Screwed

Today's mission was to try to remove the cover plate from the engine's fresh water pump to get at the impeller. I haven't had a look at that for a long time as the screws were very stubborn. So. . . I got a can of thread loosener and sprayed liberally. It seems where the screws go on the pump there are tiny holes behind so you can squirt stuff in there perhaps right into the threads. Now its cram myself into the engine room, clamp the vice grips onto the jumbo screwdriver, take a deep breath and PRESS (and turn). I try very hard to NOT let the screw driver slip out of the slot as that just ruins any chance later. Nothing.

Squirt
Pound
Sweat
SWEAR LOUD

nothing. I rested and just tried again. Amazing! Got two right away. 10 minutes later the third came out.

1.5 hours later and much more swearing. . . YES! I had tried to use one of those screw extractors but it just kept making a nice smooth cone shape in the screw. Now there was NO slot left at all. Duh . . .I finally realized that with 3 screws out I could rotate the whole plate and loosen the screw that way. The impellar looks fine with no missing blades. One less worry.

That was my afternoon. I'm done. Can you tell which screw was the problem? Of course now I can't put the plate back on without finding a replacement screw. I checked at Budget Marine but no such screw in brass. I'll have to check at Island Water World and I'll also get on the net tomorrow and check with other cruisers. There's a pretty good bet that someone has it.

I did meet with Lesley the very nice lady who has been opening Enee up once a week for an hour and keeping her looking and smelling nice. I think Lesley smelled nice too but after the engine room, well that sets the bar pretty low! She is going to keep at it for April and May and make Enee ready to go for June 6 or 7. Before we arrive she'll wash down the decks as well. She's also going to try to track down some people who she thinks can make new seat covers for us. It's been pretty fun to peel ourselves off the vinyl down here in the tropics but that's enough fun.

For deck washing to happen the dinghy is going to have to move. We correctly lashed dinghy to the deck to keep it save and secure for hurricane seasons. But now it's in the way and I'm crammed in with other boats so getting the dinghy off the deck presents a problem.

For another day!

Question for all the experts out there. I think the batteries are charging ok. When I disconnect the charger they sit at 12.6 volts as they should but WOW are they HOT. Should batteries be that hot, almost too hot to touch from charging? I don't think so but I'm going to read up.