keltik

Crappy idle and suspicious fuel delivery issues... Have you had the injectors cleaned and flow checked?

Especially likely in old cars with rusty fuel tanks that have probably eaten a lot of stale fuel. And impossible to figure out if you don't have an o2 sensor measuring fuel trims

Autopilot stuff. 

Gave it a lot of thought and decided that the main use I have for an autopilot is keeping us vaguely on course in light winds while I go make a cup of tea or steer the boat with the engine on which is boring if you have to do it for more than 5 minutes. 

The fancy expensive autopilots can be trusted to probably not kill you if you go down below to get some sleep while sailing through the night across the middle of the Atlantic. They react to wind gusts better and manage rolling nasty sea states under sail without getting confused as easily.

Even then, some of the long distance sailors just carry 2 or 3 of the crappy cheap ones and throw them over the side when they stop working. 

Since I don't plan on doing long passages - and in challenging conditions I'd rather be steering myself or have another meat bag driving....I bought a cheap crappy autopilot second hand.  The big brother to the one on Nice Try - the Raymarine ST2000+

Principle of operation is simple. The built in compass keeps track of your heading. When activated, it tries to maintain that heading by extending or retracting the ram to move the tiller and turn the boat. The bigger the boat, the more force you might need to use so the gruntier the autopilot needs to be. 

The ST2000 has a brass recirculating ball drive for the ram rather than a plastic nut on an acme screw as found on the ST1000.  It also seems to have some bigger fets driving a slightly bigger motor? 

Not quite an apples to apples comparison since the ST1000 I have is from 1999 and the ST2000 is from 2012.

Still rips my undies how simple these things are inside. Autohelm designs it then Raytheon buys them out and milks the design for a few decades.  Minimal changes in nearly 30 years of production.  No limit switches or position feedback. No conformal coatings on the board, glass reinforcement in the plastic or silastic schmoo on the connectors. AvE would be disgusted.

Will install it maybe next week and see how it goes.

On 24/02/2024 at 18:47, keltik said:

So I'm going to create a spill ring around the fitting (possibly using an ice cream tub) so the water stays in one spot instead of running through the bilge.  Will make cleanup a lot quicker.

The little paddle wheel speed sensor thing

And my soon to be patented spill ring device.  

K-Mart silicone dog bowl with a hole cut in it then stretched over the through-hull fitting to seal against it.

Now when you undo the cap and pull the sender out, the water goes into the dog bowl and can be effortlessly sucked up with a sponge. Instead of having to lift up the carpet and floor boards and get to the lowest point of the bilge to mop it up.

Now to sell my invention for $80 a piece.

If you're looking for something with a long pintle and a short time to spray, I might be able to help.  Would need a nap between each injection event tho.

P.S  Wednesday night racing still goes hard

The 2023-2024 La Vida crew

IF any Tauranga OS boes want to come out and give this a go - flick me a message.

Revised list of things to do on Extract Digit;

The speedo paddle wheel gets chock full of marine life growing in it and stops turning.  I tried a little propspeed foul release type coating but this didn't work that well. So the best method to keep it clean is to remove it from the hull each time you leave the boat.  This is pretty easy to do and there's a plug that goes in its place.  But every time its removed or fitted, it lets a few cups of water into the boat. So I'm going to create a spill ring around the fitting (possibly using an ice cream tub) so the water stays in one spot instead of running through the bilge.  Will make cleanup a lot quicker.

Get some anchor chain.  At the moment, the boat only has 10 meters of chain and the rest is warp/rope.  The warp doesn't go through the windlass quite as nicely as chain and keeps snarling up.  I prefer chain anyways and am not as worried about the weight penalty (previous owner will be most disappointed in me) of another 20m of chain especially for the extra security it offers.

Sort out an autopilot.  Looking at about $3,800 to buy a new one suitable for the size of the boat.  Could possibly get away with a $1,500 all-in-one tiller pilot but sometimes it pays to just cry once and buy the right tool for the job even if its does cost twice as much.

Sort out an interface between the Raymarine wind/depth instruments and the B&G chartplotter so it can display wind angles on the chart and do some other fancy trickery.  

Money for all that stuff is limited at the moment as we're saving for our holiday - but should be achievable later in the year.

Have been using the big blue sunshade quite a bit lately and managed to get it a bit salty so brought the sail home for a wash and some minor repairs.

A quick run through the bath to wash off the salt

Then dried in the sun on the front lawn (which isnt quite big enough)

Then taping up a couple of small rips - not sure when they happened but the whole sail is pretty old so getting fragile.

There's plenty of repairs in this sail already so a couple more squares of tape won't hurt too much.  

So the next day I decided to do the Karewa island race on the new boat.  There was approximately fuck all wind to start with.

The only other 3 boats that had entered left us behind by the time we were rounding the Island.  

By the time we finished - somehow crossed the line in second place, only 8 mins behind first after 4 hours of sailing.  Turns out I looked at the wrong course and missed out 1 leg so got a DNF.  Live and learn.

Couple weeks later, decided to get the old boat out again and do the round Rotoiti race as a good excuse to show it off and make sure everything still works.  There was approximately fuck all wind.

