38!

Happy 38th Birthday Redwing! Long may you reign!

project update: oil change

I pumped the oil out of the oil pan with the oil change kit as is. Not so easy. The pump is difficult and slow, and with the hoses all full length it takes a bit of time. So I shortened the hose from the oil drain plug so it just sort of runs along the side of the engine.

That made it a whole lot easier. I got about a 3/4 of a gallon out of the engine. Black and smelly.

Success!

project: valve removal

I have three stuck valves and so want to unstick them. I followed the instructions in the MM Manual until I got to step 4; then there was trouble.

I took the valve cover off. Easy.

I marked which tappets were lifting and which valves were lifting and found that all the tappets were lifting (phew!) and three of the valves were stuck in the up position despite good tappet movement.










After moving the cylinder to TDC and tapping the valve into the down position, I lifted the valve spring and washer and removed the valve keepers. (They are so tiny!)





















Then I tried to lift the valve out of the out of its guide.

No dice. I tried prying it from the top, but stopped because I didn't want to scar the head. Then I tried to lever it up from the bottom using a screwdriver inserted between the gaps in the spring.



















I don't recommend anyone trying this; the screwdriver slipped off the bottom of the valve and drove my hand into the metal bar the engine is mounted to. Actually, it wasn't my whole hand, just the last section of my pinky finger. I'm not certain if I actually blacked out, but when I regained awareness my hand was in the ice-filled cooler and I was trying to not wet my pants.

Right now the nail is of a shade somewhere between "purple mountains majesty" and the fur of McDonald's Grimace.

(I pause here to remind you I'm a sensitive English teacher fond of British nature poetry and not a mechanic. Yet.)

Questions:

How do I get the valve out now? Did I miss a step? Is there another component that has to come out before the valve will come free?

How do I know if the valve keepers are good?

How do I know if the tappets are good? I see they are available for sale on the Moyer Marine website, and the perfectionist in me wants to replace all the valves, tappets, valve keepers, but...is it necessary?

project: oil change kit

I have not changed the oil in the boat since I've owned it. It is a project that has needed to get done, but because of all the other projects and the overwhelming urge to actually go sailing (what's that?) I have been putting it off. It doesn't help that it's damn awkward to change the oil. For a long time I didn't have the proper pump, and even after I bought it, I wasn't too excited about threading the draw tube down the dipstick hole. I kept imagining it as, well, sort of like giving the boat a catheter, and I just couldn't bring myself to doing it.

But then I found this kit on Moyer Marine that allows us to change the oil with ease.

There's a fat plug on the port side of the engine that accesses the oil pan. That comes off and in its place goes an identical plug with a tube on it that looks like a metal straw. That reaches down to the bottom of the oil pan, getting all of that nasty, dirty lube out of there.

On the other end of the straw is a threaded hole where we can screw in a 90° or a straight barb that connects to hose. This hose connects to our pump with yet another barb.

It's a pretty sweet system and I bet I could change the oil and not spill a single drop. When I am done with the valves I'm'na change the oil and I'll update you on how it goes.

now you seize em, now you don't!

After some stressful daydreaming about what the F am I going to do about the seized engine, I did some research (mostly on the Moyer Marine forum) and found that it is possible to un-seize an engine (previously I thought they were junk when they seized). What you do is pour Automatic Transmission Fluid in the cylinders, let it soak for as long as you can stand to do nothing/something else and then try to crank the engine by hand.

Cranking my engine by hand proved impossible, but since the starter is already off, I was able to use a screwdriver as a lever on the flywheel and force that bastard to turn. It was not easy, but I got 'er done.

And now it's turning smooth as can be. I was also able to see how the valves work and which ones were not working. In the pics, the larger valves are the exhaust valves (allowing greenhouse gases to leave) and the smaller are the intake valve (allowing air/fuel mix from the carburetor). On cylinder one both valves were working. On #2 I had just the intake (but eventually got the exhaust to work too). For #3, I got nothing. And #4 has just intake working.

I think the next step is to take the valve cover off and have a look at the valves. I'm pretty sure the valve cover has not been off, so whatever junk is down at the bottom of the valves is pretty filthy after nearly 40 years.

I have to say, I feel puh-retty manly getting in there and making engine stuff work again.

Here are some pics of the engine going through all of its cycles. Note the position of the pistons and the valves. Engines are pretty complex machines and I wish I had appreciated them sooner. I also include two pics of the cabin so you can see what a got-damn disaster it is down there.

If my troubles don't kill me, I'll live a long time

Despite having two stuck valves and a seized engine, I remain calm.

Finally got the head off the engine. 'Twas not easy, but once I applied the stud puller it went like a charm. One of the studs broke off in the block (that's nothing!), but I feel confident that I'll be able to get it out.

Judging by their positions it seems I have two stuck valves. But in order to really figure it out, I have to be able to rotate the engine. This is something I am not able to do.

What I suspect happened was that water came into cylinder #4 and leaked into other cylinders because my head gasket was shot or worked its way into the engine enough to seize the old bastard. Lesson learned: from now on I close the raw water intake and then try to start the engine. I thought it was pretty unlikely that water would actually backflow into the engine, but apparently the Manual wasn't kidding. And, because I let it sit for about a month, the engine is now seized.

i oughta have my head examined

I'm partly through the removal of the head.

I got all the nuts off the studs without snapping one of the studs, without stripping the nut, and without breaking anything else.

Getting the head to actually come off has been another issue. I was able to get it loose by banging a screwdriver into the (hairline) gap between the block and the head. The Moyer Marine shop manual recommends filing down a screwdriver so it's has a nice taper (basically, you make a shank worthy of a prison-yard out of it) and using it to pry the block off the head. This worked, to a degree, but my real success came when I used the smallest screwdrivers I had. They were just small enough to work and just big enough to create enough of a gap to get a stronger screwdriver in there to pry apart the two pieces.

And I discovered that I have the dreaded "green gasket." That means the head gasket was either never replaced, or it was replaced, at best, 20 years ago. From what I have read at the Moyer Marine community boards, the green gasket was responsible for so many compression failures that people began to think the engine itself had come to the end of its service life. Apparently an engineer at a gasket company heard about the problem and invented the "steel reinforced" gasket we all use today.

I'm going back tomorrow to see what I can do about getting the head all the way off. Already, by peeking into the gap, I can see that it's a damned mess in there. I'm eager to clean, get the head back on, and then clean and paint the engine.


This first picture is the exhaust manifold (it's upside down). I think that this is the last stop for the cooling water and for the exhaust gases before they hit the muffler and exhaust pipe (next stop: the atmosphere, there to trap some CO2).



And this picture is the tap-tap pry-pry method of getting the head off the block. Effective!

Narrow Escape

Just found this and thought you might enjoy it.

Narrow Escape is the blog for a Long Beach, CA, Ericson 30. A friend of mine, Kevin, had one of these and I always admired it. This classic plastic looks super sweet.