As February was fading and March started I was mobile enough to (very) slowly do tasks. We were trying to get the boat in order for leaving for our road trip. We were also preparing for departing in the boat soon after our return, heading up the coast along the ditch to the Chesapeake. For the engine my primary skills are checking the fluids every travel day, topping them up, and changing the engine oil. The latter was overdue; I really should have done it before laying up the boat last summer, but we arrived so late and left in such a rush.
Well, to change the oil you want to start the engine and get everything warm and swirling around so all the crap comes out with the oil. We started it up, and enjoying the warmer weather, sat in the cockpit in the sun, occasionally glancing at the control panel on the binnacle. One time when Heather glanced over it was still too cold, the next time, at most a few minutes later, the temp was above 200°F and climbing. The alarm had not gone off, I thought yet, but that's another story. I quickly cut the engine. Over time I checked the inlet strainer, but the raw water was spitting out strong on the side of the boat. The coolant was topped up on the other side of the coolant system, so now I was out.
We got the folks from the marina yard to come over. First was an older guy named Wayne, whose health was fading and really shouldn't be working anymore, but he had the experience. And then there was a younger guy named Guy, so that was easy to remember, who was supposed to be doing all the wrenching, and soaking up what he could from Wayne. They poked and prodded and checked, then Wayne removed the radiator cap off the exhaust manifold and stuck his finger down inside. Then to my surprise he tasted it - old school I guess. He asked me if I wanted to taste it, but I declined. He declared it was salty, and that was a no-no, since this was the fresh water side of the coolant system. The typical culprit in something like this is the heat exchanger, which does just that between the raw (salt) water and the fresh water coolant. Between them are nothing but these metal tubes, which being exposed to both heat and salt water, so corrosion is an even bigger issue than usual.
Well they removed the exchanger and took it to the radiator shop to check it out, along with the exhaust manifold, because now that they started draining and removing things there was corrosion all over the fresh water side. I think they found the root cause for our intermittent overheating problems last year. Once again, we were lucky that the engine didn't give up the ghost while we really needed it, like when it ran 24 hours straight for our return crossing from the Bahamas.
The shop determined that the heat exchanger was not repairable, but the manifold would clean up and be fine. This was good, because we couldn't even find a replacement exhaust manifold. The good news was that we could get a new heat exchanger. The bad news was that it was a grand from the manufacturer. Well, this is something I could do. I scoured the web looking for alternatives, finally arriving at Mr. Cool, who by all appearances might actually be making the exchangers the OEM was selling. Well, a new exchanger from him was a little over $400, and it was the alloy steel not the cheaper and more corrosion prone copper tubes. I ordered it, but we were running out of days before leaving for our road trip.
We were never going to the Bahamas this year, we just didn't know it until after I fell.
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