A face lift for La Buena Vida

Back in 1996, when we bought the boat, it came in two colour tones: - a kind of yellow and some white on the deck.

We inteneded to put our mark on our ship,

Although we had absolutely no experience with Awlgrip paint technologies, we, nevertheless,  decided on an ambitious project:  a 3 colour system.  The deck was to be Oyster White, the trimming in Mateo Wheat, and the main part of the hull in Jade Mist (some people may call it English Racing Green).

The outcome was smashing!

There were times we reflected on our decision of having 3 colours to maintain, especially when taping off the hull, the trimlines, the deck etc .... but it was soooo much more pleasing to the eye.

16 years later, the green of the hull needed a facelift.  Over the years we had already done the deck and the cabin sides, but painting the hull is a bit more challenging. 

Preparing the hull is one thing ..... which means sanding, sanding, sanding, and applying fillers to deal with damages, scratches, follwed by more sanding  .... the damages were mainly a result of our cruising life.  Overall, the hull did not look bad after 16 years in service!  But these preparations can be done over days, and when weather permits.

But we had to get the right weather window for the final paint job  - which according to the book should be like that:  a dust free environment, steady temperatures at the mid 20s while painting, low humidity, with temperatures not falling below 13C for the next 7 days .... Yeah, sure!  And then there is reality!!!

Our yard is a working shipyard where boats get sandblasted (including ours last year).  Just imagine the sand and dust on the ground.

It is a working yards, so there is traffic - we are talking about dust!  A lot of it.

Over the last few days, the night temperatures went down to 5C, with the daytime temperatures reaching barely 14C.  No condition for our paint job.

But this is Kingston, Canada!  We switch into summer from one day to the next.  This weekend, daytime temperatures were expected to reach 30C, with night time temperatures still in the mid teens, and almost no wind!

Ok, not ideal, but we can handle that!  We decided to take this weather window.

Posting big signs in the yard about "fresh paint, slow down", and arriving early in the morning, allowed us to control the sun effect (to some degree) on the hull, and having fewer people moving throughout the yard at that time of the day.

Unfortunately, a test run with our 16 year old paint suggested that the paint had been compromised over the years - no more gloss, giving us a dull looking hull surface.

We bought new paint, Awlgrip rollers .... and were ready for our paint job.

We tried to time our job so that we could work in the shade, but this was not always possible and the hull temperatures were quite uneven.  Nevertheless, the first full paint run came out ... ok!    But not as great as we had hoped for.  We had to learn to do better - fast!

Next morning (2. coat), we arrived at about 6 am, sanded down the critical spots from the day before, and prepared the paint - while the sun was rising behind the trees and starting to find the hull through the leaves.  But the hull temperature was still low enough to work under these conditions. This time we had our application system down pat:  rolling paint on for about 2 feet, marking off how far we had painted, then doing another 2 feet section, followed by going back to the initial section and lighty retouching the paint surface with our roller in order to burst the bubbles which had formed during the application run.

It worked!   The paint smoothened out and the gloss emerged.  We were very pleased with the outcome.

When the sun hit the hull in full force, the surface temperatures climbed to 50+C .  But by that time we were off in the shady side!  

Yeah, what did the manual say about the ideal conditions??? ....  We did not even get close! 

Happily, the people in the yard acknowledged our paint signs, and most of them moved past us at a snails pace.  And with no wind in the yard, we had an almost dust free environment!

Tonight:  We feel a big relieve - the job is done, and it is as good as it can be given our conditons.  And it looks better than the first time around when we painted our hull in 1996.

We are now going to celebrate!  Let's hope that this job will last for another 16 years! 

Parts list, costs and other thoughts! - rebuilding our Volvo MD 11D engine!

The engine appears to be running fine, at least for the last 20 minutes or so, and while the boat is still resting on land.  Our “dear” friend Peter (Aquataurus) insisted that the real test will be when we put the engine under load …. Thanks Peter for your vote of confidence!!!!

Which parts did I need:

Here is a listing of all the parts I had ordered and installed during this overhaul.

