Sustaining the machinery

Taking care of the engine, transmission, wiring, plumbing, and other machinery on a boat is an important responsibility. Carefree cruising in a power boat begins with confidence in the propulsion package. That said, actually getting to the machinery on an Albin-25 is not an inconsequential evolution. It's not like popping the hood on your passenger car.

Not all Albin-25s are alike, but none has easy access to the engine space. On Ms. Bettencourt, the work begins with taking up the wooden floor panels. Lifting the panel closest to the aft cabin provides relatively easy access to the raw water intake strainer, the primary fuel filter, and the propeller shaft stuffing box. Today, I cleaned some debris out of the raw water strainer, checked the fuel filter for water (found none) and tightened the stuffing box a bit to compensate for worn packing.

Taking out the next floor panel forward allows for inspection of the engine exhaust cooling elbow, coolant circulating hoses and the aft bilge pump.

(Note that the operator's seat, which is normally over the engine box, has been removed from its brackets and stowed across the bench seats against the aft cabin door).

With these two deck panels and the operator's seat out of the way, it is now possible to swing the half-bulkhead leading to the forward cabin forward on its hinges, then unlatch and swing the engine box lid upwards and back toward the rear of the middle cabin. I have done this while underway and it is not fun. Anyway, we can now view the engine and and the sound insulation on the inside of the engine box lid.

This is a Universal 54-24 diesel engine. Only about 1,000 of these Kubota marine conversion 3-cylinder engines were made, between 1977 and 1983. That means this one is between 29 and 35 years old. The engine has about 2,500 hours on it, which makes it relatively youthful. It is not unusual for a well cared for little diesel to go 10-15,000 hours before it needs a major overhaul.

(You can click on these pictures to enlarge them, if you wish to examine anything more closely).

On our last cruise, we ran this engine for about 18 hours at 85% of its power capacity. I think that's equivalent to running a modern passenger car about 1,000 miles at 60 miles and hour.

Today, while I had the lid up, I added about a half-pint of antifreeze, checked all the hose connections for leaks (found none) and tightened the alternator belt. I also checked the oil, then moved to the rear of the engine to check the transmission fluid and propeller shaft flange.

This picture is looking down on the top of the engine from the rear. The transmission is that box shaped gizmo at the bottom of the photo. There is a plug on the top of the transmission which may be unscrewed to check the fluid level. Ms. Bettencourt didn't need any today.

At the very bottom of this photo you can see a flange with bolts through it. This is where the transmission attaches to the propeller shaft. I always check those fasteners to make sure they are tight.

The final deck panel to come up is the one under the helmsman's feet at the steering position. A 20-gallon waste holding tank resides under there, together with a Y-valve that allows waste removal either through a deck pump-out fitting or overboard through the hull by means of a diaphragm hand pump. I keep the Y-valve locked in the deck pump-out position and the through-hull valve closed.

I pulled this panel up today mainly to check hose and pump connections and to retrieve a screwdriver I had dropped behind the tank.

Everything was in order in this department, so it's time to put it back together. I had everything buttoned up in about 10 minutes.

The engine will get a major service shortly before Ms. Bettencourt's (presently unscheduled) next voyage.

That work will involve an oil and oil filter change, changing the primary fuel filter cartridge, testing the batteries, checking all battery connections, and re-checking everything I checked today.