Season End - 2012

After the first week of September, the season changes dramatically.  It can be sunny and warm, or very rainy and cold and wet.  You take your pick.

The weather sounded promising for our last sail of the season.  In fact, it was not that great at the beginning.  But we wanted to see the 1000 Islands again for a last look at the leaves.  In the evenings, we huddled inside taking shelter from the rain, lightening our kerosene lamps.  Time for cooking, reading books, and having a last swimm in the Lake Ontario waters (That's H!).

Nevertheless, we enjoyed this end-of-the year sail!

Heading home we stopped again at Cape Vincent - a lovely village - had a nice walk and relaxed under the warming sky at night (a sign that another cold front is approaching).

Back home, we begun to empty the boat and get her ready for haul-out.  On one hand, we feel saddened about this process, on the other hand, we have many more travel plans in the coming weeks (by car and tent!).

We also said our private good-byes to a good friend of mine who had died recently.  He was full of dreams to sail the North Sea and the Baltic Sea with is boat next year.  He had also wanted to come sailing with us here on Lake Ontario.  We had plans for him, destinations, anchorages ... Manfred,  when will we meet again?  We lifted a glass of rum in memory of his presence.  I will miss you.  We will miss you.

Cruising the 1000 islands eastwards

Having time and fair winds pushed La Buena Vida eastwards in the 1000 Islands region.

There are differents routes one can sail and we chose the Canadian side of the river, sailed  through the narrow channel between Wallace and Ash islands (which does pack a fair current make things exciting for sailboats) and then past the 1000 Island Bridge into smooother waters!

Within the Thousand Island area the narrowest point in the St Lawrence River is in the Thousand Islands Bridge area where the Canadian and American shores are a scant 4 miles apart. However pretty this area can be, the steel bridge is very noisy and we chose a neat little spot about 2 miles past the bridge, just in front of Tar Island, to spend the night.  Although Tar island is very close to Rockport, which is an international touristic hub for the 1000 Islands, the continously running tourist boats past well west of us.



Next morning, we motorsailed towards Alexandria Bay.  We picked Cherry Island to anchor and took the dinghy over to Heart Island to check in.  We had first tried to dock there with the big boat, but the water level was too low to do so.   On Heart Island stands the (in-) famous "Boldt Castle", which thousands of tourists come to see each year.  But the history of this castle has a rather "hollywoodian" character!

In 1900, millionaire George C. Boldt—proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City—set out to build a full-sized Rhineland-style castle on Heart Island for his beloved wife Louise. This was to be a rather imposing six-story structure with 120 rooms, complete with a drawbridge and Italian gardens, boathouses, gardens, the "real" thing!.  Then in 1904 tragedy struck. Boldt telegrammed the island and commanded the workers to “stop all construction.” His wife had died unexpectedly. Boldt never returned to the island, and teh construction crews left materials and tool behind - where they fell.  A big blow to the local community. The castle remained vacant for 73 years. Since 1977, millions of dollars have been invested in the restoration of the Heart Island structures and the Yacht House on Wellesley Island (of which the local communities benefit once more).  We figured that we would be happy with the Yacht House alone, large enough for our sailboat to fit, with its mast on!!!!

It was fun taking the dinghy around Bold Castle and through the surrounding islands ... but then we had enough of sight seeing and negotiating the never ending stream of tourist boats, and moved on to our beloved Picton Island anchorage a few miles west.

Time to go home and to install windows - 6 in total, before we opt for another trip!  The weather is getting unsettled, a sign that our summer is coming to an end.

 

1812 War commemoration

Our summer cruising adventures continued through August. The weather has been absolutely great, sunny, hot, and with barely one thunderstorms to trouble this idyllic weather.  We attended another 1812 War commemoration at Gananoque in the Thousant Islands region. Many are wondering why this war is the object of so many celebrations? Well, Canadians like to remind themselves and others that the country is NOT the USA and has actually been able to stand up to their power. The 1812 war is the celebration of the successful fight by British, English- and French-Canadian and First Nations allies to resist would-be American conquerors — at battles such as Queenston Heights in Upper Canada and Chateauguay in Lower Canada — set the stage for the creation of a unified and independent Canada a half-century later.
As usual, we came from Beaurivage Island to the Gananoque Joel Stone park by dinghy.  There were areas reserved for "gunboats" that were later going to be actors in the recreation of the battle between American and British ships and troops.

Why not celebrate the victory? We hoisted all our little flags - of all the countries visited since 1999 -and toasted to the now friendlier relations between our nations.

Waupoos and home

Our last stop before heading home was going to be Waupoos, in Prince Edward County. This is one of our favorite destination and it ust happened to be a long weekend here in Ontario. We have been often here and it was a very rewarding way to end our holidays. We began celebrating the pre-birthday of Marleyne...by going to the Waupoos vinery and the beautiful Cider Company overlooking the bay. We had met a nice couple from Oakville on board their Gozzard 37' and we enjoyed their company for these outings. These were very very hot days and we were glad to be able to swim several times a day. A cold front on Sunday cooled things down considerably and gave us great westerly winds...in direction of our home harbour.

