Rebuilding the Starboard Engine

It's Saturday night, August 9, and I'm in Plattsburg, NY, ready to cross the border into Canada first thing tomorrow morning. Ran into lots of traffic this morning between Baltimore and Albany, so lost about 3 hours of productive driving. Should have no trouble getting to Rimouski tomorrow afternoon. We will start the rebuild process on Monday. 

Back in Rimouski and things are going pretty much as planned. Weather has been raw and rainy, kinda glad we're not cruising! Have the galley ripped apart and the floor pulled up. Today, Tuesday, August 12 have the old engine disassembled down to having the exhaust manifolds removed. Will meet with the mechanic in the morning to discuss what else needs to come off before we pull out the old engine.  

         Once all parts are off, sripped to the block, it is ready to come out. Things are going real slow. Mechanic has contracts with many good customers for emergency breakdown service. When one of them calls, he goes and I sit. So as of Wednesday, August 20 the engine has been moved to the companionway door.

Mechanic took care of another customer on Thursday so nothing more has been done and no phone call to tell me anything would happen on Friday. So I have left the boat and have driven to Torch Lake Michigan to join Claria, both of our kids, all four grandkids, and my sister and brotherinlaw who are visiting from St. Micheal's, MD. Have had a wonderfull weekend. L to R, Claria, daughter Mary, Captain Chuck, and sister Mary. Below, our kids Mary and Will. Hard to say what Will is trying to tell us. Will be in Michigan for a couple of more days before heading back to Rimouski to deal with the boat. I returned to Rimouski on Labor Day. Did get some scafolding erected today, Tuesday September 2. Hope we can finish the rigging tomorrow and get the old engine out of the boat.

Had a great day today, Thursday, September 4. With the rigging all set,

we moved the old engine out of the boat. We were concerned that the weight of the block, about 1000#, was to much to set on the sun deck, which is directly over the master suite. So we flew the engine accross the deck,

through the side door and dropped it to the ground.

We then loaded it onto Albert's trailer for the trip to his shop, about a mile away.

We started assemble on the replacement engine to get it ready for a test run. Once it's  ready to go, we have to dissassemble it back down to the block to get it back into the      

                          boat, then put it back together. WALA! We have an 

engine that runs! Today, Monday, September 8 we successfully test ran a rebuilt engine from the block I purchased in Florida and our old engine. Test was very rewarding, the beast roared like a tiger, and ran nice and smooth. So, we will finish cleaning it up, repainting, dissasemble and put it back in the boat. By the end of the week we should be moving the block back into the boat. Well things have slowed down again. After our successfull test run, we decided to drop the pan and confirm all was good. All was not good, we found 4 gear teeth and one 0.026 gap gage which had appearently been dropped through the timing gears by a previous mechanic. So now we have replaced the gears with the gears from the old engine. We also found one bad crank shaft bearing so we are replacing all the bearings on the crank shaft. On Thursaday, Albert, my mechanic went off to take care of another customer so no work has been done until today, Sunday, September 14, we put in three hours continuing to clean up the block and pan for painting. Albert seems to think we can paint tomorrow and start moving the engine back into the boat, my guess is that we won't start back in until Tuesday. Meantime, Claria is still in Michigan. She will take care of Mary and Petes girls next weekend while they go to Pewaukee, WI to sail the E boat with Pete's brother Steve in the annual Blue Chip Regatta, a championship of champions regatta by invitation only. Then she plans on coming back to the boat on Monday, getting here on Tuesday, September 23. Hopefully 3 or 4 days after she gets here we can be all winterized and packed up so we can head home. WE ARE READY TO GO HOME! It's Wednesday evening, Sept. 17, and the engine block sits on the engine mounts bolted up to the transmission. Now we have a couple of days work putting the rest of the engine together, heads, blower box, alternator, fresh water pump, raw water pump, fuel pump, and lots of plumbing. We should have the beast running by this weekend. WALA WALA!! The engine runs in the boat. During the test run today, Saturday, Sept. 20, we discovered a leaking gasket in the oil filter plumbing, which we will fix tomorrow. Then we can clean up the mess we have made and I can put the floor back in and move the galley cabinet back into it's correct location. We're hoping to be headed toward's home on Saturday, Sept. 27.

We're home, how great it is! We did finish wrapping up the boat in the cold Rimouski rain on Saturday, and left town about 3:00 PM for our treck home. The truck was loaded to the gills. We stopped for a day of rest and relaxation at St. Micheal's, MD at the home of my sister Mary and brother-in-law Jack. Of course we went boating on their trawler, after all we are Gorgen's! Arrived home about 8:30 PM Tuesday evening, Sept. 30.

We will head back up to Rimouski about the middle of June next summer. Check back and see how we are doing.