Zen and the art of sailboat maintenance

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Comment by LOLA on March 11, 2009 at 6:13pm

Hi all..found a good site with many comments (scroll down the page) on the cleaning of the mast track
The candle as interesting...but gummy too...

Heres the site

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-maintenance/1354-lubricating-mast-track.html

Comment by h on March 10, 2009 at 2:53am

Lola,

I read what you want to do without climbing up the mast.

I would not send anything up in the track with the sail. If you accidentally left it behind at the top, you may end up having to climb the mast.

Like Terri said, if you do not want to climb the mast, just spray the lugs when they are all down.

Although the better way is to spray the empty track all the way from top to bottom.

Good Luck.

Comment by LOLA on March 9, 2009 at 4:57pm

HELLO..SEE MY DISCUSSION ON LUBRICATING MY SAIL TRACK ON CARBON FIBER MAST

I BOUGHT SAILKOTE BY MCLUBE.

QUESTION ..HOW DO I KEEP THE SOAKED RAG AT THE TOP OF THE FIRST SAIL CLIP AS I RAISE THE MAIN SAIL UP AND DOWN THE MAST? IT SAYS IT'S DRY LUBRICANT....

I PLAN TO DO IT SEVERAL TIMES

THANK YOU

Comment by LOLA on March 8, 2009 at 5:22pm

Hey Pete
was at the boat..took a picture of the meter...it was an hour meter. I have a picture of the fuel gauge and the hour one.....will upload them later.

Comment by PCarrico on February 17, 2009 at 10:01am

Lola, What's that gauge in the photo?
Also I don't see a fuel shut off valve.
Otherwise you have reasonable access
The muffler also has a feature of a drain plug, but it's not made active as the plastic muffler needs to be drilled and a cap added to that little bump on the lower left side of the muffler under the exhaust exit hose.
The drain plug feature is for when the engine becomes difficult to start, and the effort to start then floods the muffler & exhaust hose to a point that could flood and hydrolock the engine.
Hydrolocking is rare, and usually reserved for older engines that are difficult to start. A simple remedy is to shut off the seawater supply.
On real BAD engines, I just remove the impeller with the seawater shut off until I can get the engine started, then once started to stop the engine and install the impellor and then run the engine with the seawater valve open.

Comment by LOLA on February 17, 2009 at 9:48am

My engine

Comment by PCarrico on February 17, 2009 at 9:41am

Expensive?
I imagine that the cost/value would need to be weighed.
All the parts on the American Promise complex system described below would probably cost about $2500.00 for parts and another $600 to $1000 for professional installation.
The T & vacuum gauge installation would cost about $40.

Comment by PCarrico on February 17, 2009 at 9:37am

The vacuum gauge is very easy to install.
The primary parts are the "T" fitting and the vacuum gauge.
I prefer to have the T fitting separate from the fuel filter, as in not directly attached to the filter so that if you bump the fitting it won't crack at the connection.
A dual filter installation is a bit more challenging with space available often being difficult to find. A manifold that has the supply and return valves next to each other make identification & system operation less prone to mistakes.
I had one boat with 4 fuel & 4 water tanks with engine & genset. Both the engine and genset had dual Racor filters, and a fuel scrubbing racor filter set that I could also move fuel from one tank to another that worked independent from the engine. One problem was that the vacuum on the scrubber was so great that it would starve the genset, so we added an electric lift pump to the genset to increase boost. The engine also had an electric lift pump for bleeding. The genset electric lift pump was also good for bleeding the fuel lines also.
We also added electric oil change pumps to the engine which really made my life better, especially for changing oil at sea or when time was restrained.
A soft hose installation can handle the bumps much better.

Comment by LOLA on February 16, 2009 at 11:10pm

Hey Thanks Pete.

Is it expensive and expensive to install?

Comment by PCarrico on February 16, 2009 at 10:28pm

Dual fuel filter systems are very convenient, especially if you have regular fuel problems with old baffled tanks.
But one of the best things you can do to your fuel system is to put a vacuum gauge on the fuel line. After you install a new clean filter, you will notice a nominal reading of just a few psi vacuum. As the filter does it's work and begins to clog, the vacuum psi will rise and you'll then have some mechanical warning that the filter will need changing.

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