Our 34 classic maintenance & upgrades

Nice progress, i like the repurposed fiberglass as a backing plate

I will second this. 40 year old copper tubing and valves are a failure waiting to happen. Easy sit down work with the engine out

jleonard said:

Might be time for new fuel hoses/tubing as well.

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I upgraded the fuel system a couple years ago. What I need to do is fill the old screw holes & repaint the bulkhead!

Perkins cooling system

I thought I noticed the temperature creeping up a little higher than normal but I just thought it was time for a raw water pump impeller replacement. I guess I thought wrong! What looked to me ,from the pictures sent to me by the engine tech I was fortunate to get, to be a piece of plastic bag was actually a slimy gel as a consequence of years of antifreeze and the aluminum expansion tank. He also found that the rebuilt circulating pump that I replaced 4-5 years/3-400 hours ago had a slight coolant drip from the weep hole in the pump casting. While I wasn't seeing an appreciable loss in the tank , it wasn't going to get any better!
I suppose that's one way to tell the difference between a mechanic and a technician. While our engine was out to replace the leaking oil seals , this technician took the time to scrutinize the entire engine and not just focus on doing the tasks that I requested (he called/texted me first to get the go-ahead for the repairs that I wasn't expecting). He ,no doubt, saved us a headache or 2 down the road. Or waterway, as it is in this case.

That's scary. Always seems the deeper you go the more you find to do..
Never ends is never truer.

Mine was pretty slimy there as well, on the coolant side when I replaced my expansion tank. It was that bad but sefinely slimy. There was a black mud or slime like buildup on the bottom of the tank too. I would have expected it to be oil sludge but it was heavier than coolant.

What temps were you seeing?

I've not verified the accuracy of the gauges but they show 165º until I run a sustained cruise above 1850 or above for any length of time and then the temp starts rising, which is a recent phenomenon. I feel this will cure the issue but as long as the engine is out of the boat & in front of me, I'm going to replace the impeller anyway. It's on it's 2nd year.

When we had the engines out of our last boat I went ahead and replaced the transmission damper, transmission oil cooler and rebuilt the water pumps just in case. So you are on the right path because it will never be easier to work on the engine that while it is out. Keep up the good work and photos.

I'm on the fence with the dual engine/clutch oil cooler. It's 43 years old but like I mentioned earlier, the boat has spent most of her life in brackish water so the exposed metals really aren't that bad, considering. I'm going to round up some fittings and do a pressure test on it & decide then. If I can get by without spending $375 on a new cooler, I'd be ok with that.
I ,most of the time, keep a little digital camera with me when I'm doing these projects to document them with photos. Most of the time, it's not hard to snap a few pictures while the work is progressing. It's interesting for me to see what projects other folks are doing so I try to reciprocate.

The transmission oil coolers for the Lehmans were only about $150. I guess that was a good deal???

I got tied up doing stuff around the house this morning and by the time I was done, the temperature was well into the 90's and honestly, I just didn't feel like driving 30 minutes to the boatyard to work on the boat in the summer heat. After lounging in the AC, my conscience got the best of me & I felt I had to do something constructive for the boat today so I plumbed up a handy-dandy pressure testing contraption to test the oil cooler.
Hind site, I guess I should've plumbed it so it tested the engine oil and clutch oil sides at once but my brain wasn't functioning too well in the heat. Or maybe I just made a dumb decision but I'll blame it on the heat.
If I get lucky & it remains @ 76lbs all night ,I'll move it to the other cooler & hope for the same luck tomorrow. It sure would be nice to keep some cash in my pocket for a change.
I did impress myself because I wouldn't have been too surprised if one on the many fittings leaked but none did! Yay!

OK, the weather was cooperative today regarding the temperature so I was at the boat first thing with my sleeves rolled up & ready to work! I really wanted to get the thru hull & seacock completed and paint the engine area so that was my plan for the day.
I dry-fitted the thru hull after cutting it to length. It looked good (I was a little concerned that it wouldn't pull up flush because when I glued down the seacock backing plate, I had to grind an overlapping layer of fiberglass mat to make the pad level to the hull. I eyeballed it and it looked ok but if the hull is just a little thinker on one side of the hole than the other ,the fitting wont seat tight to the hull and will probably leak. I got lucky and mine was perfect). Since everything was hunky-dory, I bedded the seacock & thru-hull with Sikaflex 291 adhesive sealant. I've never used this brand before because I'm used to 3M 5200, 4200 etc but they've gotten too proud of their product. Apparently this is the same stuff but for less than $10 for a 10oz tube.

