Early morning
Today was a simple Portsmouth Harbor day. Many of my colleagues were back in the office for our first morning stand-up meeting of the year. I have a folder with about 700 pictures, mostly from the Caribbean, which I use for my conference call backgrounds. I change these on a daily basis. While here in the Caribbean, I’m using pictures from Europe. I’m certain that some of my colleagues have no idea that the obscured view behind me is not that of an office, but an idyllic beach or sea view.
That first meeting of the day happens long before sunrise, so my LED lighting gives me a pale complexion on video which effectively hides any tan I might have.
Morning
I tightened the fuel pump bolts this morning (I didn’t want to do that with a hot engine yesterday) and started the engine. I charged the batteries for an hour at low RPMs and then tried going to 1800RPM again. Unfortunately, the problem is back. I think that tightening might have moved the pump head just enough to close off the opening again. I now need to let the engine cool down again before I’m going to do my next adjustment.
Noon
I hooked up the VCDS system again and tried to correlate the readings with reality, as it wasn’t doing what I thought it should upon giving it the hammer. A properly warmed up engine at idle should have a reading around 5mg/Stroke in group 8. But I had much higher values and this really does indicate a fuel supply problem. But it took some internet sleuthing to discover that “IQ” is not “Injection Quantity”, but “Injection Quotient”.
This means that the values go in the opposite direction from my expectations! Once the engine cools down sufficiently for me to avoid scalding myself when reaching across the block, I’ll loosen the bolts and “whack” it in the correct direction.
Afternoon
I’ve been getting my aerobic exercise today from walking up and down the companionway to switch the engine on and off (Have you tried turning it off and on again?) and from having to stand up and close the hatches when showers come through and then open them again for ventilation once the rain has stopped.
Getting the engine components off is becoming easier, it only took about 20 minutes this time around. I’ve loosened the 4 bolts slightly and am now applying the “Hammer mod” to the correct side of the injection pump. It took quite a bit of time to whack the back end very lightly with a hammer and wooden stick and go forward to check my notebook readings. But eventually I managed to zero in on the expected 4-5mg/Stroke at idle. I turned off the engine and let it cool a bit before reaching into the innards and tightening the 4 screws.
The burns I received don’t even require a bandage this time around. The engine is now running a lot nicer at idle, but there’s still a fluctuation of RPM values above 1200RPM. This is a lot better than before, but still an issue. I’m going to have to think upon this overnight and decide upon my stratagem to fix this.
Happy Hour
Tired of being a hermetic recluse aboard, I dinghied into the Madiba Café dock around sunset. I had a Kubuli to celebrate being alive and soon was joined by Alexis, the local boat-boy with whom I’d worked several times before. He recognized me and we talked for a while before he retired for the evening. His guests for the day tour were enjoying a meal at another table.
Back aboard I made a simple dinner and decided to postpone washing the dishes until tomorrow.