Okay, so first off, I did get the steering wheel off. The mechanic had a gear puller in his truck and after about one minute with that I had the wheel. What I hadn’t thought of yesterday when I asked about this, was that the shaft was tapered. Makes perfect sense, but it never crossed my mind, which is why I could not for the life of me figure out how that thing was staying on. Anyway, armed with that bit of information it was a pretty straightforward job.
Remember this? Pisco, Peru circa 2009. Used the same thing today only with a lot less jerry-rigging.
Or there was that time in Oklahoma.
Omar the mechanic showed up with his helper today and got straight to work. Let’s just say that putting an engine back together is not nearly as quick and easy a job as pulling an engine apart. The transmission was easy enough, and we also removed the shaft coupler, sanded the shaft a bit, and reinstalled the coupler. I didn’t have it pushed on as far as I should have which may very well be the reason everything has been out of wonk the past few months—the engine mounts breaking and the transmission falling apart.
Unfortunately during this job we found that a plate on the engine—the plate that holds the engine mount—was broken. Cracked right straight through. Meaning that we can’t finish the job of aligning the engine and shaft until we get a new one made. Small setback.
While the engine work was going on I kept busy by pulling apart the steering “box” (my mind is completely blank right now as I try to come up with the correct word for this thing). This required way more work than it should have, and also created a wonderful mess. Once I finally got it torn apart I expected to find a nice solid spring type oil seal. Instead all I found was a super tiny o-ring that gets pressed between two bits of metal on the steering shaft to keep oil from leaking all over the place. If I had known that was all I was going to find I would have tried just cracking down full power on the outside bolts (bolts that I had just accessed by pulling out the “box”). But since I’ve come this far with this thing I’ll go buy a new thirty cent o-ring tomorrow and see if I can’t stop the leaking the right way.
I also yanked out an old thru-hull transducer and installed the transducer for the Tack Tick instruments instead. It’s only been like three years. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but for the past couple of years I’ve been using the transducer (for depth, not speed) inside the boat. What I did was take a Taco Bell cup, silicon it to the hull, fill it with water, and drop the transducer right in there. Amazingly it could read the depth of the water right through the hull of the boat.
Of course the new thru-hull was like an eighth of an inch bigger than the old, requiring me to hand sand the hole until it fit. Why hand sand? Because I don’t like to buy tools, I like to do everything the hard way.
That’s not true. I do like to buy tools. I’m just very good at talking myself out of buying them. Ali is very persuasive as well.
I then installed my new tachometer. What? It’s only been three years that we haven’t known the engine’s RPMs.
What else? What else? We pulled off the oil cooler today and found that it had four impeller tines inside as well as some other miscellaneous junk. We pulled off the heat exchanger and found that full of goop too. For good measure we pulled off the tranny cooler too. Omar took them all with him to have a shop clean and test them.
I’m telling you, if we ever get this boat back together and get all the crap on it working, we’re going to have a real deal cruising boat again.
29 Comments on “Putting Bumfuzzle Back Together Again”
Pat you are my hero. No seriously. I love the way you fearlessly open new cans of worms, or in this instance new casings you can’t remember the correct name for. I can also completely relate to installing a minor piece of equipment like a transducer three years after purchase. There is a part of my brain that says “I don’t need no stinking depth gauge, I could just get a lead line instead…”
Casing!!!! I knew it had a name. I’ll never remember that one.
Perhaps I will start wearing a superhero cape. It shall be made of blue shop towels and have a letter B written on it in oil. I will “save” things by jerry-rigging them—ensuring them at least another 3 days of life.
man, I hope the guy who complained about there being too much kid content, and not enough boat content on your page reads this.. he will be satiated for months! glad you are gettin it done.. I want that boat in tip top shape for when I finally get down there and see yall….
*grin*
Booth Teeters
Tip top shape does not include another bedroom. So just forget it. And hey, what the hell am I supposed to call you now? I have so many friends who just seem to switch names willy-nilly. 🙂
Pat
just leave it up to the kids. They are the ones who will tell you what I am called. If I am truly lucky, Ouest will refer to me as ” Bearded silly man me love ” …. hahahha…. You can call me Booth, or Will… I anticipate in Mexico, I will be going by Will again, since that was where it originally took root… I found the Mexicans struggled with the ‘ th ‘ of Booth, and so finally… I went with my middle name, which then jokingly became Memo, as I am known to many of my Columbian and Mexican friends ( Guillermo – William, Memo – Will or Bill .. )
I have no idea who you could be speaking about???
I know, right?
Pat, I know you’ve said you dislike writing them, and nothing against lovely Ouest and Lowe, but I really enjoy and look forward to your working-on-the-boat posts. Michael
Well that makes one of us. 🙂 From the looks of the boat right at this moment there will be plenty more of these working-on-the-boat posts.
Happy to hear you guys are still floating.
New book Coming Soon: The 4-Hour Mechanic By Pat Schulte.
The best part of my day today? When the real mechanic asked me if I had any bailing wire.
Do I have any bailing wire? Pffft. Does a bear shit in the woods?
Chapter 1 – Bailing Wire and it’s applications
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 – Bailing Wire
Epilogue
HAHAHAHA – omg brilliant!
Broken engine mount plate? Think of it as an opportunity to replace the rear engine mounts that you couldn’t get at last time 🙂
You guys aren’t using the catamaran any longer?
We’re only using half of it now.
WOW, Pat! Everything you do, boats, cars, you sure you don’t have a mechanical engineering degree and are a certified mechanic, along with your financial certifications?
I was always amazed as I read your blog posts earlier this year, and now reading what you’ve done the past few days….just amazing!
I hope the upcoming sails are free of troubles, and with good wind!
What will you do about Ouest schooling when you get back on the boat? Or are you planning on only sailing in the summer months?
Ouest is still only 3. Her schooling is still not at the top of our priorities list. We enrolled her in Pre-school for language immersion and the social interaction. When it’s time to go sailing again she’ll become a pre-school dropout and be immersed once again in the school of life. 🙂
You don’t need any more tools Pat. When I was in the Navy we had all we needed… a crescent-hammer and a screw-chisel.
My dad is not the handiest guy in the world. I spent my entire childhood using a crescent-wrench, and thus stripping every bolt on every bike I ever owned. As for the screw-chisel, well, I’ve still not outgrown that one. I’ve never owned a chisel.
Hi Pat
I encountered the same problems with engine mounts, mounting brackets, and coupling self destruction that you are having. After a lot of work and expensive parts the problems would just return to create havoc again and again till a dockmate told me how to deal with it. Be sure the cutlass bearing is within tolerance, otherwise the shaft wobbles all over the place. Next, align the coupling as perfectly as you can. Then install a Shaft Saver between the two halves of the coupling. I had never heard of the device before but found out later they are fairly common, they are plastic or polymer discs that are strong enough to transmit torque to the prop and reduce vibration while accepting a slight misalignment and it eliminates electric connection to the prop and shaft. I did it 14 years ago and those problems disappeared and it doubled the life of my shaft zincs.
Thanks Garold. I’ll take a look at that.
Just one small thing to say here…. My handlebar risers were a bit easier to play with:-)
Hi bumfuzzles the device attached to the wheel is the helm pump ,thats what there called here in oz any way keep the posts coming love reading about you guys and your adventures regards Andy
Did Omar clean and paint those parts he fixed? They look real nice.
Oh yes, everything is cleaned and painted. We couldn’t go dropping in dirty parts after all this.
Hey if you need anything while in San Carlos get ahold of Mike Church on firefly. you can catch him on the net or pretty much anytime during the day on his radio.