On the way back from Catalina, it’s time to clean the boat after 4 days to the island. I check the bilge and realize a bit of water is there, pull up the switch to run the pump and nothing happen!
Corroded wires, after some troubleshooting and wiring the pump to by pass the switch, I was sure the issue was the switch.
Quick run to West Marine and I found the pump, of course $20 more expensive than what you can get on amazon, it was for me the first chance to try their new deal to match online price. And it works great!
Few minutes later the new switch was plugged! It’s pretty well done and you can keep the same base, so it’s really plug and play.
Since day 1 we own the boat, the sherwood water pump was leaking a bit, it was never the top issue but always something bothering me. In this article we are going to go through:
Replacing the water pump
Replacing one of the old cooling hose
Touch up painting of the engine oil crankcase
It took few hours to go through this work, but everything was pretty straight forward.
Original state of Hotel Catalina
Here couple of pictures from June 2016, 2 weeks after we took delivery of Hotel Catalina.
First engine picture June 2016
First engine picture June 2016
Based on this pictures we can saw this leak has been there for a while by the rust we can see on the engine.
Time to fix this leak and give some love to the engine!
It has been now over 1 year we own the boat and it’s time to tackle this pump leaking and clean the rust on the engine block.
Here are few of the options to complete this task:
get a rebuilt kit and fixing it (tried it, it was worse!)
new sherwood pump (very expensive and not so much good feedback on the different forums)
migrate (upgrade?) to Oberdorfer
Replacing with an Oberdorfer pump that has the base that goes on with the same clip system as your Sherwood pump (more expensive, but more straight forward replacement)
If you aren’t scared of, rework the base of the Oberdorfer bolt on pump so it bolts into the pump land on the engine (way cheaper, but a bit too involved in my mind)
After looking online I found a very good deal on the N202M-908 at pump and parts online. Let’s go with this solution!
I was not sure about the purpose of this hole, and asked online I realized it was to make sure in case of leak of the pump, the raw water has a way to exit somewhere else than in the engine.
Now it’s time for some painting touch up
It’s the first time I try that, I decided to pick white to be able to see if any leak happens in the future. The result is pretty good looking. Next time I have a chance to remove the belt, I will definitely do more painting.
Tired to have to replace my belts twice a season, I decided it was time to fix this recurring alternator belt issue. The PO installed an alternator too big for my M25XPB engine. So after some research and a lot of help from Mainsail on Catalina 36 forum and on https://marinehowto.com I decided it was time to start with this project!
Pulled the trigger and I bought a Balmar regulator MC-614H and an alternator CMI-105-ER on https://marinehowto.com/.
Very happy with Rod customer service during the decision process and the very fast delivery.
Replacing old with new!
Where do I put the mc-614 regulator?
As soon as I received all parts, the first question was to decide where to put the regulator. I decided to take advantage of the space available on aft of the engine, against the central water tank. Another option was to put the regulator on the port side of the engine bulkhead.
CMI Alternator fitting issue?
As soon as the regulator situation was fixed, I realized the alternator didn’t fit as expected. Time for a quick conversation with Rod @ marine how-to, I can’t say enough how helpful Rod has been in the success of this project). Rod explained me I was able to make one of the alternator bolt shorter, 30 seconds with the dremel and I was good for the next step!
Alternator adjustable arm grinding
Next issue 🙂 After a quick grinding, it fits perfectly!
Broken bolt 🙁
Almost too easy! The alternator arm decided to break inside the engine block, after some clean up and rethreading, I was able to get a new bolt in.
Back on track. Let’s wire!
Maintenance switch?
Negative bus bar setup
Which belt?
After few tests, it looks like the 17420 is a good fit! Time to order a couple of them for spare.
Ready for testing?
Configure the Balmar mc-614
The tuning of the Balmar MC-614 is pretty challenging, I just followed RC recommendations for your alternator and your battery. You can find everything about Balmar Tuning in the article below.
Checking the RPM, I realized it was not showing up, after a bit more help from Rod I started a quick troubleshooting session to realize one fuse failed during the setup.
Troubleshooting
5 days cruise update
The week-end of Thanksgiving was a perfect time to validate the new alternator setup. Everything worked as expected! Next step upgrade our battery bank for our next long cruise to Catalina.
Protect the fuel line from chafing, not sure how I missed them during my last chafing protection mission.
Picture from the control cable to replace
New priority project on Hotel Catalina! Let’s see how many week-end will I need to get it fixed 🙂
Helm tear down and fixing
Most of this section is coming from this document from Edson Marine. Edson Marine has been very helpful to answer my questions about the different part numbers I was not able to find around.
Easier than expected! I was able to get it out pretty easily with an easy out screw extractor after I drilled a small hole in it with a 1/16″ cobalt drill bit.
1/16″ cobalt drill bit hole
Remove the compass
The 3 first ¼”-20 x 3 ½” ¼”-20 x 4” stainless machine screw came out very easily and of course as usual one didn’t come at all after a lot of drilling and one drill bit broken I succeeded to get the compass out with only one screw to replace!
compass broken screw
Remove housing
Remove broken ¼”-20 x 3 ½” ¼”-20 x 4” stainless machine screw
At the beginning based on documentation and online information I ordered by mistake 3 ½” machine screws where needed 4″ long screws.
broken screw removing method
¼”-20 x 4” stainless and should be coated with Tef Gel when installing.
