I thought I would start with a fairly basic service, changing the fluids and filters and the impeller on the seawater pump. At first, maintenance looked like it was going to be pretty hard to do given the limited space. I thought I'd start with the seawater pump as this looked like a fairly easy job according to the manual. Closer inspection shows this:
Yes that is worrying looking corrosion on the surface underneath the pump. Clearly the pump had been leaking for a while and the salt water was doing its thing with the steel. I got a bit of a shock at first because the corrosion looked fairly deep rather than just surface corrosion.
I thought at this stage that the engine might need to come out of the boat to allow me proper access to this part of the engine. However, once the upper part of the stair case was removed (4 screws) and the shelf in the rear cabin, there was plenty room to get at it.
I gave it a grit blast in-situ and then primed and resprayed the area. Fortunately the engine is a right old lump of metal and clearly has a generous corrosion allowance built in!
I had to remove the pump completely to deal with the corrosion and this gave me a better chance to inspect the pump. In removing it, one of the screws on the impeller cover sheared off and then I also discovered that one of the retaining "lugs" that holds the pump against the block had succumbed to the salt water and broken in half.
It was a fairly easy repair using a bit of heavy gauge flat bar shaped to have a passing resemblance to the real thing.
I bought a replacement seal kit for the pump and the other service items from Keypart who were very speedy with their response.
Changing the filters and oil was straightforward and after bleeding the diesel through to the injector, the engine fired up and chugged away happily.
No comments:
Post a Comment