The Repowering

Barb and I returned from the AirBnB to the yard to find Bret from Marine Pro already there preparing the new engine. His helper, Frank arrived and we all dug into extracting the old engine. It took about an hour to  disconnect the hoses and wires and to unbolt the engine mounts. The equipment operator, drove his fork lift over Jupiter's Smile and Bret hung his chain hoist from the left side fork dropping the lift strap through the companionway opening into the engine compartment. In Puerto Vallarta, Greg had used our boom for the same purpose, but had removed the engine's head and transmission before extracting the engine. That left a smaller load weighing about 300 pounds. The fully assembled engine weighs about 460 pounds and this load wrestled us to a stand off. We acknowledged that it was too big to get out of the engine compartment and that the new engine, slightly larger, would never fit through the engine compartment opening.

Frank and I began to disassemble the cabinetry that made up the front of the engine compartment while Bret set about removing the old instrument panel and running the wiring for the new one. Frank worked doggedly unscrewing about 35 bunged wood screws and freeing tied wires from inside the engine cabinet. We removed the cabinet and it was plain that this would be the final solution to the engine extraction. The operator came back to the forklift and within five minutes, the old engine was on the ground.

Bret and Frank departed at about 5pm entrusting me to clean the engine compartment. I finished at about 6:30 and Barb and I left the yard at dusk.

Thursday was new engine installation day and that all seemed to go well. All the bits and pieces were reassembled, including the engine room cabinet. The new engine has an oil extraction tube that will make oil changes much easier and the instrumentation includes water sensors in both Racor fuel filters to detect water contamination of the fuel. On Friday, with water from a hose, the engine was started and it ran right away. With no leaks, everything working and sounding great, we were ready for launching. We were second in line, but the boat ahead of us had some issues so we were delayed until late afternoon. Once we splashed and with Bret and Frank aboard we motored in the Cape Canaveral Canal at various engine speeds. All seemed good with the engine reaching 2950 rpms at full throttle. The top rpm is 3000, but Bret and Frank were satisfied with what they saw. I was very pleased that the engine seemed stronger and quieter than the original. They encouraged us to vary the engine speed often during the first 50 hours, the break-in period.

We returned to the dock at the work yard and I returned Dan and Kathy's car to them in Titusville, getting a ride back from Dan. These cruising friends are friends indeed. We had been given permission to stay at the dock overnight as long as we could leave before 8am Saturday morning.

We slept well, well pleased with expectations that our new engine would serve us faithfully.