Motor’s IN – Girl Mechanics ROCK!

Lots done today, thanks Jess and Tamiko!

Opened it, looked at it for a while, what the heck!  May as well just put it in the darn old boat!

So the first step was to put the motor mounts on it, fill it with oil and coolant, check the dip stick readings flat.  We install at 14 degrees aft down so we will mark the dip sticks installed and full!  Rigged the boom to accept the come-along borrowed from Steve and Tamiko on svLandfall… Wait around for the crew to assemble and first lift to the cockpit, re-rig the sling and come-along for dropping it into the companionway and onto the motor bed …  Voila, easy as that.  Nick on svIolanthe was there every step of the way too!

So today we got rough alignment, mount holes drilled, mount bolts installed and tightened.

Things that unbelievably went just as planned:

The morse cables for throttle and shift levers bolted in perfectly!

The old 14 inch section of 2″ exhaust hose from the mixer hi-rise elbow to the silencer can fit perfectly!

The 3 meter cable harness from the engine to the type “C” control panel fits with enough length to allow us to pull the panel down and work on it without having to disconnect the cable harness, no, really!

Thing we need to adapt from old to new:

OK, so the raw water inlet was a 1″ ID hose on the Westerbeke 40 and the fitting on the Beta 30 is a 3/4 hose barb so we need to change the strainer fitting and hose to 3/4″ or we need to change the engine fitting to 1″ and get a little longer hose!

We do this and final alignment and connect up the power cables which fit perfectly from old to new and we will be ready to start her up!

We still call her “George”!

 

Jess added (photos follow):

EL MOTOR ROJO

I have to say on the motor install, first and foremost, Tamiko off of Landfall rocks!  Not only is she ultra cool, ultra tough, and can laugh at the most ridiculous things, including Jim’s rolls of fabric falling on her while she’s trapped in the engine hole, she is an ace mechanic.  She is also team player, and she somehow made Jim and I play nice with each other for this install.  That takes real leadership, and she managed it with nary a scuffle or sniffle, it just happened like magic.

So, the engine arrived last night.  Just about sundown, on the day of arrival, the impossible happened and Juan Arias rolled up in his truck with our motor in the back.  Then it was a matter of fending off well meaning help, rounding up the rolling cart borrowed from a neighbor, and horsing the 182 kilo box off the pickup truck and onto said cart.  I saw the wheels flatten and feared for the axles, but they held.

Off of the cart was easier for the lack of abundant help.  Nick from Iolanthe stuck around, and so did Juan.

Kudos to Juan Arias, known as the paperman for his ability to get things through customs.  He does your papers.  Touch him for any of your customs needs.  I was in an office signing off on papers and heard him tell hair-raising stories of customs on both sides of the border, from which he, of course, returned triumphant.  Modern day dragons need modern-day knights, with the patience and persistence of a bull dog.

This morning we stared briefly at the box before our coffee kicked in and we dismantled the outside.  Then we stared at the engine and fondled the parts and accessories.

Eventually our crew assembled.  Nick from Iolanthe and Tamiko and her husband Steve from Landfall came over, and somehow Tamiko and I ended up below being the muscle for shifting the engine into its bed, while Jim and Steve and Nick worked up above with the comealong.

Then–well, we were there.  We crawled into position,  into which we fit much better than Jim.  Steve took off with their son Eli, and Jim was left with the abundant estrogen.  Tamiko took over, and Jim fetched tools, shifted the engine  now and then, and vibrated outside while we diddled the whole beast into something close to alignment.  Then we drilled the holes, and between the three of us managed to reach all the nuts at the end of the engine mount bolts.

That was when the miracles started to occur.  The morse cables, which connect the power and gear shifter to the binnacle, fell right into place.  The cable from the instrument panel to the engine was perfectly sized.  Even the hole which Jim had cut for the instrument panel was–well, perfect.  We all wound up with these enormous grins as one thing after another fell into place.  Things never work that well.  The gods were smiling on us in our efforts

Normally during a piece of work of this magnitude, there are abundant swear words, many curses, blood, and tears.  Somehow we hit about one curse word (mine when a bolt went AWOL) and a whole lot of laughter.  I haven’t had that much fun in the engine compartment, ever.  I love working with competent women.  There were a lot of “Wow” and “Look at that!”  and “Got it!” phrases flung about.

We folded up the tools eventually, and will approach the alignment tomorrow.  I’m looking forward to it.

Fin

Opened it,

Looked at it,

 Put the feet on it,

Rigged it and lifted it onto the boat,

Put my two mechanics to work on it and VIOLA,

FIN for now!