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01/09/21 Weds. Neil left this morning to fly home to Australia for health reasons. We will miss him and wish him all the very best. In the meantime, we will look after his boat Shelley.
03/09/21 Fri. For sometime, my engine has been idling at a speed in excess of 1000rpm when it should be around 750. The idle screw is fully out with no more adjustment. On most diesels, the throttle cable is attached to the fuel rack in the injector pump and movement there adjusts the rack and the helix plungers which control the given fuel amount. On this engine, the fuel rack is pneumatic, the diaphragm controlled by the vacuum created in the air intake by a butterfly valve and venturi. Today, I removed the throttle unit from the inlet manifold and stripped it down for inspection. The butterfly valve spindle is shaped on either end and has an inside double D washer to hold it in place. I found that one of the washers was worn on one side, which allowed the spindle to move fractionally and touch the venturi pipe. This meant the valve didn't close fully and hence the extra revolutions. No idea where I can find new washers of that type here, but as a temporary fix I reversed the washer on the spindle - and the engine now idles at a more sedate 750rpm.
04/09/21 Sat. Well so far I have three times ordered an alternator from the UK and three times I have had to cancel the order for one reason or another - too expensive, extortionate shipping costs, wrong pulley or a combination of all three reasons! I wouldn't have thought that buying a lowly Lucas alternator would be so difficult. I had a message from Neil at 1700 saying he had landed in Sydney, so that's good news for us.
05/09/21 Sun. Caught the additional crew member onboard Shelley last night (ordinary seaman Roland Rat), I was considering making him a permanent crew member but he failed the basic swim test and was discharged from service.
06/09/21 Mon. Went into town today in search of an alternator. The usual question "what car?" As soon as you say it's not for a car, you get "finished already" or "don't have". Surprised to find one at the second shop we tried but a little taken aback when I was told it's for a gasoline engine not a diesel. Er, yeah, right! I told the shopkeeper that if he didn't tell the alternator which fuel the engine used, neither would I. It was wrong handed and wrong pulley but we corrected that on the spot. After over a week of trying to get one online and they have them here! 450 ringgit or £78.41 with a free pulley change and free belt, so not a bad price at all. Tomorrow we will see if it fits and shim the pulley out to the correct position.
08/09/21 Weds. I'm unhappy with the pulley supplied by the shop, it measures 15mm at the top of the V groove and it's for a 17mm belt, so I changed it for my old pulley which is a much better belt fit. I had to change belt sizes too, from a B44 to a BX46 as getting a 44 inch one on was impossible. All running good now.
11/09/21 Sat. Spent the day rigging up a temporary wiring loom to test the new oil pressure and water temperature gauges. The old gauges just had two sender wires and an illumination power cable, the new have 8 wires each as I said last month!
14/09/21 Tues. Slowly getting all the new loom/harness wiring in place and moving gauges, switches etc to the new location.
15/09/21 Weds. A little more progress today but trying to figure out how things have been wired over the last 50 years or so is a bit of a problem - I even found one ground wire from the gauges wired into the after cabin reading lights!
20/09/21 Tues. I suppose that most of the wiring is now in place and a lot of old stuff removed. I just need the new glow plugs and tacho now, and of course the mammoth task of making all the connections! The new instrument pod is fixed in position on the coachroof and all the old gauges have been removed from the 'below knee height position.'
24/09/21 Fri. Almost completed the wiring for the new instrument pod now, fitted the new tacho which arrived yesterday and wired it in.
25/09/21 Sat. OK, testing time - I estimated the pulse rate of the tachometer and fired up the engine. Only a partial success this time, the tachometer shows nothing and the charge buzzer does not switch off. I checked the alternator output and it is showing no increase when the engine is running, so maybe I have an internal fault on the alternator! Whatever, it will have to wait until Monday now as all the shops will be closed.
26/09/21 Sun. I did some basic tests on the alternator today, checked the exciter wire had voltage, flashed the field, checked the diodes and the rectifier bridge - all seemed good but the problem persists. I swapped the new alternator for the old one (which I know works) and I still get the same results.........so, I must have made a mistake in the wiring somewhere! OR perhaps I shouldn't have fitted an LED ignition warning light as they don't allow enough power through to energise the alternator?
27/09/21 Mon. Finally sorted out yesterdays problem! After bypassing the new shunt, there was no change in the fault. The only other thing it could be was the siren and warning light, so I removed them both - and hey presto, the alternator charges, the tacho works, the ammeter works. Therefore, the siren and lamp were taking too much voltage away from the exciter wire! After wiring in a relay to the circuit, all was well and everything works as it should now. I just have to calibrate the tachometer so it reads accurately (or as near as damn it!)
29/09/21 Weds. Went over to Craig's this morning to give him a hand towing a power boat across the pond and re-mooring it behind his boat. Because of the close proximity of the engine crank pulley to the bulkhead, I was unable to get my infra-red tachometer close enough to take a rpm reading so I reverted to the pulley dimensions to calculate the pulse rate of the alternator - 126/82 = 1.5365 X number of poles(6) in alternator = 9.2195. I set the pulse rate to 9.2 and the tacho reads around 25rpm difference from the old one, which is perfectly acceptable!
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