until lunch time … anyway in the water we put it around 1PM .. It started right up as expected … but no raw water seemed to be exiting the back of the engine ???? just hot gases ???

Darn - I get Antoni with his car - back goes the Dingy engine to the boat - has to be the impeller
…Did I install it correctly in spring when we came out ?? ….

Off comes the lower gear and I open up the Impeller housing - dam all looks good - I force water trough then coolant exit on the engine - sure enough water comes straight out of the inlet = no blockage …

What the hell is going on .. back in the water we go - the same thing seems to happen, but this time I take my time to investigate the situation ..

Looks like there is actually water flowing if the engine is idling , but once you rev it up the water flow stops and hot gases (Fumes ?? ) escape trough the raw water exit .. it seems whenever the thermostat opens this happens.

This can not be good … back in the yard ( now it’s around 5PM as the engine guy showed up and finished the service on the diesel engine)

So I figured, it had to be one of the two gaskets sealing the engine against the motor housing or worse a leaking head gasket (better not as I don’t carry a spare gasket)

It took me until 7Pm at night (mostly in the dark with flash light) to remove the engine body and replace the two gaskets sealing the engine against the engine cover..

We will see if I fixed it … Once the engine was removed it seemed obvious what’s happening - once the thermostat opens the water get’s routed trough the cylinder head and exits directly into the lower gearbox together with the exhaust fumes - at this point no water should exit the raw water exit anymore .. I think a leaking gasket allowed at that point for some fumes to pass into the raw water channels and exit trough the raw water exit …

The good thing is, that the engine was never in real danger of overheating or getting damaged …

Because of all this I forgot to make sure the sail maker dropped the sails .. I definitely need to do this ASAP tomorrow morning or I’m in trouble ….

Other then that she starts to look like a boat again …