All the way to Desoronto

From Cobourg, we finally were able to sail to Presqu'ile Bay...a spinnaker ride of 30 miles! We love this area and it was tempting to spend a bit more time in Presqu'ile. We know we can be back here, however, as it is a great destination for the fall, when the leaves turn golden and red and birds are migrating...

Going through the Murray Canal was uneventful...except for the new fee being set at $4.95 (!!!!!!!!!!) which had us laugh pretty hard.  You are supposed to place your money in a little pouch handed to you by the bridge master while passing the bridge.  And they would give change - if needed!  Why not making things easy for every body and charge $5.00???? Anyhow, our next anchorage was in Big Bay (just made it in before the next thunderstorm), located between Belleville and Desoronto and lastly, Desoronto. Definitely very far from big cities here....

Good bye Toronto

We felt happy with our stay in the big city and we left early on a sunny morning, admiring its golden skyline.  The islands were serene and we caught glimpse of a coyote walking on the beach!

Our next destination was 55 miles east...in Cobourg, Ontario. We had stored our dinghy on deck for the trip as we find that it slows us down ...especially on no wind day like that one. The lake was calm and we arrived in Cobourg at the end of the day, finally enjoying swimming after a week of not being able to do that in the Toronto harbour...

Toronto

For us living in a small city like Kingston, it is tremendously eciting to spend time in a metropolis like Toronto. We had a "program"....the firs t item of which was to visit the Art  Gallery of Ontario in order to see the Picasso exhibition.  The Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris featured more than 150 highlights from the Musée’s unparalleled collection, including paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings. It was quite captivating despite the fact that we had seen several pieces of Picasso before....but the timeline of his work was very well reprensented here. In the same gallery, we enjoyed another exhibition, this one by the contemporary Chinese artist Zhang Huan: Ash Paintings and Memory Doors. 
Another fun activity was to meet a friend at the new home for TIFF (Toronto Internation Film Festival) which is a beautiful, welcoming five-story complex at the corner of King and John Streets in the heart of downtown Toronto. we had lunch in its Oliver and Bonacini restaurant and enjoyed the fashionable Toronto crowd!
Besides our long walks in the Chinese quarter, Queen street east and west and Spadina street, we also visited the International Jazz Festival at The Beaches and took the opportunity to visit yet another part of Toronto.https://www.google.com/search?q=the+beaches+toronto&hl=zh-TW&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=4RQkUJynN_GEygHNtYGYBw&ved=0CG8QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=849

As we had our folding bicycles on board, we used them to tour all the Toronto islands. And what fun it was! Among the highlights, there was the second oldest lighthouse of the Great Lakes, at Gibraltar Point.  The Island Lighthouse is the oldest landmark in Toronto. From its site on Gibraltar Point, it has watched most of Toronto's history unfold; its light beam has, for more than 150 years, been a welcome guide for the mariner into the Harbour of Toronto. And it appears that the lighthouse keepers and his family became the first inhabitants of this area, slowly drawing more and more people to its quiet land. There are
over 600 residents and 250 houses on the islands. We toured both communities located on Algonquin island and Wards island.

We ended our bike tour with a huge ice cream cone while looking at kids having fun on the rides of the Centreville Amusement Park !!!!

Getting to Toronto and its islands

 Toronto's harbour is busy with ferries, offers a great skyline and the rumours of the big city fill the air...until you penetrate the green oasis of the Toronto islands.. It is an amazing contrast!
After a day of strolling in the busy and dusty streets, we enjoy returning to the boat and enjoy the serenity of the anchorage.

At night, the CN tower profile was visible from our boat, not letting us forget that the big TO is just around the corner.

Our stay in the Toronto Islands

We left early next morning, not being able to imagine drinking our first coffee while smelling guano!!!! In order to get to the Toronto Islands, one has to enter the Toronto Inner harbour...see map. We sailed from  number 17 ...and made our way to a secluded little bay where we were undisturbed for the 6 following days. The red dot on the map indicates our anchorage.

Oak Orchard or Toronto???

We leave Irondequoit very early (6am) and make our way west. The 15 knots winds soon stop and we are left motoring. As a cold front is forecasted for the next day, we decide to take advantage of the fair weather to make our way to Toronto...only 80 miles to go! 

