New Guts Part 5

[Mike Garside]

Been off the air for a while. This thing is taking up rather a lot of my time. But we have made progress in a week. Last weekend I spent cleaning and painting the naked engine box with flo-coat. This product is new to me and it's quite interesting. A mix of gelcoat, colour pigment and wax. It's cured with a hardening agent. Not the easiest stuff to work with I have to admit. Supposed to be good to keep clean, I guess

Anyway, come Monday we were ready to go. A quick bit of a touch up job on the transom to hide the marks left by the larger Yamaha stern drive and the new Mercruiser one is slipped into place...

[Mike Garside]

Then the back plate is mounted. Note the torque wrench to ensure the bolts are tightened to the correct torsion...

[Mike Garside]

Then we begain the cat's cradle of piping that makes up the raw water cooling system. First a hole is drilled on the port side floor to take the sea cock...

[Mike Garside]

Then we located a suitable place to mount the water strainer. This was an integral part of the engine on the Yamaha but it seems we need this big beast for the Yanmar...

[Mike Garside]

The filter is connected to a junction box that, in turn is connected to second inlet that draws water through the leg. According to E P Barrus, the distributor, it seems that neither the of the two sources of cooling water is sufficient alone. Hence the dual sourcing...

[Mike Garside]

Then the floor-mounted seacock is connected into the system, too...

[Mike Garside]

At this point I had a chat with Alan priddy and my heart sunk.

Alan came up with a much better way of doing the job. He uses a stainless pipe mounted on the transom that scoops water and feeds it into the engine box by hose mounted above the water line. This does away with the need for seacocks, hull-weakening holes drilled in the floor and because it's so simple it save lots of money.

I need a drink. More tomorrow.

Cheers everybody....