This posting is especially for you, gdavid since you insisted that every intake on a Mainship should have a scoop strainer.
I marked the drill bit and bored all of the holes for the strainer mounting screws. I went around the outside of the scoop with tape mainly so I could judge where I could apply bottom paint on the area covered by the strainer and also keep the excess caulk to a minimum. I painted the inside of the strainer & screwed it down. Or up, in this case.
Commodave, I know you warned me about SS & crevice corrosion & I appreciate your advise but I can't ever remember loosing a strainer because of the fasteners going to hell. I guess because there's so much caulk around the screw, it's pretty much isolated from the water anyway. Even if all of the screws backed out, the 291 would hold it,I guarantee. Now watch, I'll haul out next year & the strainer will be missing...

I'm so happy that the thru-hull job is done since that rinky-dink installation Mainship originally did bugged the crap out of me. It looked stupid, it wasn't even close to correct plus it was getting harder to open & close.
I was done with project before noon so I moved on to cleaning the engine compartment in preparation for my least favorite of all tasks, painting. Last time, after wet/dry vacuuming the bilge, when I attempted to clean the area, I used water, a giant jug of dawn detergent, 2 cans of Ajax, a bucket & a scrub brush. I got kind of frustrated because the brush immediately loaded up with the 40 years of accumulated oily residue. It would not come clean and all I really did was end up spreading the grease around. My new plan, and the correct one, was a big block of paper towels (sorry rain forest but I needed help) and a gallon of Spray Nine. Spray Nine has been around forever and I really don't think there's anything better for tough cleanup jobs. I just kept squirting and wiping with fresh towels and got the room as clean as it's been for years and ready for paint.
In '06 I bought a gallon of Bilgekoat for a Topaz sport fisherman I had. I used about half of it and put the leftover in the shed. That stuff must not have a shelf life since I used it in the bilge of this boat 2 years ago and I used the same can today. Maybe one day I'll finish the gallon off.
The engine area picture isn't too impressive since I cut loose all of the engine wire bundles to paint around but when the shiny blue Perkins goes back in, it'll be suitable for framing.
That new Perko seacock sure does look good with all of that bronze and shiny white paint though!

Damn I'm talkative this evening. I guess I'm in a good mood because I got some things done that needed to be accomplished.
In other good news, I came home to check the other side of the oil cooler that I pressurized this morning before I left. Like the first side, it held pressure so I'm proclaiming it good & reinstalling it when the engine goes back.
Also, when I got home, the 2 ACR electronic safety light things I ordered came. One for our Mainship & one for our Carolina Skiff. No more having to buy expensive 3-packs of flares any longer! Now all I have to do is buy 4 C-cell batteries for the ACR lights. Who in the heck uses C-cells for anything? We've got a drawer full of AA's & AAA's and some D's but I can't think of the last time I needed a C-cell,until now.

I have migrated to Sika products. I used to use all 3M but I like the Sika much better since I have tried it. Your paint job looks great.

boomerang said:

This posting is especially for you, gdavid since you insisted that every intake on a Mainship should have a scoop strainer. ..

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Nice, I will rest easy tonight

My boat has been neglected for the past week, we took a family vacation to Nags Head for the week, got in late friday and spent yesterday catching up on chores so this afternoon I ran out for a couple hours to stretch my boat's sea legs a bit and caught a lone spanish mackeral along the way.

I'll kick back with a beer and enjoy the rest of your posts now.

Great work !!
I'm waiting for my son to make me a couple wrench's so I can tighten the prop shaft packing. He has a metal mill. Did get a webcam to set in the bilge so I can see the packing nuts.
Supposed to rain all week. Probably not going to the boat.

I went to the boat today but don't feel like I got a lot done. I didn't get to reassemble the bell housing ,starter & cooler because I left the bag with the bell housing mounting bolts at the shop where I had the engine work done. Dumb me. On the engine, I did replace the secondary fuel filter ,install the new clutch damper plate ,paint the engine mounts & oil cooler/filter assembly so it wasn't total loss.
On the boat I re-bundled & re-secured the wires & fuel line that were fastened to the stringers. I also installed a new Rule 33 float switch & Rule 1500 pump since the access will never be easier. The old pump went into the spares box.
I painted the area under the engine down to the keel which the whole area a clean look.
I guess tomorrow I'll start polishing the hull but I'm not looking forward to that task!

Motor looks great Shawn, I may have missed it in an earlier post but was there any evidence of one big oil leak or just a combination of small leaks?

I asked my guy who did the work what he saw and he said the rear seal was weeping as was the valve cover gasket (which I didn't notice because it was leaking down behind the exhaust manifold) but the big culprit was the pan gasket. There was obvious evidence that it was leaking pretty severely. He also adjusted the valves while the cover was off, which was something that I've been putting off. Hopefully we'll be good with no leaks for a while now.

