Settled into the rhythm of life in the RV park and started putting "Tango" back together. Engine cranked right up and ran well until it overheated! I spent a large part of the time last year working on the water intake, pump, and heat exchanger. The engine ran hotter than "Jazz", but the alarm stayed off except when pushed very hard.
One irritating thing it did was to blow smoke up through the scuppers on start up and at random times. I thought it was just the location and trim of the boat. It also seemed to crank harder. I expected the engine to spin faster with the good batteries and charging system. The Newmar charge I got from Jon Siewers last year is dead. The solar and wind can't keep up without the engine.
After consulting the font of all knowledge, the Internet, I decided to attack the mixing elbow.
The wet exhaust system on most sailboats injects cooling seawater from the output of the heat exchanger directly into the hot exhaust gas stream just behind the engine. This not only cools the exhaust, but also muffles the noise. It also allows the use of rubber hoses and even plastic mufflers!
As you can imagine, the mixture of salt water, diesel exhaust gases, soot, and heat make the mixing point suffer from corrosion and the collection of hard, salty, calcium deposits in the elbow. Yanmar says the elbow is a 500-hour maintenance replacement item.
Apparently, nobody had ever touched this one. I busted knuckles, cussed, and bruised ribs from leaning over the engine. Tried to take the melted, wire-wrapped rubber hose off the elbow. Even after cutting the wires back for over an inch, the hose wouldn't budge! I decided to stop for the evening and come back the next day to force the elbow with the hose attached backwards past the transmission and hacksaw the hose off.
Fortunately, the next morning a look behind the engine made the obvious choice loosening the hose at the water muffler then pulling the entire mess out of the front over the top.
$450 and a day later, the new exhaust and hose are in hand and ready to install!
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