Early Morning
I woke up early again and am catching up on the web while savoring my first coffee of the day. Ohaiyo Gozaimasu (γγ―γγγγγγΎγ).Β I’ve got a lot of boat maintenance tasks that I want to complete today. I’ll only get that done if I can start as early as possible.
I started work by putting the old gypsy back on the windlass. I turned the gypsy around and hope that this less worn-down contact surface will do a better job. The new gypsy is on order and will hopefully get hand-delivered to me in Antigua.
The software on my Axiom chartplotter is outdated. I started the 1.8 GB download on the plotter using the local Wi-Fi connection. That will take quite a while to download, so I came below and made another cup of coffee. I’ve got an open food delivery order with the local Carrefour market, which contains locally grown and roasted coffee, and I hope it arrives soon. I’m down to my last few precious coffee beans. The emergency cupboard contains instant coffee, just in case I run out of it.
Seawater Cooling Pump
The next task is replacing the engine’s seawater cooling pump. I quickly got the belt removed but then hit my first snag of the day. The seawater shutoff valve is located in a hard-to-reach area and refused to be budged by hand. I’ll have to get some tools out to fashion a longer lever arm. I’m sipping my coffee while I mull over this fresh boat maintenance challenge. All it took to close the valve was a little nudging using some pliers to extend the arm.
Once I began work on removing the pump, I could see that the leak and consequent saltwater damage was a lot worse than I’d suspected. There’s a large amount of water in the engine bilge (which doesn’t drain) that I’ll have to suck out once I’ve completed the replacement project. The Uro “quick release” fittings on the pump seemingly only release quickly when new. I’ve removed the retaining screws on the pump, and it is loose, but I’m having trouble removing the top and bottom hoses. They are cut quite short with little wiggle room, and of course, access to the area was designed for midget contortionist engineers. I’m neither vertically challenged nor even close to being a contortionist. And software engineering has little applicability to boat maintenance.
The Axiom software update has failed, so I’m downloading the files to the PC and will then transfer them to an SD card and load from there. Windows has been busy downloading a new version for the past hour. I hope I won’t get the dreaded BSOD upon rebooting after the update.
Late Morning
It took about 30 minutes to complete the Windows 11 update, and nothing went wrong: not so with the pump removal. I had to remove the non-quick-release fitting and use a lot of turning and pulling to remove the hoses. In the end, I believe it was my judicious use of expletives that did the trick. Plus, a little bloodletting.
Noon
Showdown at high noon on Zanshin. And I lost…
The old and new pump bodies are the same, which was good news. But the pulley is attached to the old pump with what looks like a press fitting, and I have no tools for removing this and for pressing it into the new pump. I don’t want to destroy the old pump since that means I cannot turn on my engine.
The arrow in the picture of both pumps side-by-side (pulley removed) shows my dilemma. It is 13:00 on Saturday, which means that I’m stuck until the local shops open on Monday morning. Despite closing all the seacocks, there was still a big leak of seawater into the bilges. And because of my repaired leak, there’s a lot of diesel fuel floating in there as well. What a mess!
14:00
After over an hour with a hammer, WD-40, all of my screwdrivers (used as wedges), my inadequate Jabsco impeller puller, and other assorted instruments of destruction, I managed to get the press fitting removed from the old pump. The transfer to the new pump took some time and effort. I splintered a piece of wood I was using as a cushion to the hammer blow. Once it was on, I began the lengthy process of getting the new pump installed. While the attachment bolt locations were identical to the old pump, the new
pump is a bit larger and fits snugly in place. But reconnecting the hoses was difficult and took almost an hour in total.
After that, I showered and headed ashore for dinner and an early night.