I had an epiphany while trying to figure out my 4 shim issue and the generator blues during waking hours at night. I first thought my odds at guessing the correct combination were 24 : 1, 4! or 4*3*2*1. But 2 numbers are duplicates, so that brings it down to 7 possibilities. Considering that I could blow the engine with a wrong guess, I’d rather not play that game.
Morning
I woke and thought that the number might correspond to radians before/after the TDC and I could check the engine manual to correlate the shims. No luck there, unfortunately. Only one number for BTDC is given, the other cylinders follow from that.
So my generator blues continue. I’ve reached out to customer support at Cummins-Onan but am not particularly sanguine about the chances of a product expert actually contacting a customer. It is more likely I’ll be referred to a dealer. And they’ll do nothing since I didn’t buy from them. I’ll scour the web for a forum where I might find someone knowledgeable.
Afternoon
I went ashore to get diesel and gasoline plus pick up a security torx set to remove the last bits on the diesel pump. I also used the opportunity to get some new flares, as my old flares had expired. The Dutch customs just loves to cite people for that when they come aboard for an inspection. Plus there is a safety reason for flares to have expiry dates. I keep my old flares, though. Just in case.
I will need to go ashore one more time as I’m out of coffee, I only had 2 cups this morning. I will see if the Chinese place has freshly roasted beans again, otherwise I’ll just have to settle for “dead” beans. I think I got the last bag on my last sortie.
Right now the diesel fuel is slowly filling into the tank. I’m getting good at not spilling anything apart from a drop or two. The fuel pump parts are soaking in gasoline, some of them I’ll remove soon and the ones with some corrosion I’ll let soak overnight before giving the a wire-brush scrubbing.
Ashore
I made it to the 5 o’clock opening with only seconds to spare. Only a few boats went through the bridge but the SMYC was very busy.
Instead of trying to find a seat, I walked to the Island Food Market grocery store down the road and was very happy to find that they had a new coffee delivery. I also got some bread and eggs for the boat and returned to the SMYC.
By now it was emptier and I stuck around for the first set of live music and had a very tasty goat cheese salad for dinner.