Wednesday, August 1, 2018

IT COULD BE WORSE . . . . .

     We spent a beautiful day on my mooring, enjoying the sun and the breeze and the sea and, of course, not moving except to swing with the wind and the tide. One tends to do that even when on a cruise. After all,part of the reason for the cruise is tyo enjoy wherever it is you drop your hook.

     I took the opportunity to take care of a couple of easy things that needed to be fix. They were not particularly important, but now that they are done, there are less thing on my "to do" list.

     Eric the Mechanic, who works on the club launch, stopped by having been called by several people in the club even before I got the chance to do so myself. After a five minute discussion, he said that the problem wasn't the injectors.  The problem was bacteria. There is some bacteria that lives in petroleum products, like diesel fuel and when pump from a marina's tank into a boat's tank, they go along for the ride. If there is water in the fuel in either tank or both, and there always is some from condensation, it starts to grow and grow and grow. If not biocided it can get sucked up into the fuel lines and  and any piping and hoses the fuel passes through. According to Eric, this is what happen, blocking the flow of fuel from where it needs to go and so it starves the engine. So Eric came up with a plane.

     First, put a large amount of bio-side into the fuel to kill the bacteria and literally melt the bio-masses. Secondly, load the fuel with "CETANE," a fuel additive that raises the octane level of the fuel. Thirdly, use a fogging agent in the air intake and start the engine and keep trying to start the engine until either it starts or we need to charge the batteries. He says that this should work. It should blow out any problems and the engine will run fine. It will be interesting to see if it works.


AH! THE JOY OF BOAT OWNERSHIP!!!!!!