Attempt #4 on the Turbocharger's Gasket

The turbocharger's gasket has a small coolant leak--again.  Over breakfast we discuss what to do about it.  However, with a thousand miles of uphill river infront of us, the answer is pretty clear: repair it now.

Read the Small Print: Turbo Side

It's always nice to find a smoking gun to make you confident in the diagnosis and repair.  Turns out there were two smoking guns.   First, the gasket was on backwards.  I now know it's important to read the small print in contracts and on gaskets.

Corroded Turbocharger Surface

Second, there's noticeable pit corrosion on the turbocharger's mating surface.  Fortunately the fixes are straight forward: reverse the gasket and put RTV sealant on it.

Tomorrow we'll take Nellie out for a sea trial to confirm the repair was successful.

Kill Switch Replacement

The New Kill Switch

The Yamaha's kill switch works by grounding a white wire.  The body of the old kill switch had broken under the plastic nut (visible in the picture above).  Because of this the engine would continue to run even with kill-lanyard removed. 

The new switch went in easy enough.  The only stumbling block was running the new wires through the narrow and winding path.  So I didn't.  The new kill switch wires were shortened, soldered to the old wires, and then sealed with shrink wrap.

I'd brag that the switch was purchased for the princely sum of $5 direct from China rather than $60 from Yamaha.  However, after the recent $12 Chinese starter-relay incident--where the new cheap relay fried Nellie's new $90 starter motor--I'll hold off.

The Yamaha now has some new parts: an impeller, spark plugs, and a kill switch.  It's running better because of them.  DBH

SmartPlug Repair

Nellie's Broken Cord Seal

A SmartPlug was installed on Nellie in October of 2012.  It has worked well and we're happy to have the extra safety it affords.  In June of 2016 there was a noticeable tear in its black cord-seal.  I contacted SmartPlug hoping to purchase a repair kit.  Terry Gilliland, tgilliland@smartplug.com, asked that I send him a picture of the problem area.  After seeing the picture (shown above) he said the replacement parts would be provided free under the warranty.  A week later the repair kit (pictured below) was received.  As the picture below shows, a new socket is included with the kit.

SmartPlug's Repair Kit Contents

Today I installed the new parts.  It took about an hour.  If I had to do it again 15 minutes would be sufficient. 

Repaired SmartPlug

The new socket is definitely better than the original: the three wires are held in place with setscrews and the cable is tightly clamped to the socket.  Another nice improvement is that a weather shield is provided to protect the connector when it's not attached to the boat.  DBH

M71 Sherwood Raw Water Pump

Sherwood M71 Raw Water Pump

  I took the raw water pump off yesterday as it has been leaking a little oil.  Actually, on a clean engine any oil leak always looks huge.  I then noticed that the bottom weep hole had some dark staining.  Since there's a spare on board I put it in, with a new impeller,  and then looked into getting the stained one rebuilt.  A rebuild kit plus a seal is ~$150, to that add shop time.  A new one is $300.  It's mighty hard to justify a rebuild! 

  I ran the engine after getting the new pump in.  Wouldn't you know it, no water flow.  Pulled the pump and opened it up to find that the new impeller I'd installed was the wrong size.  It was close enough to fool the eye but not the gods of physics.  It wasn't a total loss however, I'm getting really good at removing and reinstalling the pump. 

  Nellie goes through a heat exchanger 1/2" dia. x 2" long pencil zinc in about three months.  I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

  The valve lifter cover on the engine's port side is leaking from the aft, lower corner.  Tightened the bolts.

RFI and Wiffle Balls

The rearview  picture gets the setup overlay whenever the marine VHF transmits.   It appears to be RFI from inside the pilothouse's navigation console.  Turning off the VHF's breaker, which also powers the cameras, removes the setup screen.  Since neither ham radio affects the video, I suspect the RFI is getting in via the common VHF/camera DC power breaker.

The wiffelballs worked today to keep the coolant from escaping.

Fuel Additive

This is the second round with Diesel Clean.  Each time the maximum recommended dosage was used--20oz per tank.  I'm hoping it will reduce the engine's exhaust smoke. 

Added coolant to the overflow bottle.  Hopefully the wiffle balls will keep the coolant from escaping from the cap's vent hole. 

Loosened the raw water pump from its flange but was unable to back it out.  I'd hoped to get some liquid gasket between the two to stop the small oil leak.  Next step is to pull the raw water pump.

Whistles

Nellie's whistles were sounding anemic. The problem lay in the compressor's regulator.  Not enough air could get by it.  The drain valve was removed and replaced with a female air hose fitting.  The line supplying air to the whistle was then plugged into this unregulated port.  What a difference, the whistles now sound great.