After yesterday’s disheartening engine results, I implored Bruno LeBrun to call Manfred Prinz in England. Manfred is the purveyor of all things Nanni Diesel and the world’s leading authority on this engine. He speaks English, French, and German, so his understanding of the technical vocabulary in French is far superior to mine, a deficit that has hampered me all along. I suspect that Manfred was a Mercedes mechanic and fell in love with the engine and has made it his life’s work In any case, Bruno did contact Manfred and in a half-hour conversation, Manfred dissuaded Bruno from pursuing the pinion gear problem, and substituted for it a possible lift pump failure. The lift pump is a small mechanical pump that brings fuel from the primary filter and tanks and pushes it at 1.5 atmospheres (about 21 PSI) to the secondary fuel filter and then to the injector pump. The injector pump then increases that pressure and sends it to the injectors.

The key here is that along with the increased pressure of the lift pump is the volume of fuel delivered to the injector pump. Daniel arrived this morning and reassembled all of the part. Using a 5 gallon tank of diesel that he brought, we pulled fuel with a small portable fuel pump and fed it to the input of the lift pump. With a minimum of effort and the electric pump chugging away, the engine started. It was a sound that we thought never to hear again, and it was most welcomed.

So, the lowest of the low hanging fruit was at fault all this time. Should the mechanics have ruled this out weeks ago? Yes, we think so. It’s the first important fuel part in the fuel delivery sequence and should have been tested. Obviously, it hadn’t been.

Daniel departed for lunch, as relieved as we were.

I could scrape together some system to get us to Raiatea, but Conni has convinced me that I need to stay here, order a new lift pump, and see that it’s installed properly. We need to know that we have a reliable engine when I pull out of here. When this problem is in a box, finished, then I can leave for Raiatea and get the boat put to bed. As much as I dislike that, she’s right.

So, the problem wasn’t timing, broken pinion gears, broken injector pump (although there was an obstruction we were told), or any of the rest, but the simplest of the mechanical devices, the lift pump.

Dumb move 1: I ordered a used injector pump from Manfred Prinz and it’s hear in Papeete, awaiting pickup today. Manfred asked if I wanted a lift pump with the used injector. No, there was no reason to think that the lift pump had failed and I didn’t order it. What?! “Penny wise and pound foolish”, is the phrase that fits here. It’ll bite us in the behind since it’ll cost me a longer wait and more work at decommissioning the boat because I didn’t buy it.

Earlier today, we bought some Wifi time from the company whose service seems to be present in the marina, and we bought a local phone and some air time. We bought these two items for the long haul that we expected, so I’ll have access to Wifi during my Papeete Captivity.