The engine delivers us a nasty surprise...
Niord's Big Adventure
Tony Gratton
Thu 20 Jul 2023 18:47
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Wednesday 19/07/2023 Povoa de Varzim
Foggy today. Lasted until late afternoon until finally
banished by the howling North wind. A good day for checking engine alignment,
but first onto more pressing matters. Need to order some hen's teeth. Followed
up the first supplier with a phone call. Answered by a surly chap who insisted
he was very busy, and had a lot of emails to trawl through. When Tony also said
he needed some extra hen's teeth to put in the worm drive holes, he asked for a
second email, and promised to put it at the top of his list. Seems like we've
heard this before somewhere. Everyone is busy, but nothing ever gets done!
Obviously no go there, so try the second supplier. Couldn't have been more
different. Very obliging thank you, and yes, we can ship to Portugal. Good oh!
Card details given, and the order made. Order confirmation pops up, and with it
confirmation from the first supplier, who have grade 8 as opposed to grade 5 for
the initiated, so we decide to place an order with them, as theirs are actually
cheaper. They quoted us for ordinary nuts with spring washers as well as nyloc,
but it's only a few quid, and better to have too much than not enough. The
delivery charge was five times the cost of the goods, but delivery promised for
tomorrow. Now we have two FedEx packages winging our way.
Back to the engine alignment. After much huffing and
puffing, the shaft flange, I can hear Jill yawning already, is disconnected and
measurements made. Tony only has a metric feeler gauge set on board which he
chucked in at the last minute. Looks like a slight gap to port. Damn, it's out
of the tolerance range! Decide on plan A, which is to install the new bolts and
get everythng firmed up, then see if another one shears, as we will have plenty
of spares, before going back to engine alignment, as it's a pig to do lateral
alignment, and we don't have a crowbar on board. Whyever not, I hear you ask?
'Fraid we left it at home with the kitchen sink...
Just about to pack up for the day when I decide to check
the engine mounts. Put my hand on the one beneath the raw water pump, and it
comes away with liquid on it... Bad news. Check it further, and sure enough
there is a salt trail between the vanes with a drip at the end, and a little
rusty reservoir of salt water on the engine mount. My jaw hits the cabin floor.
This is a brand new pump with less than 50-hours on it, replacing the 20-odd
year old one which was a bit worn but never leaked... Left that at home as
the risk assessment said we would never need the old one, and don't have room
for it anyway. Oh yes, the engineer never turned up
either!
Morale is at a new low. We're never going to escape this
godforsaken place! Cheered ourselves up with a massive ice-cream at our
favourite ice-cream parlour before turning in.
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