Started the day off feeling like some progress was being made. I finished putting the engine back together and hooking up the water heater. When I started the engine it all worked. No leaks anywhere. But then I noticed a couple drops of water underneath the engine. A closer look revealed that the raw water pump was leaking. This is something I hadn’t even come near during this whole project, yet somehow it chose this moment to start dripping.

Later in the morning the refrigerator guy came to evacuate the system and then fill it back up. Shouldn’t take too long. First thing we discovered was that the new compressors don’t come with a fitting to attach the tools needed to vacuum the system. Apparently in the new engine drive systems they have the fitting somewhere in-line. So we decided to install an in-line valve ourselves. He went home, made the part, and returned later in the afternoon.

As soon as he went to install it he realized that he’d screwed up and used too small fittings. Back home he went to make another. He returned around five o’clock, hooked it up, plugged in the vacuuming stuff, and then discovered that this new fitting was leaking. We sent him home at five-thirty. Seven hours of our day and nothing was accomplished on the refrigerator front.

Anyway, I’m pretty happy to have hot water now any time we run the engine, which is more or less daily out at sea. The only thing I’m not thrilled with is the fact that to make that ninety degree fitting that I needed required using three separate fittings. Too much room for error there.