It’s been a full week as we have check off all the major chores. Tim dove into the engine room and got to work while I worked outside on the teak. Completing the engine maintenance has been tops on Tim’s list. The recommendation for our Perkins diesels is to change the oil every 400 hours or one year. We’ve only added 171 hours to them since the last oil change in New Smyrna Beach June 2017, but we agreed that the convenience of doing it here was worth it. There’s an O’ Reilly store not far that sells oil and more importantly takes back used oil. And even though the transmission fluid still looked good, we changed that as well for good measure.
Changing the fluids was a piece of cake compared to replacing the diesel water pump impellers. So while we weren’t having any major issues with the old impellers, we felt that it was better to know we had good solid impellers in than to wait until the old impellers gave out. We have read horror stories of people who had their impellers fall apart while traveling, breaking into bits and pieces which ended up blocking the flow of cooling seawater to the engines. Better to do a little extra work now than have a real problem at sea. The impellers are a hard rubber and are designed to fit very tightly in a water pump. Getting the old impeller out requires a tool that reminds me of something my gyn has used before. Getting the new impeller in is the hard part. The hard rubber arms of the impeller have to bend and curve around to be installed.
It’s hard enough to get to the impeller, my little hands were needed to unscrew the lid. But Tim’s strength was needed to squeeze the bastard in there. It was a bear to get the starboard impeller in and that was the easy side. The starboard impeller is on the side of the diesel closest to the walkway and is relatively easy to get to.
The water pump on the port side is nearly impossible to get to. If I laid on top of the port engine or on the battery box next to it, I’d be able to reach my arm down to the face cap.
I knew I’d be able to get the cap off, but no way was I going to be able to get the old impeller out or the new one in. Tim could barely get his arm down to the water pump let alone have enough leverage to squeeze and push the old one in. Time to call in reinforcements. We ended up getting one of the guys here at AYB to come on board to do the job. He ended up have to lay over the port engine and brace his feet on the starboard diesel to get the bugger in. But after a lot of grease and using a tie wrap to squeeze the impeller, he completed the job. Glad we decided to replace the impellers here. We may not have had a lean, tall dude who could do the job for us someplace else.
My big project has been the exterior teak. When we were in Ft. Meyers last year, I worked on the teak at the bow. This spring I wanted to work on the cockpit area. I’m not happy with how things turned out, but it is what it is. I sanded down the cap rail in the cockpit and the hand rail along the aft port side. I didn’t want to go down to bare wood, because most of the wood still has a good base of Awlwood on it. My goal was to just add a few layers of protection. Despite the sanding, blowing with the wet vac and wiping with a warm water rag, it looks like it as an out break of acne. I think the big problem is the pollen that constantly drifts through the air. Oh well.
It hasn’t been all work. We ave gotten in some fun and some great food. On our 2nd trip to the West Marine in Virginia Beach, we stopped at a local renown deli for what turned out to be a 2lb Rueben sandwich. OMG!
Tim and I also took a trip into Norfolk to check out Waterside Marina where the AGLCA Rendezvous is going to be held and to do some sight seeing. We wandered the old Freemason area of downtown enjoying the historic homes, cobblestone streets and brick sidewalks.
While downtown, we also hoped to find a doggie daycare for Maggie while we attended meetings at the rendezvous. The daycare we were looking for was closed, but we talked to a guy at the downtown dog park and he told us about Rover.com. It’s like AirBnB for dogs. It matches people who want to earn extra $ by walking, boarding or just day care for pets with people who need someone to help with a pet. I found a woman who lives right in the downtown area who is available the days we need. It sure will give us some ease of mind if Maggie is with someone rather than all by herself on the boat.
Today, we’re just chilling on the boat waiting for the rain to pass and looking forward to getting this trip moving. Party at AYB on Saturday and then we head up to Norfolk on Sunday and get Rendezvous ready.
