Author: Brad

As of yesterday, the motor is in and running like a champ.   It was an interesting experience working with the installer.   The motor is completely electronic.  Part of that scares me, but the inner nerd is very excited.  I have a feeling it will make us revisit the electrical and charging layout.

The guys at VB Engineering are finishing some cleanup tasks and reinstalling all that was removed to clear the engine room.  If all goes well, we expect to sea-trial on Thursday the 18th!!   We are very excited to get Perspective back after 8 weeks and get to work on our personal refit list.

We have had a couple of delays and we are now at 5 weeks in the yard. The original conservative estimate was 3 weeks. Next time I’ll plan for at least 50% over time and money budget! 

The upgrade from a normally aspirated to turbo Diesel engine means we need to change the exhaust system. Going from 2.5 to 3″ doesn’t sound like a lot, but the exhaust has no straight shot from the engine room.  This means it has to be snaked out the port side of the engine room, make a 90degree turn to aft, wrap over and around the fuel tank, around the head, under the master bunk to the exhaust port through holes designed for smaller hose.  This alone took three man days!

While we were changing the exhaust, I made the decision to upgrade the generator exhaust.  The original system had the genset exhaust connecting to the engine exhaust via a Y fitting and sharing an outlet.  This is not ideal, so we added another exhaust fitting to keep the two separate. 

Motor mounts are reportedly done and the install is going on now.  

Fingers crossed for no more surprises!

Well, kind of…

The motor IS in the engine room, however it’s on blocks and not hooked up yet.  We need to modify the motor mounts to fit the engine bed.  Fingers crossed that it gets completed tomorrow.  

Perspective is now on the Hard.   Grinding the blisters on the bottom began today.   

Also, say goodbye to our Pathfinder 85MF.  We will be installing a brand new Yanmar 4JH80 in Perspective over the next couple of weeks.   We can’t wait to get it back in the water and see the difference!

We put Perspective on the hard today for a refit. We discovered a number of items we wanted to fix ASAP.

1. The Pathfinder 85MF had significant blowby. Imagine the dipstick puffing like a little steam engine…  Replace with a brand new Yanmar CR80.
2. Replace stuffing box with a new dripless shaft seal.
3. Lots of blisters were discovered on the initial survey. Grind and patch.
4. New bottom paint.
5. Replace Y-Valves and hose in both heads.  Many were frozen and we couldn’t deal with the smell.
6. Replace thru-holes and seacocks as appropriate.

We hope to have her back in the water in 3 weeks!