Well damn if this doesn't suck! Sunday I want to the boat determined to figure out how to use the power buffer I bought to polish the boat. After a few sections, I kind of have the routine down, I believe. While it is nowhere near as good as a skilled person can do, I'm happy. I equate the task to sanding sheetrock on a ceiling...there just is no comfortable position. I did about half of one side, again, not perfect and it's a little swirly but at least the chalky gel coat is getting sealed and hopefully the brown waterway mustache wont be so prominent this time. If you look real close in the picture, you can see where I quit polishing and the before & after difference. If I have the energy, I feel a 2nd buffing will make it look much better with less splotches. We'll see how that goes.

Here's the sucky part. I was planning on taking a couple of days off this week to finish the polishing debacle & to reassemble the engine, hopefully reinstalling it. Well, that didn't work out too well. I wasn't feeling 100% Monday & by that night I felt like crap. Tuesday was worse and Wednesday was horrible. I'm pretty sure I've caught the much-hyped covid flu virus that's turned the world upside down. There was a 3-day backlog to get tested, which is absolutely ridiculous to me. I'm glad they call themselves urgent care.
All of my symptoms are indicating I've got it, which ,again, is really ridiculous since I was more or less told by the corporation where I'm employed that I had to get the miracle shots this spring. A lot of good they did. Now I'm hearing the shots lesson the symptoms but that wasn't what they were telling me when the jabbed me twice.

Enough of that rant The good news is , as per my company, I have to quarantine for 10 days so I'm thinking that ,while today I don't have the stamina to tie my shoes, I should be well enough by Saturday to be quarantined while working on our boat! I guess there's a silver lining to this temporary storm cloud after all.

If you don't end up in the hospital with your covid case, thank your corporation for insisting you get poked.

Scoop strainers: I installed one on my air conditioner with scoop oriented forward on the off chance it helps the cooling water flow while underway/anchored in a current, etc. If I put any on generator or main engine intakes they face aft - towing the boat could result in catastrophe other wise.

Best wishes and get well quick !

Good luck and hopefully you will get over it quickly.

Thank you guys kindly for the well wishes. Libations taste like E10 unleaded but otherwise, I'm fine.

boomerang said:

Thank you guys kindly for the well wishes. Libations taste like E10 unleaded but otherwise, I'm fine.

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Actually had it in March 2020 before anyone knew what was happening. Boat was hauled at the time also and I continued to finish repacking shaft log and rudder post and sanding/repainting bottom. I thought I had a sinus infection. Felt yucky, had little energy, but suffered through. Wish you the best.

By the way, just bought a Mark I, so am following your thread with great interest!

I went to the boat again today to start reassembling the engine. I bolted the bellhousing & starter & reinstalled the oil cooler & filter assembly. The good thing was the painting I did to touch up the engine dried in like 30 seconds in today's sun & heat.

I worked all day yesterday on waxing the port side of the hull and it still looked like I used a Hershey bar for polish instead of wax. It was about a waste of time other than at least the gelcoat was sealed but there wasn't much of a pleasing shine. For the condition of the gelcoat on our boat, it really needs to be compounded and then waxed. The concept of polishing compound and wax in one step ,while sounding like a time-saving concept, it isn't at all ,in our case. The hull is going to a lot of elbow grease before it's acceptable. Attached is a small section done correctly by someone who knows what they're doing when it comes to boat finishes, which is NOT me!

I'm still waiting on the clutch to be gone through so I can reassemble that to the engine and then reinstall the engine in the boat. I'd really like to get that behind me but other than that, a coat of bottom paint is about all that's left to do.

I bought one of Shurholds polishers and the Buff Magic to polish our hull where the old name was. It is pretty easy to do and came out very nice.

Progress is slow on our beloved Mainship! I did replace the lower helm clutch cable since the jacket was rusted through in one place. It was a cakewalk with the engine out but we're past ready to get the engine back in already! While I was replacing the cable, the boatyard was steam-cleaning our clutch in preparation for replacing the seals & clutches. I took that as a good sign & that things were moving forward, until today when I got the news that the mechanic that was doing the repairs is now out sick. Geez. I'm about ready to do it myself but I'll try to be patient and hopefully it isn't serious and he wont be out long.
I took advantage of the help I had available and we went ahead & got the bottom painted, at least. Small steps forward are better than none at all, I reckon.
Oh, after all of the warnings and horror stories from fellow 34 owners I've heard, I did pay special attention to the garboard drain that we have in the keel. All was well but I do appreciate the heads up. Better safe than sorry!