Stern tube, further engine work and windows

Sigh of relief on Monday morning when I found that the propeller shaft was still turning freely I hadn't stuck it all together with epoxy. I pulled the stern tube forward after gently tapping round it with a hammer and removed the split plastic waste pipe all I had to do was give it all a wipe over with white spirit to remove the wax polish and then coat the two faces with Sikaflex and bolt it all together I was sparing with the sealant hoping that it would not squeeze out internally and glue the shaft up.

Stern tube bolted up

The shaft was still turning freely when I went home hopefully it will still be OK on Wednesday.

The next job was to fit the engine raw water sea cock this is normally a two handed job particularly with the Marelon ones unfortunately there was no one around to give me a hand so I managed to hold the skin fitting up with a piece of timber while I screwed the valve on from inside this particular sea cock is right on the bottom of the boat so it was fairly easy most of the others are on the turn of the bilge which makes them very difficult or almost impossible single handed

Engine sea cock in place

Apologies for the poor photograph the flash on the camera seems to have blotted out the grey bilge paint.

I decided to make a start on the aft cabin windows which had perished seals and were badly crazed these had already been removed from the boat so after stripping them down I paid a visit to Hadlow Marine Windows on Wednesday morning to get the new perspex and mastic for refurbishing the windows. The chap there was very helpful I left him with the old perspex and he cut out the new windows while I walked up the road and had a coffee and a sticky bun. The perspex in the old windows seemed to be a bit on the thin side at 3.5mm the new ones will be 5mm there is ample space in the frames for the increased thickness the channel being 9.5mm wide. Putting the windows back together will be this weekends homework job.

Windows stripped down

Crazed perspex

Perished mastic seal

window refurbishment kit

The fore cabin windows are in a similar condition so these will be next on the list when the windows have been replaced in the aft cabin the saloon windows are toughened glass which is in good order however the mastic seals are suspect and even if they don't leak now once the boat is in the water and sailing I expect that there will be a degree of flexing which will lead to leaks so they will be resealed.

Got to the boat just before lunch and removed the new engine mounting plates so that they could be drilled and tapped for the engine mount bolts. Checked the propeller shaft and it was still turning freely there was some Sikaflex stuck to the shaft but on sliding it back I found that I could clean it off from the outside I spent the rest of the day sorting the wiring harness and the connections onto the engine luckily the previous owner had taken photographs when removing the engine.

I drilled and tapped the engine mounting plates yesterday and put them back in place this morning and bolted the engine down I still have to fit the stern gland I am hoping that I can remove the coupling from the shaft I managed to remove the two grub screws and there doesn't appear to be any pins through the coupling I will try and pull it off on Monday if not it will mean rigging a beam across the cockpit and lifting the engine high enough to allow the shaft to slide inboard so as to fit the gland up from the outboard end.

I finished up today by sanding some of the locker lids for the aft cabin start another round of varnishing next week.