Friday 24 July 2015

Bracken has an engine!

Friday 24th July


Hello people, dosn't time fly when your having fun! 
As you'll have gathered by the title of this post, Bracken now has an engine.
It's not attached to anything yet, not bolted down, not connected to the prop shaft or anything else yet, but it is in the engine bay!
In my last post I spoke about the big clean up in the engine bay. That took a lot of days of crawling around with the de-greaser,rags, and eventually paint. The end result was well worth the trouble.

I did paint the centre and the bearers, but forgot to take picture before the engine went in.

In between painting out the engine bay I was  also actively looking for a replacement engine.
 I found one on eBay, in Sandwich, Kent of all places, so hired a van for 4 days and popped down to Kent to see family and friends for a few days. I stayed with my good friends John and Dee, and also managed to pop in on Bev and Darren, and Chris, (another old friend). 
It was great to spend some time with Family as Matt and Lou had a bbq on the Sunday, to which Margaret, and Simon and Emma and all the grandchildren were there. Good times! And one day i'll remember to take photos!
John and I went down to Sandwich where I examined and paid for the Engine, Its a Mitsubishi Vetus engine. 3 cylinder diesel with a Hurth gearbox included, and although it hasn't been run for a couple of years I'm assured its a good one, hmmm we'll see in time.
On returning to home I dropped the engine off at my brothers house as I wasn't quite ready for it. (still bit more painting to do).
I pondered for some time on the best way of getting the engine down the 'ole so to speak, and eventually decided to use the lifting gear we'd used in removing the old engine, that way nobody was going to risk putting their back out with any heavy lifting! This meant taking Bracken back down the canal to the wharf. Fortunately, I have a very kind and considerate next door neighbour, Ann, whose boat is called Jennyanydots, and she offered to tow me down to the wharf and back!

Under tow just heading out of the marina.

So, with Paul on the bows of Bracken with a pole to help with steering, me on the tiller of Bracken, and Ann with the two dogs on Jennyanydots we set off down the couple of hundred yards to the wharf where Matt 'the man' was waiting for us.
Unfortunately I didnt take any photos of the engine going down the 'ole, just a few pictures of the journey there and back.

                                       
Arriving at the wharf, Ann cast off the towing hitch and whilst Paul and I poled Bracken into position under the lifting gantry, she did a superb job of reversing Jennyanydots into position for the return tow back to the Marina. Dropping the engine into Bracken only took 10 mins or so. So easy with the right gear!
On returning to the Marina, again Paul and I poled Bracken onto the mooring whilst Ann showed off her reversing skills again and brought Jennyanydots onto her mooring. A job well done!!



The engine is too low, and doesn't line up with the prop shaft. I have some new bearers to go on top of the original ones to lift the engine 4 inches which should then bring the gearbox drive flange into alignment with the coupling on the prop shaft. Once I'm sure everything lines up then I'll bolt the engine in position on the new bearers. Fortunately the coupling on the prop shaft will fit the gearbox drive, so I've not had to replace it.
This is a very different engine to the one I removed. Consequently nothing is going to be straight forward about fitting it. However, it is quite a modern engine, and all the spares are available so it should be easy enough to maintain.
Its a real ongoing project and I'll try and update the blog as I progress.


Thought I'd end today with a nice picture of Ann's dogs, Izabel and Zac, theyr'e quite well behaved and nice natured dogs, the sort of dogs you don't mind living next to. :)

bfn











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