A few boats dropped out of the race, but 5 hours later - we finished 2nd over the line.  Had been in the lead for quite a while but got pipped in the last mile of the race.  I'd love to say perseverance pays off but it was a pretty painful day.  It was VERY amusing how light and easy everything was to handle compared to the new boat.

So after 5 hours trying to get every possible bit of speed out of the tiny amount of wind provided - I was keen to have a day off and relax.

The run home from Mayor was mint, the wind picked up a bit so we stuck up ol' purple.  Need to run the pole a bit higher next time I think.  This is such a versatile sail for the wind angles its effective in.  I'd been enjoying using our big blue gennaker but its got a very narrow window where it flies well compared to this one.

Then when the wind picked up to 15 knots, dropped it and finished the run with the main and #1 genoa up.

Did the Mayor island race.  There was approximately fuck all wind. 

Managed to get within 2 miles of the island before we gave up and motored to south east bay for the BBQ

Had some beautiful serenity, a few sausages and a few rums then headed home.

So we have this dehumidifier my dad bought for his boat back in 2001

It sits in the cabin and runs all week to keep the dank away. And it does a good job.

(Still doing the Wednesday night racing on this one)

It's been dropped, smashed upside down falling from one side of the boat to the other, left on its side for days in the boot of the car...

The plastic has turned yellow and the power cord has been replaced, but after 20 years of operating in a salt spray environment

It still works.  Today's project was to add a bracket to stop it rolling around while we're sailing.  I've heard new ones last a couple years if you're lucky so this one must be protected.

P.S. Still keen on a FD

1 hour ago, Vintage Grumble said:

@keltik might have an opinion on this sort of drive line? Is that the same as what you were showing me tover day?

Nah this is just the fantasy wet dream that Mazda will one day make another rotary powered car or do something genuinely exciting.

The current actual real world existing rotary thing is a single rotor mated to a transverse FWD electric motor setup.  They've employed some electric fuckery to give it "fake VVT" which is supposed to keep Greta Thunberg happy but in reality I'm sure it's secretly killing the planet while ticking a box on some executive spreadsheet saying "Make a hybrid so we can look smart".

It's more likely that British Leyland will rise from the dead and build a 2stroke powered landcrab with whale scrotum leather interior.  That would be as environmentally friendly as a new triple rotor sports car.

The company just isn't big enough to have a halo car and you will never see another common market rotary as the technology is a dead end.  If Toyota couldn't build a new Supra or AE86 on their own, Mazda sure as shit ain't going to do it with the RX-9

/cynical rant

19 hours ago, Sambo said:

Okay, sorry.

I hope you have a story that goes with that suggestion?

8 hours ago, Sambo said:

Sorry if I'm telling you how to suck eggs, but definitely don't try and drain the oil out of the sump. Cleaning oil out of the bilge isn't fun. 

That's what the bilge pump is for? Pump the oil outside the environment.

There's nothing better than sucking out hot used oil with a cheap transfer pump that falls apart mid job.

Main sail repaired, decided to do one of the Karewa island races with the Tauranga yacht club, didn't break anything and have had a few good sails since then.

One job that's been on the to-do list for a while was making the engine stop with the key. At the moment, someone has to open the engine compartment and hit the stop lever on the fuel rack.

Found the fuel shut off solenoid has a little manual override lever on it so you can keep the engine running even if the electrics fail.  Someone must have bumped the lever doing the last oil change. Put it back in the right place and that's another job ticked off the list.

Next was tackling the leak from the raw water pump.  It's been leaking so long the bottom of the engine compartment has a half inch thick crust of salt.  

Easy enough to get the pump off and apart. The previous owner knew it was a problem so gave us a new seal kit for it.

Cleaned up the shaft and it's got a decent wear groove from the water seal.

Put it all back together with a new impeller and miraculously it doesn't leak. I suspect we're going to need a new shaft in there if it gets drippy again.

Get a few more trips done then maybe look at doing an oil change.

Lesson learned. Don't wash the car and put it away without a quick drive to dry off the brakes. 

On the bright side, dealing with the electronic park brake was easy.  Just hold the switch down as you turn off the key and it stays disengaged.  Then pump the brakes and pull the switch a couple times to adjust it for the new pads.  

Way easier than the triangle circle square L2 R2 up down sequence needed on some other vehicles I won't name.  And if you get it wrong the calipers grenade themselves internally the first time you use the handbrake.

Winding back the caliper pistons was a bit of a shit job. Couldn't get enough pressure onto the piston with my home made wind back tool (angle grinder nut wrench) so had to use a C clamp and the trusty Knippex grips

Haven't put many ks on this thing since I've been busy buying yachts and otherwise bankrupting myself.

I thought it would be nice to drive over the Christmas new year's period so moved the Mazda to get to the Corolla to get the Isuzu in to pull the boat out of the driveway to get the Jag out of the shed.  It took a little throttle to unstick the brakes, moved about 1 metre then stopped.  Rolled it back into the shed where the brake pedal went to the floor.

Ah, there's your problem