Anyhow, this was not the best of passages: we had no wind for 8 hours (contrary to the weather forecast), with a overheating engine (because of a broken impeller…) and with an automatic pilot on strike…But this was not all: when the wind came up, it did with 15 -20 knots from the south west and we found ourselves unable to keep tracking to Toronto. Then the big thunderclouds towering over the cities of Toronto and Hamilton for the last couple of hours decided to move our way and we had squalls and thunderstorms creating 5 to 6 feet waves accompanied by heavy winds and forcing us to head more and more away from Toronto! When the whole thing blew over, it was 11pm and we could finally resume our course towards our destination…and entered Toronto harbour around 2am. Ah! That beer tasted good wth leftover sandwiches! A feast barely disturbed by the overpowering smell of the cormorans inhabited islands.

So good that you cannot smell this photo!!  Just too many cormorans breed in the region, destroying all vegetation!

Irondequoit, NY

We are inching our way west in the hope to get to Oak Orchard,NY and from there, to cross the lake to Toronto (50 miles). Rather than stopping in Rochester where it is not possible to anchor, we venture in Irondequoit Bay, 5 miles east of Rochester. It is Sunday and we expect a lot of commotion and traffic in the area (we remember too well the zillion of power boats zipping in and out of inlets in Florida on weekend days!). But the crowd here is well behaved : they actually respect the 5mph speed limit in the canal leading into the bay. The area is attractive with a fjord look…meaning, it is not easy to anchor because it is very deep except ..when you are on the beach. Heiner manages to find a spot – he always does! – besides moored power boats and people standing in water with their drinks.

Chimney Bluffs and Big Sodus Bay

Today was the perfect day for "walking about"....First we biked and revisited the tiny village of Fair haven: it is reminiscent of New England sea side villages with pretty wooden houses. We then left the bikes on the beach at the State Park and proceeded to walk in direction of the bluffs. The rocky beaches are strenuous to walk...and then a bit in the forest...and then back to the beach along the bluffs. The following pictures are ours (yesterday's were taken from the internet)...pretty amazing geological structures! After 4 hours of this walking about, we were really happy to come back to the boat and go for a swimm...

Tomorrow, easterly winds should give us an easy ride to Great Sodus Bay, only 15 miles west from here.

Already planning ahead for our visit of Toronto, we phoned the Harbour Centre Marinas and were shocked to hear that it costs $20.00 to dock your dinghy there for 3 hours. $20.00!!! Canadian hospitality????????????????????  But then, parking is expensive in TO!

Little Sodus Bay

Early rise this morning: 5h30 am. The northerly winds were just beginning and we had a nice ride for the first 38 miles of our trip. At about 14h00 however, that was it: no more! We started the engine and just motored, surrounded by too many lake flies...We passed the Chimney bluffs, an amazing geological sight: born in the ice age and sculpted by erosion and glacier, those bluffs are the highlight of the area.
We are currently anchored in Little Sodus bay and the water is 27C!!! Beautiful swimming! We will spend the day tomorrow wandering around or biking around..not sure yet. Life is good.

Relaxing in Cape Vincent

We came to Cape Vincent for the French festival but also because it was a nice place to relax and to get in the cruising mode for our three weeks circumnavigation of Lake Ontario.  As I previously stated, the village is beautiful, very relaxed (when the crowds are gone) and it has a public library with a great deck overlooking the lake where one can have access to Wifi 24/7!

Here I am sitting and downloading the photos for our blog!

Fireworks

The parades day ended with a marvelous firework! The best thing about it was that our boat was anchored in such a way that the fireworks exploded right ABOVE us!!! What an amazing experience!

La Bastille day

So far away from France but so close! Every year, on La Bastille day, the small village of Cape Vincent celebrate the alliance between the American and the French because Cape Vincent almost got to be the nouvelle patrie of Napoleon..before he choose to escape to Elba, instead. Well, tant pis for Napoleon ... and too bad for us, North Americans - we could have our French baguettes every morning instead of soft (gummi) bread. Anyhow, here in Cape Vincent, they decided that the French presence of the late 18th century (up to middle of the 19th century) was worth a celebration. It is now called the Festival francais and draws crowds of near 10,000 people every year.  Bands of all kinds, from Big Band style to Scottish Bagpipes march through the beautiful trees lined streets of the village.

Canada Day!

The weather was picture perfect for Canada Day on the water. On this day, many Canadian boats choose to fly a large Canada Flag in the rigging.  We opted .... as self-declared Canadian ambassadors, to fly the flags of all the countries we had visited with La Buena Vida.  It made a nice colurfull display.  And then we went into town (Gananoque) to get some pulled pork! 

A few days of sailing in Eastern Lake Ontario / 1000 Islands (US side).

A rare anchorage at Picton Island, off the St. Lawrence Seaway, due to a northerly wind.

And an evening at our Cape Vincent anchorage.

At the dock - finally!  We are ready to go.  Currently, we have very strong winds with rain showers chasing each other.  But this should end overnight.  We look sooooo much forward to being on the water and on our boat again.


... and when you enlarge the picture, you can see our shiny hull! A mirror of the dock!

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!