Good question

Sometimes, when I hit a dead-end on a mechanical problem, I'll ask my brother Paul in Memphis for ideas. Last week, I couldn't figure out how to enlarge an exhaust hose hole in Ms. Bettencourt's engine box, so I texted Paul. He suggested an approach that worked, so I emailed him a thank-you with the following pair of pictures.

Dia Bettencourt photos

... and he responded with this:

"Is that you in the bilge? If so, did Dia take the pictures? If so, if you are the Captain, why isn't she in the bilge?"

I suspect Paul will be getting an answer from Dia.

Meanwhile, work proceeds on the exhaust system (with Dia's able help).

And, I am hoping this project will be finished before the new year begins.

Train wreck halts boat work

Here's an item for a book that should be written about bizarre boating events: After finally finding a rare (and costly) replacement exhaust mixing elbow, delivery is stalled by a train derailment in Illinois. I am almost afraid to ask what other new obstacles might arise to keep us hobbled at the dock.

Here's a picture of the beautiful new part which, until recently, was on the way from California to Ms. Bettencourt in Georgia via a UPS rail shipment.

News of the delay came from the UPS website which offered this rather matter-of-fact bulletin about my shipment's eastward progress: "Hodgkins, IL, train derailment."

I had this image of my bright blue casting sticking out of a snowbank by the railroad tracks a little south of Lake Michigan.

Anyway, I am relatively confident UPS and the railroad will sort it out and the part will get here eventually.

While we wait, there is work to be done.

The Kubota troubleshooters had loosened the exhaust manifold, which meant that the manifold gaskets needed to be replaced before things could start to go back together.

Removing the manifold revealed a nasty accumulation of rust, soot, grease and other stuff that begged for cleanup.

This is also a good time to take the big casting into the shop for degreasing, a scrub-down and a paint job.

The hardest part of getting this power plant back together will likely be wrestling the exhaust hose and the new elbow to the back of the exhaust manifold. The wire-reinforced hose is fairly rigid and there is a sharp upward turn from bilge level to the elbow at the back of the engine. The last time this job was done, it took three of us two days and many bloody knuckles.

This time, there's a different strategy. While the two-inch exhaust hose appears to be sound, it is in a stressful location and has been subjected to a lot of heat. So, the plan is to replace the four foot segment of hose that runs between the exhaust elbow and the muffler.

We will pass the new hose through its access port in the back of the engine box, and affix the new exhaust elbow to the hose. Then we'll bring the elbow and hose to the end of the exhaust manifold as a single assembly. This should give us better leverage to curve the new hose into place without kinking. If it works out, all that remains will be to trim the other end of the new hose to length to fit into the muffler.

That wooden plug you see in the end of the hose will be moved to the inboard end of the muffler when we withdraw the old hose. This is because the exhaust outlet at the transom is half-submerged on the water side. Bad things could happen without a stopper firmly in place.

The wayward exhaust elbow is now scheduled for delivery Tuesday. That means there is a possibility we could have everything back together and in working order before Christmas.

Stopped up what??

Nothing is wrong with Ms. Bettencourt's old Kubota engine. Even her fuel injectors, which I removed and had tested last week, are in excellent condition. Then why wouldn't she run?

Her exhaust was stopped up. More specifically, it was this thing, (pictured here) called an exhaust mixing elbow.

When this elbow is working like it is supposed to, exhaust gasses from the engine enter it though the fitting in the lower right of this photo. At the same time, seawater from an on-board water pump comes in the brass fitting at the top.

This results in the exhaust gasses being mixed with cooling water, the sum of which is then ejected out the tube at the lower left, which is hooked up to a 2" hose that goes to a muffler then out the back of the boat.

The elbow stoppage was discovered by Kubota technicians, whom I had called in from the local tractor company after everything else I could think of failed. The fact that it took two certified technicians two visits to figure this out eased the hurt to my amateur diesel mechanic ego just a little.

So, how do we know that nothing is wrong with the engine? Simple. After the techs removed this elbow, they started her up and ran the engine up to full power. Ran beautifully.

Unfortunately, with the exhaust disconnected, all that black, sooty, oily, diesel exhaust had no place to go except all over my pristine, just painted, snow white middle cabin, including seats, decks, bulkheads, dashboard and the instrument panel.

Sigh. The four-day cleanup is just about finished.

My cruise buddy Major and I disassembled the elbow and mounting flange yesterday and, briefly, I thought we could clean the elbow out and put it back to work. Alas, that is not to be. The inside part of the casting appears to include a baffle or internal chamber designed to keep injected water from getting back into the engine. The baffle or chamber wall is mostly corroded away. I think it would be a bad mistake to put this chunk of iron back into service.

Now, I'm on the hunt for a replacement mixing elbow. Please look in again. I'll post an update when there is something to report.

Triple injectorectomy

Ms. Bettencourt's 30-year-old Kubota diesel produced a spectacular plume of black smoke as we pulled away from the dock a couple of weeks ago, and full throttle refused to produce more than half-power.

A high-anxiety loop brought us back alongside the pier where I have been probing mechanical innards ever since.

Days have been spent following troubleshooting flow charts toward exhilarating peaks of likely problem solutions then to despondent lows of dashed results. And, most lately, to numbing dead-ends.

It is a fact, however, that black smoke and soot all over the transom is incontrovertible evidence of un-burned fuel. Also,the engine starts easily and idles smoothly. This means there is sufficient compression for fuel ignition.

