Working on the boat

SO I finally tore my dinghy engine down and guess what

By April 26, 2018 No Comments
Where did the engine go?

As some of you know I had a cooling water clog on my dinghy engine for almost two years. I did everything I could think of to get it cleared. I would use acid in it to eat the salt away. I had a mechanic deal with it. Everything. It would start flowing for a bit and then clog again. For two different off seasons I hired a mechanic in Puerto Rico to tear it down and clear it for good. Well guess what? They never got to it either year. Finally I found Brian in Red Hook who would help me and in December we took it apart and got the clog out.

After that I kept telling him that it was running rough and finally I realized the oil was milky and foamy. This is never good. It means you have water getting into the oil. I figured we put it back together wrong and so we took it apart again , but found nothing wrong…..except for the thick milky cream that use to be dinghy engine oil.

Pile of engine parts

This is one of three piles of engine parts that are sitting around waiting to be reassembled.

Brian keep saying that it was probably the head gasket and we pulled the spark plugs out to see what they looked like sure enough the top one had water on it. We knew then that we had to tear the engine down even more and get to head cover off. Once we did we found it was corroded in one little spot, but that spot is the difference between the engine working and not working.

It took us only two hours to tear the engine apart and think we will get it back together in the same amount of time, but I have to wait until I can get a new head cover shipped down to me and of course we found the issue on Saturday afternoon meaning I had to wait until Monday morning to find and order the part. Lucky for me I have a contact at Doug Russell Marine who really helps me out with outboard parts.

Now I am just hanging out waiting to get it and rebuild the engine so I can move into cruising mode. Although most cruisers would say I am already there because cruising is simply doing boat maintainance in exotic ports. Come back on Sunday I will lay out my plans for this spring’s cruise. I am so excited to get going. Come on part get here so I can stop being a mechanic and go back to being a captain and adventurer!

Engine problem

You can see the tiny spot that corroded away and is making the engine not work properly!

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