Posted by lance_ryley (lance_ryley@…>)
Interesting discussion on Diesel - I’ll add my two experiences.
first about the red diesel. When I still had bright star, I was
getting a pool of red fluid under the transmission, which I thought,
because of its color, was… transmission fluid! I checked the level,
and it seemed to be right, but more fluid kept appearing, so I pulled
my transmission and had the seals serviced. For what it’s worth, on
the Hurth’s you can’t do this job yourself unless you happen to be a
diesel/transmission mechanic, because the shaft seals are internal and
the hurth has to be opened up. The transmission came back with new
seals, was reinstalled and… there was still red fluid leaking into
the engine pan.
My second assumption was that the hydraulics were leaking - in fact I
knew they were, and I knew where. Originally, there was solid copper
tubing going up the pedestal, then joined to what turned out to be air
compressor hose in the engine compartment. It was leaking at the
joint. I had used transmission fluid in the hydraulic reservoir as a
stopgap on a cruise, and then when I got back I set about getting new,
hydraulic-grade hoses made. While I was at it, I replaced the
reservoir, which had a damaged filter unit in it. It took about 3
weeks to find the right kind of 45 degree angle hydraulic fittings to
get hose to fit down the edson pedestal, but the end result was
extremely gratifying.
Except of course for the red fluid under the transmission. I knew it
wasn’t the hydraulics because I’d replaced the fluid with Hynautic
hydraulic oil, so I finally broke down and hired one of our marina
mechanics to take a look. He thought it was transmission fluid too,
until he realized… as I should have… that diesel is colored red for
offroad use, and that’s what in fact had been leaking the whole time.
He found that one of the injector pipes was slightly out of alignment,
so it spurted diesel when the engine was under load. Never had another
problem.
On Glory, we were on a tight schedule to get the boat to Boston after
purchase. I had been down in Sakonnet working hard with George to
finish commissioning systems, and on Saturday morning, I started the
engine, just as he had told me. Vroom and much rejoicing… nervous
optimism at being able to leave in a couple hours. I put the engine
under light reverse load, just to feel it… and the engine died. A
few more cranks and it was obvious it wasn’t going to start. I looked
in the engine room and the racor was STUFFED with water. It turned out
that the deck fill was open about 1/4 turn… all winter.
Fortunately, one of my friends back in Boston had just started a fuel
polishing business. He came down and started polishing the fuel and
cleaning the tank. One nice feature on the Freedom 45 fuel tank is
that there is a sump and a good inspection port - it was relatively
easy for him to vacuum out the gunk, and the water came out of the
polishing. It may have been true years ago that fuel polishing didn’t
really work that well, but the Algae-X setup he used was extremely
effective. We were able to motor out of Brewer’s that afternoon and
get ourselves to Cuttyhunk before the evening fell.
So we’ve done our first major winter project this past weekend.
Without getting into arguments about the merits of diesel vs. propane
heaters, we decided we needed to do something to supplement the
electric heat we generally use in the winter time. Eventually, we’ll
put in a diesel-fired hydronic system like the Hurricane, but for now,
we just needed something to take off the chill - something we could
use at the dock, on anchor, or underway if necessary, so we decided on
the Newport Dickinson P-12000 direct-vent propane heater. It’s rated
to 9700 BTU and I think will do a good job of taking the edge off. It
burns 1lb/4 hours on high, which gives a 20 lb tank around 80 hours
(110 hours on the low setting). The stack is a double-wall, with cold
air coming down the outer wall into the combustion chamber, and
exhaust gases going up the inner stack. This means no air in the boat
is burned. The problem was deciding where to put it.
We finally decided that from a venting and convenience standpoint, the
unit would go on the bulkhead at the forward end of the dining table.
While we lose a little bit of sitting comfort, there is still enough
room to slide past the heater and sit at the table. The sides of the
unit stay relatively cool, with only the front of the unit becoming
extremely hot. We started on Saturday around 1 pm to install the deck
cap, stack, and fireplace. To mount the unit, which comes
pre-installed on a stainless steel heat shield, I had to drop the
mirror in the forward head. flat head machine screws were pushed
through and stainless cap nuts in the salon make the installation look
very sharp.
On sunday morning I started routing the propane line through the
bilge, under the engine compartment, through the aft cabin and into
the propane locker. It took about 3 hours, some swearing and a moment
when I was pretty sure my arm would be permanently trapped under the
galley floor, but it actually went a lot smoother than I thought it
would. While we were at it, I put in a dual-stage, two bottle
regulator and a new solenoid for the gas control. The unit also has a
fan - the electric wires were run through the wall into the head, up
over the ceiling panel, and into the distribution panel inside the
medicine cabinet. Overall, a pretty tidy installation.
Before the Patriots game was over, we had our first fire in the
fireplace - it looks good and does exactly what it was intended to do.
Pictures in the Photos section.
Lance
