Florida: Marathon - anchors and engines

Day 255

As priorities go, Clark decided that working on the port engine to continue his investigation into the overheat problem had to remain at the top of his list. Seems like every day I learn just a little bit more about diesel engines - more than I ever wanted to learn for sure. Today's lesson was on the "mixer elbow" where water is used to cool the exhaust. Clark said that before coming into the mixer elbow the exhaust reaches temperatures of 1200 degrees Fahrenheit.  Holy moly! When it comes out the other end, it is cooled enough not to melt the rubber in the exhaust pipes.

Clark removed the mixer elbow from the engine so he could look inside for buildup and clean it out. He said it looked pretty good and was probably not any source of concern or overheating.

Engine Mixer Elbow

Inspecting the mixer elbow for buildup

Since he had the mixer elbow removed from the engine, he got his camera down in the engine compartment to get a shot of the turbos as well!

Engine Turbo

Clark ran into a bit of a snag when he went to reinstall the mixer elbow. While cleaning it, he realized that he would need a replacement gasket since reusing gaskets is not a good idea. He ran across the street to the Marathon Marine Supply store only to find out they had none in stock. As soon as he got back, he called our dealer in New Jersey, Lockwoods Boatworks, and ordered the part. Overnight shipping proved prohibitive, so now we sit and wait for the part to show up before he can reassemble the engine.

Leaving the engine project, Clark moved on to the also in-progress anchor project. Today was hole-drilling day. During the positioning process Clark discovered that one of the bolts he bought was not long enough. He had hoped to avoid drilling through a thick portion of the pulpit. Of course one of the three bolt holes fell over that section, so it was back to West Marine to make an exchange to replace one 2" bolt with a 5" bolt. Unfortunately, after drilling out the three holes, Clark discovered that the 2" bolts were also not going to be sufficient in length requiring one more trip back to West Marine to exchange the 2" bolts for 3" bolts.

While he was out exchanging bolts, Clark decided to hit Home Depot for some other supplies. He went off on his bike while I stayed back to work on a project of my own. Ultimately it turned out to be good that I stayed back since he called me twice asking me to measure somethings on the boat for his to assist with his purchase decisions. On Clark's side of the bed a large gap has formed over the years between the ceiling and the wall. This allows air and, Clark believes, bugs to come into the master stateroom. He bought insulation strips, normally used to install air conditioners, to stuff into the space. He called me regarding the length of material needed to fill the space.

I worked on a rather bizarre project while Clark was gone. I store some of my dry goods food in an igloo cooler. It gives me storage space and keeps the food fresher longer. I decided to partition my cooler with some plastic dividers to assist with being more organized. I dug out my supply of plastic canvas and spent the afternoon sewing pieces of it together to make my organizer. It was a crazy mess to sew together, but I am well pleased with the end result.

Clark came back from his shopping spree and immediately jumped back on the anchor project. He said that the biking was hard against the wind. After hearing that, I was even happier that I stayed on the boat with my sewing.

Since drilling out the holes revealed wood under the fiberglass, Clark bought epoxy to fill the holes. He drilled the original holes larger than needed and, once the epoxy dries, will drill them again at the right size to leave the sides protected. How clever he is! He mixed up the epoxy and managed to fill almost 2 of the 3 holes. He was very disappointed with the amount of mix he got for the $20 he spent. Too late for another trip to West Marine to buy more, the project would have to wait for yet another day to make further progress.

He was busy busy busy outside and I was busy busy busy inside. He got to see the sunset. I never noticed that it was even getting dark. I think I missed a pretty spectacular sunset with my head down on my needlework. Thank goodness he keeps the camera handy!