Kaimusailing

The America’s Cup racing began with a four race trouncing of Oracle by Emirates Team New Zealand. The Kiwi’s lead at every mark and were able to sail less than perfectly and still win 4-zip. The speed differential between the boats was more marked than the Kiwi’s advantage over the Swede’s. The snide remarks on the Sailing Anarchy forum included observations that the Swede’s would have also walked over Oracle, and even one that said the Japanese could have beaten them. It looks like Spithill and Barker, the helmsmen who battled in America’s Cup 34 will be the losers this time. Barker is already out. Spithill looks like a dead man walking.
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I think I have all the carburettor parts on hand to get the electric choke operational again, but I need the shop manual to help me put it together correctly. It is a very complicated mechanism.
The manual will come in on CD, but if I could have downloaded it, I would have had it a week and a half ago.
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The solar charge monitor replacement arrived from Seattle and it seemed like I ordered it just yesterday. I was easily installed with only a screwdriver and said “5.6 A” into the new batteries at 12.8 volts, this before noon after an overcast day running the fridge, fans, and lights. The dead monitor it replaced did not show any obvious toasted components inside.
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I continued with work on the engine, getting my advice from the internet, including you tube videos. One video showed a part that I had never guessed its use, it was a stainless rod with threaded ends that twisted away at 90 degrees and opposite from each other. It turned out that this is called a “turning guide”. On the outboard in the you tube video, which wasn’t even a Yamaha, the stainless rod was attached to the front of the engine and the other end to a fitting on the end of the horizontal pivot of the engine. Thus, when the engine tilts forward and up, the stainless rod is pivoting along with the engine, keeping the engine pointed straight ahead. I did not have the Yamaha attachment to the horizontal pivot, so I made a DIY turning guide out of a very long 1/2“ bolt and a piece of scrap aluminum pipe. The bolt passes through the horizontal pivot where it attaches to the aluminum scrap. The aluminum pipe was flattened at one end, radiused and drilled for the bolt, then flattened about 2 3/4 inches from the bolt hole and bent there at about 90 degrees. The remainder of the pipe was cut off just past the attachment point on the front of the engine and flattened to mate flush with the attachment point and drilled for a bolt to attach it. When it was put together the engine stayed pointed in a straight line. The previous arrangement used dynema loops to eye bolts on either side of the engine and on the attachment point. When the engine was down the loops were tight and maintained the straight ahead position. When the engine was tilted up, it would flop over to one side because the loops were now loose.
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To get a compression check I tried to turn over the engine with the spark plugs removed. It did not turn over. Troubleshooting the starter and starter solenoid with a clip lead and multimeter showed voltage at the +12 terminal on the solenoid, but no solenoid action when the key was turned. Either the solenoid was bad or its wiring. The testing with a clip lead to jumper 12 volts to the positive actuating terminal on the solenoid did nothing. I did some testing with the meter and found the positive actuating lead was open. Also the clip lead was open! I carefully removed the bad alligator clip from the clip lead, cleaned it, and recrimped it. The actuating lead did not fare so well and I had to go out to the auto parts store for wire and crimp terminals. A new lead was made up and everything reassembled. The solenoid now clicked when +12 was jumpered to the actuating lead.
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The key still didn’t actuate the starter. The remote control was disassembled again and the meter said there was no continuity through the neutral microswitch. This switch prevents starting the engine unless it is in neutral. Further disassembly revealed the microswitch was cracked and there was a missing part. The shift lever could not trip the microswitch without the missing little black button that must have fallen out when the switch cracked when I had the remote apart to replace the tilt switch. I looked around and found the part, replaced it in the switch, then taped the switch back together with scotch tape, reassembled the remote, and was able to turn the engine over.
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The compression readings were low, about 120 psi per cylinder, but the engine had been sitting for a year and a half, so the cylinders were dry. I expect to get higher compression when oil is circulating in the engine.
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A quick look back at last year’s blog entries around this time of year and one posting has temperatures over 100 degrees and heat index into the 100 teens. I had left Georgia at the end of June to go up to the Chesapeake where it was cooler. My plan this year is to stick around a bit more. It has been hot, but not as hot as last year. July will probably make up for it.
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At the end of the week, the service manual still hadn’t come in, only coming from Mississippi and now a couple days late, but approaching 2 weeks from when I ordered it, way too long. I need it to find out how to attach the choke solenoid to the choke linkage. I can always make up something that will work.
