What did you do to your sailing boat today ?

Good work Shaggs , had a similar not situation here, different system , same over all though . I new nothing and learnt lots , now the engine works so much better and i have some more knowledge . It is an amazing feeling to learn something !

Thanks!
We had a spare few hours this arvo , enough to have a crack at getting it all together ready for re-installation. The ram is as simple as you can get, there are only two hydraulic lines, one to each end of the cylinder. Selecting the up or down button switches the high pressure oil pump output to one or the other, so the piston is always pushed. This is the shaft without the piston assy, the bottom part is what connects the keel. The end cap for the cylinder is top left ready for its new seals. And of course the obligatory trusty tub of vasoline!


Fitting the piston with the new seal , holders and spacers. The shaft is about 4", the piston OD is about 6", it looks small but is surprisingly heavy.


Liberal amount of vasoline on all the seals, and jugs of hot water to soften up all the seals before installation. This is the end cap sitting in a tin of boiling hot water softening up the seals so we could get it back onto the shaft. It took a few hot baths and a shroud using a laminated map before it finally slid on. An oil filter wrench was then used to screw the end plate home onto the cylinder.....


And hoo-bloody-ray, it's together at long last! This next pic is all assembled but resting upside down to show where the hydraulic lines enter the cylinder on either side of the piston. The weird little plate welded to the cylinder is a bash plate to protect the hydraulic line from damage. The end plates go outside the keel box and are through bolted with only the circular collars protruding inside the box.


The following pic shows all the bits that get wet, ie: reside inside the keel box. The back of the keel box only has a small opening for the ram to extrude, the grommet and shroud that cover this hole fit just behind the end plates. The shaft end faces the bow, the cylinder faces the stern.
The shaft end is what fits inside the keel head where it's through pinned. End caps in the keel screw over the pin to hold it in place.
A few trial in outs using compressed air down the hydraulic lines and it's smooth as a babys backside.
Job done.
Now I just have to drop it back in, reseal the keel box and re-attach the hydraulic lines, yay!
And most importantly, ring the diver. The bum is going to be so dirty after almost 10-12 weeks since the last clean.

Great stuff Shaggy. Here is hoping you don't have to do it too often.
That is seriously technical job.

Very happy to see that you are not using the wife's favorite towel.

Err,,,, hang on a sec.
Isn't that grandma's favorite curtain!!!
Oh, well. Too late now.
Enjoy the leak free ride.

gary

jury rigged a mizzen staysail, need a halyard at the mizzen mast top to get a better shape about it. need to be a bit of an octopus to deal with this lot single handed ! pics are courtesy of a passing fisho

We got the ram re-installed today but not 100% complete yet.
The actual install went pretty smoothly.
First step was to pin the ram shaft onto the keel. The side of the cabin table has a panel cutout , this is from the side of the table looking through the 50mm hole where the little sight glass goes on, we had to remove the sight glasses to drop the pin out. That's the keel head you can see just behind the fibreglass, with the ram shaft in the centre, you have to slide the shaft into the keel socket. Align the ram head with a couple of tapered nudge bars, drift punch the pin in, caps on and it was done.


Part two was getting the ram onto its pivot mounts. The pivot stubs are like steel pipes capped and welded onto plates, about 50mm proud off the plate and about 100mm OD. These plates bolt on the side of the keelbox, pinning the cylinder into place. One guy jumps inside the table straddling the ram with a rag wrapped around it and lifts whilst the other guy guides him into the right up/down/backwards/forwards till the sockets welded on the side of the cylinder are aligned for the end plates to go on. Once aligned, you slide the end plates onto the 4 bukka rods bolted through the keelbox. If your alignment is good, the plates will go all the way on till the pipe nubs on the plates slide into the sockets on the ram cylinder. This part was rubber hammer time and tapping verrry slowly, but soon the plates were home and everything bolted up.


Part three was dropping in the pump and reservoir, then fit off the electrical and hydraulic lines.
She is starting to look like a real boat again!


Now all we had to do was start the engine, motor the keel up and down a few times to get the ram full of oil, top up the oil to the right level and the job is finished.
And because it's a boat and they have an annoying bloody habit of throwing curve balls at you, we went to start the engine smiling happily at a job well done and....click click click. Nothing.
Sigh.
Turns out the engine battery had picked up enough corrosion on the terminals to stop it charging. And worse, the battery terminal clamps were those stupid square head ones that you cant get a spanner onto. As soon as I went to undo the nuts, the square head just rotated in its little cutout so I couldn't undo the nuts, the whole bolt and nut just turned. A reminder, boats do NOT like sitting still. My fault, I had got so consumed with this project I had neglected the regular maintenance of late. Not good, so I deserved this kick up the backside.
Big sigh.
To cut a long story short, the diesel tank is now out. I had to pull it out to get enough room to undo the errant battery clamps, but now the battery is at home beside me merrily charging away, whilst I roll around the floor in pain after washing my hands with that bloody hand sanitiser finding the bazillion myriad cuts on my hands......... I swear some of that sanitiser is like 90 proof alcohol.

Have another go tomorrow at finishing it off, Just keep ticking off the checklist one tick at a time........

Oh come on Shaggy man up 90 proof is only 45 ABV, that's drinkable strength.

Well it wasn't just today - it was over the course of the last 10 days or so. Little jobs that I hadn't gotten around to, but now with so much time to spare on the boat I'm getting them all done. Very happy with the results:
It's been said earlier in this post "no pictures-no proof" so here goes - I've used a few of them and kept the descriptions short.

New washboards
In progress, insides. (3months ago!)
Finished product from outside-

Also made up a clear 3mm polycarbonate version that folds down flat, for use at night or when it's raining. I can fold up the bottom section to allow extra ventilation. It catches the water and sends it to the sides to drain.-


Mounted the epirb-

New bridle and painter for the dinghy, spliced and whipped -

Spliced an eye into a new kedge/stern anchor line -

New concealed led lighting strips in the saloon- running on battery packs atm till I'm happy with the position, then I'll wire them in permanently-

Wired up and fitted a new auxiliary panel. Has 12v socket, USB ports, and shows SOC of the house batteries -


Then came the big bastard of a job removing 30 year-old decals from the cabin sides - cleaning, prepping, masking and painting a new blackout. This one took me 3 days- once I started I discovered there were two layers of decals!



This was about 30% of the mess-

First coat done- need to modify the shape a bit til im happy, then final coats. A friend made me a new logo decal in chrome vinyl, it will go between ports where the old yellow one used to be-


Also (but no pics) spent pretty much the whole day yesterday cleaning and polishing every bit of chrome and stainless steel I could find! Looks great now.

Top job right there Azure, assume you got back to land before the sw gale came in............that polycarb work is excellent, and have never seen that before as regards someone trialing interior lights with battery pack to ensure the correct location - for sure an interior decorator class fit out right there, mood lighting, other................

That looks awesome Azure. The black looks like it should be factory, suits the lines.
My favourite is the washboard though, the woods looks fantastic but that clear I really like. How did you get the rain to run off to the sides if you open the bottom part?