Heat Exchanger Installation Completed

Finally, I got to work on the heat exchanger installation.

Work has been slow lately and, luckily, no translations came in during the day. Good to get my hands dirty and this project over with.

It's been said a thousand times, but I'll say it again: on a boat, what seems like a 1-hour job takes a whole day!

The procedure went like this: got three clamps, drilled a hole in each one and screwed them to the engine room panel; cut some rubber strips from an old fender for protection; placed the heat exchanger in place; tightened the clamps; cut and added hoses to fit new sizes and "presto,"  I was done. Sounds like a quickie, right? Wrong!

Original location of the heat exchanger (the tube-like thing behind the engine)

New location beside the engine (the tube with the white rubber protection strips)

I don't want to bore you with details describing how it took the whole day. Let's just say that it's a tight fit requiring a lot of measuring and head scratching, kneeling and leaning into the engine compartment. Just to give you an idea, I had to hold the tube (it's not light) in  place with two ropes so I could install it with both hands, while lying on my stomach and bracing myself on the engine with my left elbow. Ouch, ouch, the engine is hard as steel.

That's where an extra arm would come in handy to brace my body - nearly fell onto the engine head first a couple of times. Spent nearly an hour looking for a gasket I KNEW was on the boat somewhere, and finally found it concealed behind a stack of charts. What was I thinking, when I put it there in a bag with other gaskets and rubbery things?

Anyway, it's done, finished, finished, over with and looks good. And just in time too, because I now have a substantial translation for Monday, meaning that I'll have to work over the weekend.

When I arrived at the marina the large Dutch sailboat was gone (they were here for  a few months), a sailboat was leaving just as I arrived and then a large luxury sailboat came in at about 4:00 pm with what looked like a delivery crew.

Youngish couple leaving early with a boat full of dreams