• Cylinder Liner Kit # 875549 (liner and pistons and sealing rings and piston ring)

• Decarbonizing Kit 876376 

• Push Rod 3583802

• Paint for engine

Costs:

 

While I found the detailed listing by http://www.marinepartseurope.com/en/e-volvo-penta-603-MD11D.aspx very helpfull, their listings gave me also a good idea about the costs involved in rebuilding this engine. In the end, I obtained my parts from the “local” Volvo distributor (http://www.frenchcreekmarina.com/).  Apart from getting some valuable advice from the marina staff, their prices were also significantly less than those found at the above mentioned site.

In total, and including the re-grinding of the valves and its seats, we paid about $1,600 for all what we needed so far for our rebuild.

Other thoughts and considerations:

We are (occasionally long-range) cruisers, and because of this we enjoy certain features of this engine.  It has hand-starting capabilities (in case the battery should fail), it does not rely on sophisticated electronic controls, and it offers the possibility to rebuild the engine in situ due to its replaceable wet-type cylinder liners and side access ports.

When our engine showed severe signs of aging, we had the option (A) to replace it with a more modern engine, (B) to purchase an overhauled engine of the same type (or to have the work done on our engine), or (C) try to learn how to rebuild this engine on our own.

Option A and B amounted pretty much to the same dollar amounts re engine, apart for the additional costs involved for Option A concerning shaft couplings, changing engine beds, moving controls and hoses …. friends of ours who followed this route spent about the same amount on all these changes as on the engine itself.

Option C – if it would have failed, we could always go back to option A and B.  We knew the approximate costs of this risk.  And should we be successful, we would have saved a good deal of money – and learned a lot in the process!

 It was worth taking the jump.  Remember, I am not a diesel mechanic.  This is all new to me.

And apart from our cost calculations, I can say that I have now a much better idea about the engine and how to repair it, and would not hesitate to take on this job once again.

If !!! … yeah, always so easy to say after the fact.  Back in Martinique, we contemplated to replace the engine.  We had ongoing problems which we found difficult to trace (especially cooling issues with repeatedly broken impellers, apart from some other issues), causing us a considerable amount of stress.  Enough stress that we were ready to look into purchasing/installing another engine; the infra-structure in Martinique would have allowed us to do that right there.

Fortunately, we met Frank from SV Enola who knew this engine and who explained the likely cause for these symptoms and suggested a “temporary” solution (rinsing the cooling passages with HCL), but made it clear that we would have to take the engine apart to do a proper job.  The rinsing helped and the engine stopped overheating or eating its impellers.

If I would have had access to similar information I provided in my blog, I would have done an overhaul.  Alas, I had much less information available to me at that time and did not see myself taking the engine apart as per workshop manual.  Calder's book on diesel engine repair suggested on-bord solutions, and showed tentalizing images.  But his instructions were not detailed enough for me to follow through with a rebuild past decarbonization. And I did not know at that time about the article written by Manfred (http://www.kavenga-segeln.de/media/2b574205c78c63f8ffff893aac144227.pdf) whose images suggested that a rebuild can indeed be carried out with the engine bed/crankcase remaining on the boat and the piston rods remaining in place. That article got me thinking ...

In the end, to do a job like this in these places, one would have to have access to the parts likely needed for this overhaul (see above our listing).  Unless this guarantee is in place, there is no point of even starting.  There is no room for “exploration”.  We had the de-carbonizing kit on board, which would not have been enough.

Based on my experience, the job could have been completed within 2 weeks, looking at a part-time (e.g. 4 hours a day) effort.  The essential steps are to remove and clean and re-paint the parts (biggest job), to pick-up the new parts, to have the valves/seats lapped or reground (if needed), followed by putting things back together.  The work could have been done while the boat is in the water (although, the (very, very !!!) messy cleaning should be done on land!).

Here are the tools I made for my overhaul:

From left:  the pressing tool for fitting of cylinder liners, the measuring tool for the dimensions A and B, my valve spring decompression tool.

Hope this helps – on to the next job.  Repainting the hull with Awlgrip!

