Bilge pumps

Another short working week this week and the weather has been pretty poor however I managed to rebuild the saloon bilge pump with new diaphragm and valves.

Saloon bilge pump

The keen eyed amongst you will of course have noticed that a couple more hose clips are required to complete the bilge pump installation.

When I installed the discharge hose for the engine space bilge pump I assumed that as the skin fitting was on the starboard side the hose would be a straight run from the starboard side hose connection on the bilge pump but on stripping the pump this turned out to be a wrong assumption. This pump is hung from the underside of the cockpit floor and to end up with the pump discharge on the starboard side it was only a matter of removing two bolts and inverting the pump however the two bolts were proving to be obstinate and with there not being a lot of room I decided to remove the whole pump.

Engine space bilge pump

The mounting bolt holes turned out to have nylon bushes with the bolts being a tight fit in fact I had to drive them out.

Nylon bushes moved to new position to allow inversion of the pump body

Old pump valves from engine space pump

Old pump diaphragms

The old valves were removed and the parts cleaned up ready for reassembly with new valves the suction and discharge valves bot utilise the same rubber flap except that the discharge valve is fitted to a frame and inverted. The service kit includes new screws for securing the valves the four short screws are for securing the flap valves and the four longer screws are for securing the discharge valve frame.

New suction valve fitted discharge valve on the left

The above photograph shows the pump after being inverted to bring the discharge hose connection to the starboard side and both new valves fitted it just needs the new diaphragm fitting and then replacing in position which will be the first job on Monday.

In between working on the two pumps I resealed a couple of the leaking toe rail bolts using penny washers and some closed cell neoprene tape just need another rainy day know to test the repairs.

Bilge pumps and lighting

It was always going to be a busy week but I did manage to get a couple of days work in, I was hoping to be able to get back to outside work but although the weather has warmed up it has been far too damp to even think about painting. I did spend some time scraping the flaking paint from the starboard side of the aft cabin I don't know what type of paint it is but the flakes are white at the front and black at the back, possibly some sort of anti condensation coating, but it all needs to be removed before attaching the lining carpet.

New Morning has two Whale Gusher 10 mark 2 bilge pumps one in the engine space the other in a saloon locker both require attention the diaphragms have gone hard and the valves will probably need replacing, fortunately the service kits for the current mark 3 pumps have the required parts to fit the earlier model it appears that it is only the valves that are different, so while in the local chandlers recently I picked up a service kit with the intention of stripping both pumps and overhauling them. I only bought one service kit on the assumption that at least one of the pumps could be made serviceable. On stripping the saloon pump I found the clamping arrangement for the diaphragm to be in very poor condition but the rest of the pump should be fit for further service.

Clamping bolt for the diaphragm

Clamping nut

Replacement parts

The clamping arrangement is made of aluminium with what appears to be a plastic coating and as can be seen from the photograph the coating had gone and the aluminium nut was heavily corroded. The pump in the engine space was in a much better condition such that I have decided to refurbish both pumps and on consulting the ASAP Supplies website I found that spares are available for the clamping arrangement albeit at a price, it also comes with the two circular plates that fit either side of the diaphragm I don't really need these but it will still be cheaper than replacing the entire pump so I sent an order to ASAP Supplies on Tuesday evening and the goods arrived today, the usual excellent service from this company.

Last weekend the weather turned out to be much too cold for varnishing but I did find some 12 volt led spotlights to fit over the berths in the saloon, forward and aft cabins, six were duly ordered and these arrived on Tuesday so Wednesday was spent installing and wiring them. They have a touch sensor switch which gives two levels of light the first a blue halo night light around the switch and the second brings on the main leds. Unfortunately the rest of the night lighting in the saloon and heads is red but at the moment the saloon spotlights are wired such that they will not operate when the red night vision lighting is in use but this can be easily changed by swapping a couple of spade connections.

Night light

Main light

The one downside of these fittings is that I don't think that the leds are replaceable but given their supposed long service life hopefully at my age they should outlast me.

Aft cabin

I have had a distraction or two this week but I have managed to move the aft cabin refit along a bit further I finished with the internal moulding on the port side by removing all the old paint from the bottom of the port side lockers. Once this was complete I had a sort through the pile of timber which had been dumped down here most of it in case it comes in useful some of it was not worth keeping so has been dumped the rest moved over to the port side so that I could make a start on the starboard side the internal moulding was cleaned up and any paint removed before giving it a going over with some wet and dry paper which has cleaned it all up quite nicely. Next I went for a trial fit of the aft locker front panel as with the port side it proved to be a tight fit.

Starboard side panel trial fit

Moulding after clean up

Aft cabin

There are a couple of persistent little rainwater leaks from the bolts securing the toe rail which will have to be addressed before anything else is done and the two forward panels require the timber trim around the door openings to be varnished which will be this weekends homework project.

