Another milestone passed

I did not post last week as I was away on a sailing trip but I did get the saloon washboards glued up and sanded ready for finishing before I left. I used thickened epoxy to glue the parts together after cleaning with acetone and priming the joints with straight epoxy.

Washboards sanded ready for finishing

This week I had decided to get the engine up and running but before I could do that I spent some time trying to get the oil pressure gauge working when switching on the engine panel the gauge went full scale. After checking out the wiring it appeared that there was a problem with connections somewhere so I cut off the end of the cable at the pressure sender and crimped on some new insulated female spade connectors an voila the oil pressure gauge went to zero pressure on switching on. 

After putting some fuel in the tank and venting the fuel system I managed to get the engine to start and run at idle speed I could not let it run for too long as I needed a raw water supply to cool the exhaust however I was satisfied with the way it ran there is a small fuel leak to repair and an oil leak on the gearbox control valve, this engine has a hydraulic gearbox, it looks like a case of new gaskets for the control valve which is as far as I can see a fairly simple operation.

Today I rigged up a water supply to the raw water side of the cooling system and fitted the raw water pump impeller. The raw water supply was a fresh water hose into a bucket with a temporary hose from the raw water pump into the bucket I would not connect the water supply hose direct to the raw water pump as it is possible to flood the engine through the exhaust elbow. The engine started straight away once I had remembered to push the engine stop knob back to the run position. I found that at idle speed the supply hose would fill the bucket so every so often I had to give the engine a bit more throttle to stop the bucket overflowing.

Engine running and pumping water

Again the engine ran well with no smoking I ran it for over an hour and it came up to operating temperature and after lubricating the cutlass bearing with some washing up liquid I tried ahead and astern gears without any problems. The oil pressure gauge went back to showing a full scale deflection again but after moving the wiring harness about it reverted to showing the oil pressure although it reads 87psi which is a bit on the high side the book says 30-60psi at maximum revs and normal operating temperature, in light of the problems experienced with the gauge I tend to think that this is a gauge malfunction sometime I will completely rewire the gauge, it is of course possible that the gauge and sender are not compatible as the sender I believe is original but at sometime the gauge head has been replaced albeit with a VDO manufactured unit. 

The alternator seems to be functioning correctly and charging the battery once the revs are increased above 1000rpm.

Revs increased above 1000rpm battery charging

Apart from a couple of minor leaks I now have an operational engine which is the next major milestone along this project which is very satisfying given that I had not seen the engine run when I bought the boat. In between working on the engine I managed to get a couple of coats of International Woodskin on the saloon washboards I was hoping to get the final coat on today but the weather was not going to play ball so I will complete them at home this weekend.

Saloon washboards awaiting final coat

I have been using International Woodskin for sometime on exterior bright work as I find it is a lot more durable than varnish I doesn't have the deep gloss of varnish but it is a lot less work which I can live with.