Engine rpm's~

I'd been really anxious to get the diesel engine going. Even though its a sailboat and you don't really need an engine to travel, you kinda need it to get on and off the dock. Its also an important system in the boat from an electrical standpoint. Since we wont have a generator right away, our main engine will be the main charging system for our D/C power supply while underway and abroad.

Aside from this, I really wanted to get the engine going simply to hear the old diesel engine spin up some rpm's and produce some man made power!

Plus I really wanted to go sailing!!

So on to the wiring....

 These are the new engine gauges plus a key switch and buzzer with idiot light for high temp and low oil pressure. 

 This is the back side of the new engine panel I built. The wire harness is color coded because that is the way you do it.

Here you can see what the engine panel will look like once installed. Engine Tach, Oil Pressure, Water Temp, Key start switch, Glow plug button and finally a 12V outlet. I left space in the panel in case we want to add something down the road, maybe an ipod jack?  The panel is built of 5/8" white starboard and will be recessed into the cockpit wall.  This decision was made partly by accident when I began digging open on old repair looking area in the cockpit. Turns out this was where the original engine panel was located. 

This was the location of the old engine panel. You can see the old switch and buttons to the left. Only problem is you can't just screw in a new panel, thats way to simple... so I had to build a frame in which to mount the new panel. I built it with 1"x1" trim, and epoxied it into place, this will give me an interior frame to recess the new panel.

View from inside the engine room looking out. Otter wood frame with inner starboard frame.

 Getting ready to glue and screw it all together...

Ta Daaaa!!!  The new engine panel is complete!

Now were ready to fire her up!

Some progress ~

Digging deep into the bowels of this old boat has been an unbelievably interesting experience. Since I was working on the motor and planning on re-installing it after some cleaning/painting work, I figured it was a good idea to get that area of the bilge as clean as possible. The access to this area is greatly reduced when the engine is in place, so it was crucial to expose and remove anything unwanted at this point.

A view from the companionway looking down, way down into the bilge.

A bucket of material removed from the lowest depths of the bilge. Yes, that is a 12" pipe wrench!

More and more things kept being dug up from the bilge depths,  it was scary!

There were many, many pounds of debris removed from the bilge area below the engine. I believe this was due to an area aft the engine room, under the cockpit lazarette, where a hole let things fall into the bilge.  Among these things were nearly a dozen screwdriver handles, two pipe wrenches, a pair of glasses that appear to be sunglasses but their just covered in bilge gunk. Also an absorbent bilge sponge that felt more like lead.  The most bizarre items were things that I couldn't figure out how they got down there... a 3' piece of metal rod, corroded beyond belief.   I've seen some pretty gross things that are easily labeled boat nasty... however this bilge took the cake!!



Luckily, I endured through this stage of the cleaning process and was able to get the engine room pretty clean and organized. The engine was de-greased  and cleaned with wire brushes, then primed and painted. Followed by a rebuilt starter and alternator, the ol Universal was ready to sit on her new motor mounts in a ready space.

De-greased

Primed

Painted!

As it turns out Gold is a universal color, meaning the universe over.... gold is gold.   When I found the spray can of Universal Gold at North Bay Auto Parts I figured it was just luck, they just happened to have my engine paint color in stock!!!  Its doesn't look bad, ey?  We've renamed her Goldie.

Blake Hinely runnin the Wiggins Marina Bull

So, simply getting Goldie back in place was no small feat. I had help from Dennis Mayhew and the crew from Bluewater High & Dry  and their forklift. Thanks Blake!

Goldie finally back in her hole!

With Goldie back in her cozy little space, next comes the task of aligning and bolting her down, then bolting together the coupling and prop shaft to the transmission.  After a little modification here and then, she is all hooked up and ready to go! 

This is where I sit when I'm in the engine room.

  Next steps were the new exhaust system including new/used Vetus water lock muffler and new exhaust hoses, a new stainless steel custom built exhaust riser pipe, new fresh water cooling water lines and rebuilt heat exchanger, new Groco raw water strainer, fuel pump, new fuel lines and filters and a temporary fuel tank, I also made a new bracket for the transmission cable and mounted it on the motor.  

Almost all hooked up!

 With all this done, the only thing left to do is wire it up! 

Should be simple, right....?

Beginning The Restoration ~

I'm not quite sure how to start this...


Basically, Lindita sat in Bluewater Bay Marina static for a about 2 months before I was able to return and begin the restoration process. In my head, I was going to have her ready in a couple months, sail her down to Abaco before our wedding, and sail off into the sunset with my bride and start our new life together...  thats not quite how it worked out.

I returned to Niceville in late November after delivering my bosses boat back to Abaco. They were down there for a week or so, boating and enjoying a break from north Alabama in the early stages of winter. I spent a couple weeks doing some maintenance on Annie Lee before being graced with a little time off to begin our sailboat restoration project.

This being only my second boat i've ever owned, the first one being a 23' daysailer I bought for $500 and sold for not much more, I had great expectations of how fast I'd work through these projects. Like I said before, I thought I'd be ready to sail away after only 2 months... knowing what I know now, pretty much every little project that you think will take 1 day, takes 3. So if these projects were going to take me 2 months (in my head they would) they would easily take 6 months(multiply time by at least 3).

So I basically started deep, removed the mast and rigging, removed the inboard diesel, and continued to strip out every single thing inside the boat, whether it was bolted or screwed or not. Everything was going to come out! This process took alot longer than I thought it would. This was my first indication that my project boat may take longer than 2 months...

Following are some pictures of the beginning of the restoration process. Stripping and gutting out -

After we pulled the mast, we pulled the engine.

Mast~less

Then we spun her around and removed the bow rail and bowsprit, along with the dolphin striker and bobstay.

My buddy Mike towing me back to the slip.

First view of engine room after engine removal.

Layer of muck that was underneath the engine.

Jumbled wires and hoses everywhere!

The original motor - 32hp Universal Diesel

Removing the waste holding tank along with all the head plumbing

Galley fridge was on old engine driven Adler/Barbour

This is the plating connected to the bow eye tang that connects the Bobstay to the Bowsprit

Night shift supplies are crucial !!!

My friend Christoph on night shift cleaning out the cockpit lazarettes, being paid in beer.

Randy on night shift polishing the bronze anchor hauser cap

disassembling rigging for inspection/cleaning

Bowsprit undergoing some epoxy work

Mast spreader arms are mahogany

Stripping the aluminum spars

After I began the decommissioning/demolition process of Lindita, I suddenly had a much greater picture of just how much is involved with a restoration of a yacht of this size. Its not that any of these projects scared me... its more the magnitude of the projects that daunted me. Since suddenly I went from having 1 project (the boat itself) to having half a dozen projects going on at once:

1.) Mast and boom
2.) Rigging
3.) Bow
      a.) Bowsprit
      b.) Bob-stay and thru-hull tang mounting bracket
      c.) Sampson posts
4.) Engine
5.) Engine room
6.) Head
7.) Etc
8.) Etc
9.) Etc

Things were coming apart slower than I had expected, and putting them back together was bringing up more unforeseen issues I had not anticipated. This is of course how boat projects go...