I have been having a rethink on the forward cabin lockers as previously posted the front panels are a really poor fit and I was going to make new ones however after looking at various brokers photographs of Moody 33 yachts for sale it would appear that on the later mark 1 and the mark 2 boats the locker front panels do not come all the way down to the internal moulding they stop short by approximately 10 to 12 inches. Now as there was originally an internal shelf which left an odd shaped void space between the underside of the shelf and the internal moulding which was of no use to man nor beast and leaving out the shelf wouldn't improve the situation. I have therefore decided to follow the later design which means I can trim up the original panels to suit, this will save at least one new sheet of plywood. To this end I trimmed the top edges of the panels so that they were all level and then cut the required amount from the bottom edge this had the added advantage of removing some minor damage to the lower corners. There are no pictures I am afraid but there are pictures of the panels showing the poor fit on an earlier post. I intend to paint these panels white as for the aft cabin and then add some varnished timber trim, painting will be the next homework project after the aft cabin panels are complete.

That about wraps up this weeks efforts next week will be a short working week I expect due to Christmas so it remains for me to say bah humbug to all my readers.

Inclement weather this week

The week started cold and bright however on Monday morning the boat was running with water from the previous nights heavy dew I did eventually manage to give all the new undercoat a light sanding and wash down and then retired inside to continue with wrapping the wiring and when I ran out of materials I set to and installed the cables through to the aft cabin for the stern navigation light and the aft cabin lighting. On Wednesday the temperature was high enough to put a coat of 'Toplac' on the transom and a second coat of 'Prekote' on the areas where the fibreglass repairs had been carried out.

Transom after first coat of 'Toplac'

The next task was to permanently attach the solar panel to the hatch garage I gave the area and the back of the panel a light sanding to provide a key for the adhesive then cleaned both with acetone before applying a generous bead of PU40 and pressing the panel down, I used a couple of weights to make sure the panel followed the camber of the hatch garage, and then left it to cure. To finish off the day on Wednesday I made a start on sorting the aft cabin the current homework project to refurbish the aft cabin woodwork has been slowly progressing over the last few weekends and has reached the point that I can start refitting the aft cabin. Up to now it has been used as a bit of a glory hole where stuff has been dumped for possible future use also as a paint/epoxy store so all in all it was in a bit of a mess. To start with I moved all the timber paint etc to the starboard side so that I could make a start on the port side. Over the next week or so the intention is to sort through the pile and anything not deemed to be of immediate use will be removed to my garage. Once the port side was clear the first job was to remove all the paint/varnish splashes from the berth moulding using a scraper and some fine wet and dry paper it has come up quite well it just requires polishing the locker lids will require a light sanding to remove the paint splashes and then a coat of varnish, they were all re varnished earlier on in the project.

Berth moulding after clean up

Today dawned bright and dry but it was far too cold to even consider painting even though the International Paints data sheet indicates that 'Toplac' can be applied at temperatures down to 5 degrees C it was not forecast to get above that all day and tonight's temperature is forecast as below freezing so it was back to the aft cabin. Once the clean up was complete I moved on to trial fit the port aft panel this one proved to be a much better fit than those of the fore cabin, I haven't done anything more with those yet, in fact the port aft one proved to be quite a tight fit I hope the rest prove to be likewise. I still need to paint and refit the locker doors and it looks as though I shall have to make some new shelves as the originals seem to be missing its not a major job but with the curve of the hull to fit it's always nice to have the originals for a pattern whatever condition they may be in. The intention is to line the hull sides with some of the van lining carpet it is great stuff for this type of thing as it has a high degree of flexibility in all directions and it has the added advantage of helping prevent condensation on the hull sides.

Port aft panel in place

Once the panel was in place I could mark up for the timbers to attach the panel to the aft bulkhead and underneath the deckhead these were then cut and secured in place with self tapping screws. Next weeks weather doesn't look particularly promising as far as painting is concerned so the plan is to continue in the aft cabin.

Wiring

This is going to be another of those short posts the very cold damp weather this week has meant that outside work has been brought to a stop for the time being. This week has been spent working inside on the electrical system the majority of the wiring had already been installed with most of the electrical/electronics operational however the wiring for the lighting on the starboard side of the heads, the aft cabin and the saloon reading lamps was still outstanding. The heads lighting wiring has now been completed together with the wiring for the port and starboard navigation lights and the saloon reading lamps. I have made a start on the tidying up and securing of the wiring using spiral wrap sleeving to protect and tidy the cables where they pass through lockers it is a bit of a slow process wrapping it round cables particularly on longer runs but it does tidy things up quite nicely.

Cables in the forward cabin in the process of wrapping

Note the spade terminal block in the top right of the photograph this where the supply to the port and starboard navigation lights is split I have used a number of these blocks in the installation of the wiring where more than one device is supplied from a single circuit in my view a better solution than using chocolate block connectors.

Heads locker cables

The above photograph shows the spade terminal blocks installed in the void space above the quarter berth these are for lighting distribution. As this area will eventually be enclosed the cables will be tie wrapped to tidy things up.

That about wraps up this week next week if the weather is agreeable the plan is to go back to exterior work but the plan 'B' is to wire out the aft cabin once the wiring is out of the way I can begin the reinstatement of the lockers in the forward and aft cabins installation of the wiring is so much easier when you are not trying to work through small openings.