More things working now...

I only had a morning in the marina this weekend so I had to make it count. The weather was stunning, although probably a tad breezy further out (or so I told myself). First job was to make the fuel gauge work. I had ordered a new sender from A.s.a.p Supplies which arrived within a day as usual. I wired it up and slid the slidey thing up and down. The needle waved back at me so that looks alright. It was then a simple matter of undoing five screws, lifting the old sender out, dropping the new sender in, aligning the holes (note to others - for some reason the holes are not equally spaced so don't start screwing until you know holes and gasket are aligned) and tightening up. Re-do all the connections and we are back in business with a working gauge.

Next job was a bit more daunting and another one I had been procrastinating - drilling out the old sink drain to take the Webasto heater exhaust skin fitting. It was on the water side of the boat, not the pontoon but luckily there was nobody in the berth next to me so with a series of long warps and running back and forth I moved Rebel Runner about three metres right and tied up again.

 

I had to be very careful about getting in and out, it would have been so easy to leap onto the port side to get out as I usually do, except that would have resulted in a bath.
The old skin fitting came off very easily, no problems there. Now I had to drill a 40mm hole on the same place, at an acute angle to match the angle of the pipe inside the skin fitting. There was no room inside so I have to hang over the side of the pontoon and drill up into the hull with a 240volt device in my hands inches above the water. Luckily the Elf and Safety Department was still tucked up in bed. All went well however, then I had to align the fitting in the hole while I drilled for the mounting screws.

I still have a vivid memory of sitting on the roof while an expensive 316 bolt went bounce bounce bounce plunk into the water. If I slipped, this skin fitting wasn't even going to do the bounce bit, just a straight plunk. I set up a contraption of cord so it could run up and down without falling in, which meant all I had to worry about was dropping drill, chuck key, mastic, screws, screwdriver and power cable. With dextrous fiddling and use of masking tape to hold things in place, one by one the screws were installed and tightened up. It would have been a lot easier with another pair of hands, but where's the challenge in that?

The exhaust pipe was trimmed, lagged and clamped up to the skin fitting and we were nearly ready. Last job was to get fresh air from outside. The space under the side decks ends at the bulkhead, and the other side of the bulkhead is an open rope locker so that was the ideal place to put a vent and duct connector. When they design factory boats I bet they think these things through first. That 80mm hole would have taken moments to do while the bulkhead was lying on a bench, instead it was now in a place where virtually no power tools could reach. With a bit of this and a bit of that and at least half an hour of grunting I managed to carve a not very neat hole but as it is under the vent face nobody will see.

The final job was to put the fuse back in, turn the heater control to Full, and see what happened. These days, machines can sort them selves out so after what seemed like minutes of glugging, whirring and blowing, she very quietly throbbed into life and blew nice hot air around the cabin. I won't be needing it just yet but it is a relief to know it all works.