"I told ya." said Kev in his usual laid back style "You should stop worrying."
I wasn't worried any more and I was greatly relieved that the first test of A B Sea's engine, after the top end rebuild, had gone smoothly and the engine had worked perfectly.
There are a couple of things which we didn't include in this week's video that raised my stress levels slightly. Before we fired up the engine Kev and I had gone over every hose connection, every nut and bolt and nodded to each other that we both thought we had dotted every i and crossed every t. We'd even remembered to open the seacock valve where the engine sucks in the seawater for cooling.
The big moment had arrived, I turned the ignition key and the engine turned over but didn't fire up. This was planned as we wanted to get some lubricating oil around the engine before it ran normally.
A second twist of the ignition key and after a few seconds the engine roared into life. However it didn't last long before the engine just stopped and wouldn't start again.
Kev went below to investigate. A few seconds later he popped his head out of the companionway. "Did you remember to open the valve for the diesel fuel feed?" A light bulb moment. "Errr no, I thought you had." I replied. A rookie mistake, easily fixed.
A third twist of the ignition key and we were back in business. We let the engine run at tick over speed for a few minutes to make sure that enough oil had been pumped around for maximum lubrication and for the engine temperature to raise slightly.
The next step was to slowly increase the engine revs to 3,000 rpm. As I pushed the throttle lever gently forward a large amount of white smoke billowed from the exhaust. That wasn't part of the plan.
After a few minutes it stopped blowing smoke and we concluded that it may have been the small amount of oil, which I'd injected into the turbo housing as an initial bit of lubrication, burning off.
At 3,000rpm the engine sounded good, there was only cooling water being vigorously spat out of the exhaust and the engine operating temperature was sitting at a steady 60oC. Kev went below to check all around the engine for any leaks and after a minute or so he came up into the cockpit and announced that everything looked fine. A win, we'd done it. We'd successfully stripped the engine, cleaned everything, rebuilt it and installed a new turbo.
What did it cost?
With Aydin, the local engineer, doing all of the coordinating we sourced a new turbo unit from Istanbul and it cost 440 Euros (AU$711).
The gaskets and other small replacement items cost 300 Euros (AU$485).
Professional skimming of the cylinder head, servicing the valves and cleaning all of the parts cost 1,760 TL (AU$305).
Aydin's time and courier fees cost 500 TL (AU$87).
A grand total of AU$1,588 which I consider to be a reasonable price for a new turbo and a reconditioned top end. Our engine will now give us many years of trouble free motoring and we can be confident that it should never fail at an inopportune moment.
I shudder to think what the price would've been had we had someone else do all of the hands on work and I thank the Universe for sending Kev into our lives at just the right moment in time. Everyone needs a Kev in their lives.
Gifts from Switzerland
When we were on the hard in Greece we were sent a cleaning product called Brillean to try out.
We had a lot of cleaning to do on A B Sea after 8 months in a boat yard. The product worked great on pretty much everything we cleaned and the hand cleaner easily removed oily grime from my hands after working on our dirty engine.
Moving forward a few months and while watching one of our videos Heinz and Heidi noticed that our two small tubs of Brillean were almost empty. They asked for our mailing address in Turkey and told us to watch out for a package.
Eventually this huge cardboard box arrived and when we opened it we were amazed to see lots of little gift packages and a massive 2.8kg (6lb) tub of Brillean. You can see the unpacking of the box in this week's video and see how Brillean fixed our friend Elaine's stainless steel sink problem.
If you want to check out the Brillean products click here to go to their website and if you have any questions you can email Heinz here info@brillean.ca
How to choose an anchorage
We get into some interesting conversations with our patrons and they give us great ideas for what they'd like to see in our videos. Henrik Thystrup is a long time patron and he asked if we could include a segment on how we go about choosing an anchorage.
In the segment we use the Greek island of Skiathos as the example because the three anchorages we considered were all very different in their depth, type of seabed and protection.
To see how we gather info about each anchorage click the link to the video at the end of this blog and if you're inclined, leave a comment below the video on something about full time living on a boat that you'd like us to show in a video.
In next week's blog I'll tell you how we got on taking A B Sea out of the marina for the first time since the engine rebuild, so until then wherever you are and whatever you're doing stay safe.
To watch the video that accompanies this blog click here.