Will it start or not start? That is the question! - rebuilding our Volvo MD 11D engine!


Ok, weather improved, and other things out of the way, time to continue with our engine project.

Finally, the weather was warm enough so that I could spray paint all of the engine parts you saw before on my work table. They are looking great again!

I opened the liner/piston kit, removed the pistons and all seals, and installed the liners into the cylinder block. An easy job.

Next, every piece had to be brought back onto the boat, which required multiple climbs up the ladder. My exercise for the day.

Next step was to grease and to fit the sealing rings (yellow O-ring) for each respective cylinder liner in the groove of the crankcase and to place the 2 shims (0.2mm and 0.3mm, in that order for me) on the crankcase face (this has to be done when new liners were installed, as was our case. If we would have used the old liners, we could have used the same type/number of shims previously found on the engine).

I then heated the pistons with the heat gun and pushed the piston pins into the opening of the piston roads. No problem here, as long as the pistons were heated well enough!

I lifted the cylinder block/liner unit onto the rear piston and had the unit rest on some pieces of aluminum extrusion. Clamping the piston ring device over the rings (mine is of the sidewise removable type), I placed the pistons into the liner and turned the flywheel so that the piston entered the opening. A click by click sound let me know that the rings had placed themselves into the liner. After pulling out the piston ring clamp, I lowered the cylinder/liner unit into crankcase. Done.

Same procedure for the next piston/cylinder. Both procedures took only a few minutes.

In my previous blog I had mentioned that taking the compression chamber measurements were crucial. The final compression chamber was supposed to be 0.8-0.9 mm, (0.0315-0.0354"). I had built a tool to force down the liner into the crankcase from some extrusions, but had, initially, issues with getting reliable measurements of my “A” dimensions. My electronic caliper, although suggesting that it can measure up to 1/100 of a millimeter, it did not. My repeated measures suggested fluctuations in the vicinity of 1/10 of a millimeter mm (0.0315-0.0354"), i.e. not better than the tolerances prescribed by Volvo. Not good enough!

Ok, taking a piece of aluminum extrusion, I fitted a micrometer dial and got now reliable repeat measurements. Based on these calculations for the dimensions of “A” (4.39x mm for both cylinders) and “B” (3.51x mm for the heads), I determined that I had to remove one shim (0.3mm) in order to arrive at an s=0.82x mm. That I did by lifting the cylinder/liner unit by about one inch and snipping and pulling out the corresponding shim.

Being a bit “anal” about it, I retook all the measurements, and they agreed with my calculations. Hey, we are in business!

Here is my set-up for the clamping tool and for the tool I built to take the measurements.

The rest was straight forward. Cylinder head gasket placed, push rods placed, and lifting the cylinder heads into position and hand-tightening the nuts. For the next job I needed 4 hands: mounting the water cooler and the 2 gaskets was a bit tricky, I did not manage that alone and Marleyne had to give me a hand (actually: 2).

Loosely tightening the water cooler to the heads placed those into proper position, and I could proceed with bolting/torque down the heads (11kpm), followed by tightening the water cooler to the heads. Done!

Rocker arm assembly next; I backed off the rocker arm adjustment screws by a few turns to keep them loose on the push rods. In our case, one of the push rods had to be replaced, it was bent. Next, valve clearance adjustment, decompression device adjustments. Done!

While I had prepped the parts, I had the injectors checked. One was found to need a new tip, the other one was fine. I installed the injectors and torqued them to specifications (2 kpm). To make sure everything is properly in place, I turned the engine a few times by hand via the flywheel. Looking good, nothing touching.

Putting the alternator, starter motor and cables back into place, it looks like we are all done now and ready to go!

Doesn’t Marcel look pretty again? (in real life, the old and new colours look the same, but not on the camera - go figure!)

Soooo?

Still on the hard, and no running water available yet, we “schlepped” 50l up into the boat.

Well???

After some stuttering and coughing, and dealing with a very cold engine (still no summer here!), first one cylinder fired up, then the other one, and all of sudden the engine began to settle into a rhythm and moved towards a smooth run. We have LIFT OFF!


Time to celebrate!