Passion for Cruising

Last night we had a huge Rally Dinner on the lawn with Gamelan music and dancing by the State Troupe, very nice. (the night before we had a fabulous meal at the resort stuffing ourselves with huge oysters, prawns, green lip mussels, smoked salmon etc and finishing off with the best Tiramasu that Stuart has ever tasted!!! - all for the princely sum of about $16 per head)
Today poor Stuart had to miss the Bus Tour while he STILL waited for the mechanic. He did turn up but 5 hours later than the promised time, but they have at last found THE PROBLEM. When the engine was rebuilt after the Andaman Catastrophe, the mechanic must have left the 3 bolts retaining the idler gear on its shaft un-torqued (i.e. loose). These bolts had vibrated completely out allowing the idler gear to slide forward until it ran against the oil pump housing. Fortunately this caused only superficial damage to the pump housing inside the gearcase, but it allowed the oil to flow freely past the bush inside the gear back to the crankcase. However Stuart had a traumatic few hours between the time it was discovered that the oil pressure valve was OK until he found the loose bolts and this was then determined to be the cause of the low oil pressure. The mechanic of course does not work on Fridays but will return on Saturday to rebuild the engine using blue loctite on the offending bolts and then we will complete the reassembly and check the oil pressure is once again OK - fingers crossed.