Once we had got over the shock of having to buy a new engine rather than re-conditioning our 40 year old girl that had already been re-conditioned once, the next stage was to decide which engine to buy.
With Bob's advice we trawled the internet and finally settled for a Beta 50, a Kubota based engine adapted for maritime use by Beta Marine in Gloucester. It was going to take four weeks to arrive.
Before making our way home for a welcoming break, Moonshadow was lifted from her sea berth onto land in order to inspect the prop and start the work of dismantling the engine.
This was an amazing experience like taking the guts out of a body. Bob and Anders disappeared into the depths of the engine room where spanners were clinking, bolts were flying and hammers were banging.
The head came off and wiring, hoses and the shaft were disconnected as were the engine mountings. The compass, steering binnacle and crash bar were loosened off and the cockpit floor and damp head lining were removed.
This gave us the immediate solution to the disaster. Damp had been leaking in via the cockpit floor and when Anders took the injectors home to have them re-conditioned, the leak found its way into the engine and proved fatal.
It took six weeks for the engine to finally arrive at Sant Carles, so in the meantime we took a welcome recovery break at home.
When Anders returned to Moonshadow with Bob on June 24, not surprisingly, there was no sign of the engine. He chased up the delivery company who first said they had no record of the engine being sent!
Thankfully this was a total red herring and the engine delivery was promised for Friday. It finally arrived at 6pm that evening on a pallet in a box van with a driver who had no means of unloading it. And more to the point was very uninterested in doing so!
Luckily Anders had met up with two yacht delivery drivers who helped to drag the engine within its wooden box onto a pallet that was raised to the right level by wooden blocks.
There it stayed until Monday while Bob and Anders stripped the old insulation out and cleaned the bilge. The engine bed was re-built and a new spacer, manufactured by a local engineering firm, was fitted between the prop shaft and gear box. New insulation and sound proofing for the engine room was sourced from a UK company and actually arrived within the promised five days.
All the water pipes in the engine room were renewed and the hot water tank was renovated and painted. On installation it was necessary to reposition periphery engine equipment such as the sea water strainer, anti siphon valve and the domestic water pump. The accumulator tank was refitted and clipped securely, rather than tied with string!
Surplus cabling was removed and the rest of the cabling was traced through and securely clipped to bulk heads.
The cockpit floor which had previously been supported by a large piece of plywood , was instead strengthened by glass fibre and sheets of 18mm ply. This work was completed by a local contractor who gave Anders an unexpected surprise when we found the panels had been securely fibred to the concrete floor of the boat yard! It took Anders a day to chip them away and file them down!
The whole job was completed by July 13. It had been a massive project conducted in stifling temperatures in a small cramped engine room.
With Bob's advice we trawled the internet and finally settled for a Beta 50, a Kubota based engine adapted for maritime use by Beta Marine in Gloucester. It was going to take four weeks to arrive.
Before making our way home for a welcoming break, Moonshadow was lifted from her sea berth onto land in order to inspect the prop and start the work of dismantling the engine.
This was an amazing experience like taking the guts out of a body. Bob and Anders disappeared into the depths of the engine room where spanners were clinking, bolts were flying and hammers were banging.
The head came off and wiring, hoses and the shaft were disconnected as were the engine mountings. The compass, steering binnacle and crash bar were loosened off and the cockpit floor and damp head lining were removed.
This gave us the immediate solution to the disaster. Damp had been leaking in via the cockpit floor and when Anders took the injectors home to have them re-conditioned, the leak found its way into the engine and proved fatal.
It took six weeks for the engine to finally arrive at Sant Carles, so in the meantime we took a welcome recovery break at home.
When Anders returned to Moonshadow with Bob on June 24, not surprisingly, there was no sign of the engine. He chased up the delivery company who first said they had no record of the engine being sent!
Thankfully this was a total red herring and the engine delivery was promised for Friday. It finally arrived at 6pm that evening on a pallet in a box van with a driver who had no means of unloading it. And more to the point was very uninterested in doing so!
Luckily Anders had met up with two yacht delivery drivers who helped to drag the engine within its wooden box onto a pallet that was raised to the right level by wooden blocks.
There it stayed until Monday while Bob and Anders stripped the old insulation out and cleaned the bilge. The engine bed was re-built and a new spacer, manufactured by a local engineering firm, was fitted between the prop shaft and gear box. New insulation and sound proofing for the engine room was sourced from a UK company and actually arrived within the promised five days.
All the water pipes in the engine room were renewed and the hot water tank was renovated and painted. On installation it was necessary to reposition periphery engine equipment such as the sea water strainer, anti siphon valve and the domestic water pump. The accumulator tank was refitted and clipped securely, rather than tied with string!
Surplus cabling was removed and the rest of the cabling was traced through and securely clipped to bulk heads.
The cockpit floor which had previously been supported by a large piece of plywood , was instead strengthened by glass fibre and sheets of 18mm ply. This work was completed by a local contractor who gave Anders an unexpected surprise when we found the panels had been securely fibred to the concrete floor of the boat yard! It took Anders a day to chip them away and file them down!
The whole job was completed by July 13. It had been a massive project conducted in stifling temperatures in a small cramped engine room.
Well done Bob and Anders!