These facts lead me to believe that the problem must lie with one or more of the fuel injectors, though individual injector tests with the engine running failed to identify a specific bad actor.

So, I think, all three injectors have failed to some degree.

As a result, with great difficulty, over a three-day period, we have come to a milestone:

Probably for the first time since Ms. Bettencourt's engine was built in the mid-1980s, its injectors are out and on the bench.

They will be going to a local diesel shop early next week.










 Her mobility thus challenged, Ms. Bettencourt will remain at the dock until this problem is sorted out. Please check back from time to time.  I'll post an update when more is known.

Electronics crashes!

Two very disappointing electronic failures have occurred, just as we enter the final lap of Ms. Bettencourt's center cabin rehab project.

Please recall that last week I had made new dashboard mounts for the GPS chartplotter, the depth sounder, the VHF radio and the compass.

This week I started to install and test the instruments and, right off the bat, my 3-year-old Garmin GPSMAP 546s dropped dead.

Press the "on" button and the Garmin logo appears, then fades away, and that's all there is to see. Garmin tech support was helpful, suggesting some new software from their site and an attempt at a "boot block" start-up.

That didn't work, so the unit is on its way back to Garmin and I am $270 lighter for a rebuilt replacement with a 90-day warranty.

The next bad news came from my brand-new Standard Horizon GX1700 VHF radio. I bought this radio last June and didn't even open the package until last week. The unit was installed Saturday and its send and receive functions performed as expected.

One key feature failed to function, however. This is a DSC, or Digital Selective Calling, enabled radio. It has an emergency switch that can be used to notify the US Coast Guard should a Mayday event occur. This system is dependent on the vessel's unique Maritime Mobile Service Identity, or MMSI, number being entered into the radio transceiver.

The new radio will not toggle through the routine needed to enter Ms. Bettencourt's MMSI number. The unit is useless to me with this limitation. The retailer is off the hook, because they have a clearly-stated 10-day return policy on electronics, and June was four months ago.

So, now I am waiting from a call back from Standard Horizon to see what has to be done to enter a defective product claim.

I suppose it's better to learn this kind of news while tied to the dock, rather than in the middle of a cruise.

Some days it's very hard to stay positive.


UPDATE 11/6/13: Defender Industries, from whom I bought the radio, went the extra mile and helped me work through the problem and get the MMSI number entered. John at Defender provided excellent phone coaching to get the job done. At the same time, Juan at Standard Horizon never let  go of the issue and I was presenting multiple alternatives by email. I am impressed with both firms' customer service.

I am now a relatively happy camper, awaiting only receipt of my replacement GPS from Garmin.

Getting it together -- ever so slowly

I am loathe to bore any more holes than necessary in Ms. Bettencourt's now pristine refinished dashboard, but the time has come to re-install the piloting instruments. After a lot of thought, I decided to mount most of the instruments on a leftover mahogany scrap, then screw the wooden mounting board to the dash.

The brackets for the VHF radio, the depth sounder and the Chartplotter have a total of eleven mounting holes. These were drilled in the mahogany billet, then the wood, which is about a half-inch thick, was affixed to the fiberglass dashboard with only three screws through trim washers.

The mahogany used for the base, left over from making a new mast last winter, turned out to have about the right shape to fit the curvature of the flat space under the windshield.

While it's beautiful wood, my wife the design consultant convinced me the plaque would look better painted.

She was right. Here's a photo shot from the inboard end of the now-painted mounting showing the VHF radio in the foreground.












The photo below shows the whole mounted array, shot from the steering position. Everything is visible and reachable.

All the power wires and data cables will feed down to the electrical panel below through a single, neatly grommeted, one inch hole a little forward of the instrument panel.

Notice the compass on the far left. I plan to raise it about an inch on a separate painted mounting block.


A decision remains to be made on where to place the microphone hanger for the VHF radio. I'm wary of the microphone's magnetic properties effecting the accuracy of the compass.

Perhaps I'll just leave it adrift until a better idea surfaces.

Little things

Ms. Bettencourt's mid-cabin rehab project may be in the home stretch. The final coat of paint has been applied and the deck boards have been in the shop this week for scrubbing, patching, sanding and repainting.

And, a few little details have received some attention. For example, the Albin "commissioning plaque," found on the dash behind the steering wheel.

This little bronze plate had become tarnished and coated with diesel vapor over the years.

Soaking it in white vinegar for two or three days, then a vigorous rubbing with a fine Scotchbrite pad, brought it back to a like-new luster.

The engine access manhole cover from the top of the engine box also came back from paint-spattered decrepitude after some buffing with a drill-driven wire brush.

I am told the hole in the casting at the 9 O'clock position is to receive a screwdriver to lift up the top.

These things came from the factory with a sky-blue paint job around the Albin letters. I found a few blue paint vestiges, but decided not to try and repaint it.

I have sprayed both the plaque and the manhole cover with high-temperature engine clearcoat. I am hoping the clear top coat will help keep these parts bright.




The metal pieces will go back on Ms. Bettencourt tomorrow, along with the freshly re-painted deck panels (below).

I have also rebuilt the tri-fold plywood companionway hatch (far left in this photo).

When the decks are in and the hatch is installed, I expect to be nearing the end of this project.



There is still a fair amount of electrical re-installation to do and decisions remain to be made about instrument placements. But, this should go fairly fast.

Unfortunately, all this interior work is making Ms. Bettencourt's exterior paintwork look even more shabby.

Boat work never stops.