We're there!
14 April 2013 | Kolonia, Pohnpei, FSM
Sunny
We're in the "fine tune" stage of the rebuild. Let's go back a couple of days.
The last two(we sure hope)parts came in on Wednesday via Fed Ex. We'd followed the parts across the world till Guam where we lost them as there is no scanning equipment(including at the USPS). I was at the airport 45 minutes after the plane landed.
I put in the heat exchanger on Thursday and Tracy went in and took off the raw water pump that the new one was replacing. Jun, our mechanic was doing other projects, both here and for Kumer(his boss).
On Friday, we made the decision that the DuoGen(wind power machine) had lost it's bearings and needed to be rebuilt. Tracy and I took it off and started taking it apart. Unfortunately, we lacked the skills of going further than taking off the bottom of the generator housing. We knew we needed a bearing puller and that we did not have. Jun took a look at it and said he could do it no problem.
For those of you that have been following us for a while, you know about our poor Honda EB3000C generator and the problems we have had recently. Well since we bought a new Yamaha EF2400iS, we haven't really needed the Honda. So, instead of having it repaired, we gave it to Jun knowing that he can fix it, use it or sell it for all we care. We'd discussed it with him before and I'm not he believed us when we said he could have it to keep. He though we wanted it fixed. On Friday, as he was leaving, we handed it over to him with all the spare parts we had stored for it(new face plate and two outlets, as well as a new exhaust system. We can't think of a better person for it to go to. I'm sure he will take good care of it.
About two hours after leaving here on Firday, back he comes, the Duogen fully rebuilt!!! He'd pulled the bearings and installed the new ones and brought it right back. We spent Saturday morning reinstalling it on the stern. She's now spinning right along making lots of nice volts for our batteries.
Later in the morning, Jun showed up with the last pieces we needed to complete the installation of the gate valve in the exhaust system. We had a great gate valve and while I'd asked for 3 inch nipples to screw onto them so they would slide into the 3 inch hoses that make us the exhaust system, they had sold me 3.5 inch nipples. Jun took the 3.5 inch nipples to a machine shop and had the insides of them threaded($25.00 each-5 times what I paid for the nipples) to fit another piece of pipe that is 3 inches in diameter. We spent the rest of Saturday installing that big piece of equipment. By 1630, we were finally ready to start the engine. We'd even filled the coolant tank. We turned the key and while it took a short time and some extra diesel, she started up!!! Suddenly, Tracy is rushing in from the cockpit---We have smoke in the cockpit!!!! I immediately shut down the engine. We were surprised as there was no smoke in the engine room. Some water had come out the stern but there was no sound of water in the new anti syphon I'd installed that runs into one of the cockpit drains so you can tell that there is water going through the engine. We decided to just shut the engine room doors and call it a day. Jun(our mechanic) would be here on Monday and he could figure it out.
Sunday was clean the boat day. Over the three months that we have been here, the inside of Zephyr has been a disaster area. It was a long day but in the end, Zephyr is far more presentable and we have enough things that we found to fill another box to send home. We made so new space to fill with other things.
Today, Monday, Jun showed up(15 minutes early) and headed in. I'd thought about what had happened and since we had installed a newly designed water pump assembly, maybe we hooked the hoses up to the wrong connections? As it turns out, I was correct(even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then). Instead of bringing in water, we were pushing it out when we wanted it to come in. With some new hose, the problem was fixed.
While we are still putting our some smoke, Jun is spending the day fine tuning the engine, looking for places that might be wrong and correcting them. We found that the nipples(more like a 3 inch chunk of pipe with threads on one end) still leaked past the two hose clamps I'd used. Jun got some sealant and smeared it around the nipples and back in they went. the two hose clamps were tightened and no more leaks.
It's now 1520 and Jun had completed the fine tuning and the engine is running smoothly with very little smoke out the exhaust in the back. Just a bit of diesel but the engine will take a while to break in and get all the parts and bits and pieces to seat where they are supposed to. THE JOB IS DONE!!!
We expect to be heading out to Ant Atoll on Wednesday for one of the stages of the break in. It's 25 miles one way. We figure to motor sail to it and motor back putting some strain on the engine and it's transmission. Another trip there a few days later and we should be all ready to go.
We have friends that are in transit here and while we don't want to miss them we can only wait so long. They(Terry and Christine on Teka Nova) are on their way from Fiji and we want to see them again. So we will probably be here for a day after they get here. We will see.
We have an engine again!!!