Getting dirty with the Diesel engine

Having completed the installation of the new electronics (wind system) I wanted to check out some of the engine system to make sure it's ready for our trip next weekend.

1st was the Heat Exchanger. It has a Zinc that corrodes faster than the heat exchanger metal, it's a 'sacrificial zinc' and has to be replaced as it corrodes away.

Here's what I removed, probably doesn't mean much unless you have had to replace one yourself, but it has a major problem. That little bit in the lower right of the photo, it should be about 3" long! The rest has corroded away, as it should, but it's not doing it's job any longer.

There was a spare on board (thanks Deke!) but I went to get another before I used the spare. So now I have two spare (found another one, thanks Deke!)

Before putting it back together, I cleaned up the zinc holder so that there would be a good electrical connection between the zinc and the base and the heat exchanger.

That was easy.





Then I checked the raw water filter for the engine. Not blocked, but quite a bit of flotsam, so I cleaned it out, need to get a spare.

Next, check the water pump, pretty important part of the engine cooling system.

That cover should look polished, it's pretty worn. The good news was that Deke had left a new pump on board, so I figured I would replace it and recondition the old pump.

That's when it started to get dirty!

I keep a pretty good tool kit on board, so it only took about an hour to change out the pump, much of that was figuring out the 'how', if I had to change it again, probably take about 15 minutes.

With the pump replaced, we ran the engine and I'm very pleased with the flow of raw water through the engine. It now spurts out about a cup of water about every second. Cool (pun intended :)

We spent the rest of the time on the boat today checking the engine temperature sensors, drying up the small amount of water that was spilled during the work, and putting everything back together, basically starting to make the boat habitable for the up coming trip.

This should mean that we can spend some time taking Eximius to new places. Ok, so we're heading to Biscayne Bay, old sailing grounds when we owned JD. The deep keel of Eximius will keep us on our toes as the bay has a lot of shallow areas. I'll take lots of pics.

Stay safe, see you on the water.