Originally Posted by
BradC
When dad died last year, my brother and I inherited half a boat each. It seems like I inherited the half that requires the maintenance.
Got back from 8 days at Rottnest this afternoon. This started in August when I sent him a photo of a coolant leak and asked "Can you get your mechanic to take a look at this". Fast forward to November and I called the mechanic myself, he was rude and dismissive "I said I'd get around to it in a week or so". So, down we go to whip the heat exchangers off, order a pile of new seals and go back to spend a day cleaning up the mess and putting it all back together.
I thought Landrover prices were rich, but $450 in O-rings for a pair of heat exchangers knocked me a little. The 2 o-rings that go between the two cooler shells were $70 each! Then I had to replace the external sea water hoses on the genny, get the genny battery sorted and get it all running. All good for the holidays.
Cue 27th of Dec and off we go. Half a day on the mooring the gen refuses to fire up entirely. Someone did some work on it in 2023 and buggered an earth cable, so spent an hour diagnosing and working around that. The gen has a very peculiar (it's Italian) electrical system where the block is galvanically isolated and the starter ground goes through an additional solenoid and "short-fat" cable. Had a look in the main bilge to find a hundred or so litres of water and the starboard shaft seal leaking. Had a closer look at the shaft seals to find the bellows on them perished to buggery. Dig out the manual which says "Replace bellows every 6-8 years". These are 25+ years old now. Did a quick in-water clean of the starboard seal to stop it leaking and bail water out of bilge, sent an e-mail to the local service agent for the seals with a "we need to address this asap, so please let me know when you're back at work. If I don't respond I've gone down with the ship". Wife complains cupboards in state room smell like a sewer. Went to bed.
28th of Dec. Sent other occupants of boat to shore so I could pull apart the "waste system" and investigate smell. Flushed the pipes as best as I could with fresh water, but still copped a face full of effluent when I pulled the diverter valve to bits. Cleaned that up, cleaned me up, serviced the valve and then broke an optical position sensor off the electric valve actuator rendering it royally ****ed. Screwed around with the valve actuator for an hour or so, called my brother and had him swing past Altronics for some optical bits and bobs, then put them on the ferry for me. Put valve back together in "manual mode" (operate with a pair of multi-grips), cleaned up the remainder of the sprayed around effluent and opened a beer. Collected parts from ferry after chasing them across three boats to find out which one the envelope was on (sorry, we forgot to load it, it'll be on the next boat), did the worlds dodgiest electronic repair of the actuator, put it together and went to bed in disgust. Manual for diverter valve says "Clean and lubricate annually". It's been in since 2014 and never been touched, which explains the slow leak of excrement into the front bilge. The O-ring was as dry as and looking pretty worn. Luckily had some silicone dilectric grease in the tool bag which seemed to help short-term.
29th of Dec. Got sick of burning my arse with the backboard shower, so pulled apart the mixer to find the cold water line blocked. Cleared that out and had a beer to celebrate something actually going right. No more water in the bilge either and generator starts properly. Feeling a bit better about life.
30th and 31st of Dec, nothing went really wrong. Noticed some water in the bilge under the generator, so sponged that dry. Had a beer to celebrate.
1st of Jan, water in bilge again. Pulled the covers off the gen and noticed what looked like a drip from the pipe that runs from the raw water pump to the HX. Checked the hose clip and made a note to replace the hose. Sewer smell was returning so increased the water flow to/through the toilet until I can get a service kit for the diverter valve. Found a source and ordered service kit. Had several beers and a scotch to numb the pain.
2nd of Jan, woke to mostly flat batteries. Mr 11 year old had left a pile of devices and lights switched on overnight, so had to run the gen longer to make up the shortfall. Had to run longer anyway because on New Years day he'd also had 3 showers and almost emptied the water tank. 200L tank and the RO unit only makes about 120L/hr. Stayed up late with mum and knocked off half a bottle of scotch because I wanted to pretend there was nothing wrong.
3rd of Jan, things went pretty good until my brother called at about 3pm "Still looking good for us to use the boat on Monday?". I confidently replied "As long as you know how to patch a shaft seal if it cracks, you should be good to go". Hung up the phone to hear "Dad you'd better look at this". The back bilge was considerably blessed with water. I popped the side of the gen off to find water hemorrhaging out of the raw water pump. Phone brother back "Change of plan, no you won't be using the boat". Now, we had about 150L of fresh water & mostly charged batteries. No way to cook, or in fact do much at all other than swim and drink the remaining beer and scotch. We had planned to come home this morning anyway, so I swam. Mr 11 year old decided he wanted to put the dinghy away, so I helped him winch it up, popped the bung out to drain it and pieces of what used to be a non return valve fell out in my hand. Drank the remaining booze and went to bed.
4th of Jan, got up to find nobody had done anything dumb and we had enough juice to fire up the engines, and we headed home. Unloaded the boat and sent the family away, then my brother and I pickled the water maker and pulled the pump off the gen. Took it back to mums where I managed to get it to bits without breaking anything despite my concerted effort to press the shaft out of the wrong end of the pump housing. A quick look at the drawing indicated there was a circlip that was going to prevent that from happening so turned it over and "sorted it out" with a bloody big hammer and jarrah drift. The front bearing was so rusted there was no cage left and all the balls were dancing around one side of the shaft. It had been leaking a "long" time. Hadn't been picked up by any of the people we had work on the thing over the last 3 years (it'd only done 20 hours in that time). So I left my brother with a "here are the part numbers and descriptions, if you can source them tomorrow I'll re-assemble it and we can head down the boat and put it back together. If not, then you're staying home". Just poured a scotch before I go to bed.
The fan belt on the gen was toast again. It shredded last year also. Turns out the guys that did the work in 2023 fitted an A38 rather than an A36 belt and they just maxed out the tensioner on the alternator. The guy my brother got to help him replace the belt last year did the same thing so the belt has been significantly under-tensioned and as clogged the back of the machine with rubber dust.
I know I'm dealing with a maintenance debt of some 6-10 years, but holy crap. I just went back through the maintenance receipts mum dug out for me. When we did the port HX there was a huge amount of silicate drop-out in the system. Turns out the coolant (Volvo green coolant, replace every 2 years) is over 14 years old. So I now get to do a "Cummins Restore" flush on 2 37L cooling systems. That's $800 of coolant alone.
I thought owning a landrover was a challenge. I might buy an old Series. There's less to go wrong.
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