I guess one of the major challenges of re-building a boat that you know very little detail about will be making decisions about how to handle restoration of parts that are not present or obvious how they originally were intended to go together. The rudder and tiller are one of those problems as I started… Continue reading The rudder – January 2016 to April 2019
Author: Richard Stott
Engine – Part 4. Gas to the galley, Fuel plumbing, Cooling water (through holes) and exhaust systems.
So, what do all of these have in common other than involving various diameters of pipes? In my case those pipes are all entirely or partially located inside the engine compartment and will be impossible or extremely difficult to work on after the engine has been re-installed. As the boat was received all three systems… Continue reading Engine – Part 4. Gas to the galley, Fuel plumbing, Cooling water (through holes) and exhaust systems.
Engine – Part 3 Engine electrical system – Starting, Battery charging, Choke, Ignition cut-off and fuel cut-off solenoid valve.
This blog post may be a little too technical if you are not into electrical engineering so please feel free to skip this and the later one about the boat electrical system. This post is mainly about the move from the original system that came with the boat to a slightly upgraded one to match… Continue reading Engine – Part 3 Engine electrical system – Starting, Battery charging, Choke, Ignition cut-off and fuel cut-off solenoid valve.
Engine – Part 2 Engine cooling system assembly, Zinc pencil, Engine mounts & adding the controls.
Tuesday 19/9/2017 – Temporarily put the exhaust “Resonator” back on the engine so I can measure control cable movements. Assembled the new control lever box with the cables in the right places for the movements required. With the gear mounting adapter in it’s current position it needs around 3cm to move from neutral to… Continue reading Engine – Part 2 Engine cooling system assembly, Zinc pencil, Engine mounts & adding the controls.
Engine – Part 1 Dismantling and Initial rebuild.
Wednesday 22/2/2017 Step one of the engine work was lifting it out of it’s space under the cabin access step and taking it home to the garage workbench where it stayed for 18 months as it gradually transformed and the boat systems were readied for it’s return. On inspection and dismantling of the peripheral parts… Continue reading Engine – Part 1 Dismantling and Initial rebuild.
Safety first – Skin fittings, seacocks and roller reefing.
Somehow the simplest of things seem to take a long time when working on a boat. I was only just starting to realise that with the discovery that almost all of the hull skin fittings were fitted with inadequate gate valves which seem to be conventional domestic plumbing versions so are likely to corrode and… Continue reading Safety first – Skin fittings, seacocks and roller reefing.
Taking a Vire 12 from “rusty lump” to ready to test. Part 1 General plan September and October 2016.
On initial inspection the engine appeared to be installed although not bolted down. There was an electrical panel in the boat with the engine ends of the cable labelled as to where everything needed to go but nothing actually connected and just for luck another electrical system as spares. Throttle and gear controls were in… Continue reading Taking a Vire 12 from “rusty lump” to ready to test. Part 1 General plan September and October 2016.
Boat cleaning and the start of task finding.
This all runs alongside the trailer fixing work but I thought we needed to keep them separate to avoid everything getting too confusing. Much of the boat restoration work also happened in parallel with working on two of Matthew’s projects – Restoration of a VW camper van that was living inside the gates of our… Continue reading Boat cleaning and the start of task finding.
Fixing the trailer.
In reality for the first month there were two lines of work going on in parallel but this post will summarize the upgrading of the trailer. Obviously that started as soon as the trailer was on our drive with an investigation into what was happening. By the start of day 3 it was clear that… Continue reading Fixing the trailer.
A boat owner again -25th August 2016.
Booked the day off work because Dave has finally managed to get the crane people organised enough to make it worth going to Hoo to look at the boat. Slight snag that it coincides with younger daughter Bethany being able to talk to the school about her AS results so we didn’t get started… Continue reading A boat owner again -25th August 2016.