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The second weekend of the America’s Cup had a bad race by Spithill, incurring two penalties and losing. The second race of the weekend was very close and Spithill got his first victory from the Kiwi’s. The next day was two losses by Spithill. The first race, which was bad, was better than the second. In the first race he mistimed the start and backed off to make sure he didn’t go over early, while the Kiwi’s hit the line perfectly and just kept going, continuing to build their lead all around the course. The second race, the last of the weekend, began with a botched start by Spithill. It looked as though he was baiting the Kiwi’s to come and hook him, which they did. At the moment that he should have been doing his counter move, Oracle was almost dead in the water. As far as the race went, it was dead in the water. He also incurred a boundary penalty, but he was so far behind it didn’t matter. This leaves the Kiwi’s one win away from the cup, and unlike last time, when Spithill and Oracle came back to win 8 straight, it doesn’t look very likely. He has won only one start and has been humiliated by young Peter Burling and the Kiwi’s.
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Work was possible in the heat, but not up on deck, down in the shade. I spent some time looking at the carburettor assembly and the choke solenoid. I had found pictures of an engine like mine on a site called, I believe, Yamaha Outboards. net. I also found I had a user name there and my generic password got me logged in so I could look at the posted pictures. It was the same linkage as mine, but the choke linkage was obviously monkeyed with, and the Norwegian commentary indicated the engine was very badly misadjusted. The poster had accurately described his choke’s operation, which should have been normal, but he could only get the engine to idle by forcing the chokes closed. Unfortunately the photo that showed the choke linkage in detail showed a really cobbed up work around to keep the choke closed all the time. Not good.
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I looked for images of Yamaha choke solenoids online and saw that I indeed had one, but how did it connect to the linkage? The joke in the boatyard is that when I say that my engine manual hasn’t shown up yet, they say, well, you haven’t finished the engine yet.
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What is peculiar about this choke solenoid and linkage is that the solenoid is pointing at the carburetor plate, not at the linkage. The linkage is hiding off to the side, along with the throttle linkage. From my experience with solenoids in many other applications, it is good practice to not have the solenoid actuating off center. If off center, the iron core starts to wear on the armature body, and soon the solenoid sticks and is no good. However, this is how Yamaha has apparently engineered this linkage. There are several different images online that show perhaps an evolution to cure a sticky solenoid problem. The solenoid has a bracket on it that aligns the plunger and linkage in a straight line, but the linkage bends off to the side afterwards, so it will rub on the bracket. Very poor.
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Another problem with the whole set up is that the Japanese want to solve all your problems for you, just turn the key and everything will be taken care of. This is more easily accomplished with fuel injection, also cheaper, simpler, and more fuel efficient. Most gasoline engines run at less than full throttle, so the throttle plate is always restricting the air flow through the carburettors and engine. Fuel injection does not require restriction to introduce fuel into the air flow, so it saves a bit of power at lower speeds. To get a carburetted engine to do everything without thought or additional settings by the operator, the carburettors have to accommodate an engine that’s cold or hot, running under various loads, and sometimes responding to sudden demands by the operator. If you need to start a cold engine, then you need to choke the carburettors, if the engine’s hot it probably will flood if the choke is activated. A sudden jab at the accelerator will also cause the engine to stall unless a device such as an accelerator pump can add the needed fuel to the suddenly increased air volume, conversely, if the engine is suddenly shut down from high speed, the intake vacuum will increase and draw liquid fuel right from the carburettor jets, so another device is used, a pneumatic diaphragm that cushions the throttle from closing too quickly. It’s no wonder that the carburettor linkage for 4 carburettors with automatic function is so complicated. In the old days Farmer Brown used the manual choke knob to start his tractor and then didn’t use it the rest of the day as he plowed his fields. He was cautious not to tromp on the gas pedal or shut down the throttle too quickly. The same with the family cars of long ago.
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The convenience of an automatic choke was usually accomplished with bimetal thermal spring that would open the choke as the engine warmed up and of course closed it again when the engine cooled off. A lot of the complexity of modern engines is due to emissions requirements that required automatic control that is more accurate. This is easily accomplished with fuel injection and the sensors that monitor exhaust gases, air flow, and throttle settings.
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If I can’t get the electric choke to work, even if I wire it to a pushbutton, I will install another manual choke. I’ll Farmer Brown the Japanese engine. The image is from saatchiart.com called “The Farmer and the Elements” by Cobus Bosman of the Netherlands. It is up for sale with several other nice works by him.