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Equinox Project | Thursday, December 11, 2008 I needed to get some primer on another boat in the shop, so since I focused on this unrelated task much of the day, I had just a few hours to get a few things done on Equinox. I removed the four flexible engine mounts from the engine room, since it was unlikely that we'd be reusing them, and also to give me a better area in which to kneel and work, as the after mounts had been in the way. Then, I worked on removing through hulls. Because the existing through hulls incorporated unsupported ball valves screwed onto the through hull stems, I decided that all of the underwater fittings needed to be changed. In addition, two now-redundant fittings for the old head intake and discharge, located beneath the starboard side of the V-berth, needed to be removed permanently, and their holes patched. I determined that two additional through hulls servicing the manual and automatic bilge pump outlets, which were located above the waterline, could probably stay as is, as they seemed to be in better shape than the others and, being above the waterline, were less critical. I began with the two cockpit scupper fittings, located just aft of the engine room. I made an attempt to unthread the elbow fittings secured to the through hull threads, and made minute progress, but presently I noticed that the through hull itself was spinning; besides, I'd failed to make any real progress on unthreading the elbow anyway. Therefore, I decided to grind off the exterior mushroom flange from these fittings and remove them that way. I used a metal grinding wheel in my grinder and quickly removed the center portion of the mushroom fitting, exposing the threaded body of the through hull and releasing it from the boat. Then, it was a simple matter for me to tap the fitting inward to loosen it, and finally to remove the fitting from the inside. |
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Continuing on, I made a half-hearted attempt to unscrew the internal portions of the engine intake fitting, only to nearly immediately determine the futility of the exercise. So instead, I returned to the shop floor and ground off all the remaining through hull heads, as before, after removing an external strainer over the engine fitting. With the fittings ground, I was able to easily remove the remaining 4 fittings from inside. This, along with some planning for some of the next stages of the project, took care of the work list for today. |
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