[Public-List] Another confession...

[Mike Meinhold via Public-List]

Good story Gordon - now make sure you address all those other potential
problems you had identified before you found the immediate culprit!  I know
I have at least one questionable plywood backing plate..

Mike
Rinn Duin #272

On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 9:53 AM, Gordon Laco via Public-List <
public-list at lists.alberg30.org> wrote:

> Hello gang,
>
>
>
> Well I hope what I just put myself through is both enlightening and
> entertaining.  Here’s another confession.
>
>
>
> Last year I noticed that occasionally I’d find a lot of water in
> SURPRISE’s bilges.  Having been a wooden boat person and still deep down
> identifying with that crowd, I made it a point of honour not to hit the
> panic button about ‘a little water’.  Fibre glass boat people do that, not
> wooden boat people.
>
>
>
> The issue steadily got worse.  Then winter haulout came and and I could
> forget about it… this spring when SURPRISE went back in the drink.  You’ve
> already read about her mysterious ability to fill her bilges while still
> ashore and the cause of that… well once she was in the water, I found that
> her bilges would fill after about a week.  The problem was worse if we’d
> run the engine, and really much worse if we ran the engine a lot, such as
> two weeks ago when we went up the coast on Canada Day weekend.
>
>
>
> I began imagining what was wrong.  I wondered if I had a through hull
> going bad… did I really bed them all properly when I replaced them all?
> Yes I think I did… then perhaps I should have replaced more of the ancient
> wooden backing plates on them… such as the one way down there that serves
> the engine cooling intake.  Damn, it seemed OK but I should have replaced
> it.   Then there’s the old #10 sized bolt holes from the long-gone VDO
> knotmeter sender… I closed those up by cutting threads in the holes and
> putting larger machine screws into them, with a slap of caulk on top.  I
> knew I should have epoxy’d them up properly… why did I cut a corner like
> that…  but what about the engine in the equation… why did it seem to leak
> more after the engine had been running?  Maybe I have a rusted out engine
> manifold!  Oh how will I ever get that off without removing the engine… I
> don’t want to face that…    and so on and so on.
>
>
>
> All this thinking going on of course when the boat was not accessable to
> me… I was on a business trip.  Why did I not start thinking seriously about
> this earlier?  I’m a wooden boat guy, a little water is nothing… or is it….
>
>
>
> So, yesterday, I went down to the boat armed with a fresh roll of paper
> towel determined to find the leak.   The day before I’d pumped the full
> bilge dry and left the cabin sole up so that things would dry out down
> there… my wise wooden boat technique for finding a leak was to wipe various
> surfaces and fittings to see if they are wet, and if I find wet, to wipe
> THAT and see from which direction the wet fills in again.
>
>
>
> Engine manifold… dry.   All through hulls, dry and backing plates dry and
> hard (all nuts up tight too)  All hoses, dry.  Knotmeter and depth sounder
> senders… dry.   Hmmm.
>
>
>
> I looked at the stuffing box again and it appeared dry as usual.   Dry?
> Where is the drip?  I wriggled in over the engine to get my face closer and
> pushed the bilge pump suction and air blower suction each out of the way….
> AHA!  No drip… rather a steady 3/16” diameter pisser of water coming in
> through the stuffing box. An apparent ‘tube’ of water with no flutter…
> Solid enough that there was no tinkling sound, and hidden by the hoses.
>
>
>
> Out came the channel-lock plyers.  I squirted a little ‘Liquid Wrench’ on
> the threads of the stuffing box, backed off the retaining ring nut… turned
> in the main end nut till I had the proscribed drip every four or five
> seconds… tighten retainer back up.  Done.
>
>
>
> Pleased with myself?  Yup.   Should I have looked at this first (and
> regularly as a matter of course)  Yup.
>
>
>
> Onwards,
>
>
>
> Gord #426 Surprise
>
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