Genset Saga Continues

Well, there has been a little progress.

Kohler oil filter stand-in

I have removed the remote oil filter mount, the (rusted out) oil lines and the heavy iron casting that Kohler installed to replace the oil filter and provide attachment points for the oil lines.  Holy cow!  That was not trivial work.  The banjo fittings at the oil line ends used 25 mm bolts, and it was pretty much everything I could muster in the confined space to break them loose.

As another example of Salnick’s Law of Recursive Maintenance, it was not possible to actually separate the oil lines from the engine because they were behind the water feed line to the sea water pump.  Since I had then to drain and disconnect the pump, this provided a perfect opportunity to replace the pump impeller.  The old impeller looked like it was new.

And while the pump was out I got the oil lines out, tho even with the water fed line out of the way it was still a complex geometry problem to unthread the lines in the cramped operation space.

Oil filter in Yanmar factory location (oil lines still in place)

In order to ensure that I had no leaks, I installed a new filter, reconnected the sea water line and fired up the genset.  There were no leaks, oil or water!

Next on the agenda:

• Replace the corroded mess of a fuel lift pump
• Remove the exhaust elbow and send it to the fabricator who will make me a new one out of 316SS.  This will not be easy.  Two of the bolts that hold the elbow on are corroded to the point that the heads are just nubs.  And of course these are the ones that are nearly impossible to get at.  To add, I can’t budge the other two... without risk of snapping them off. 
  
  My next plan is to use a Dremel tool to tediously grind off the heads of the bolts, remove the elbow and then use vice grips to attempt to remove the remaining “studs”.  Two of the bolts go into thru-holes in a flange on the block, so the worst case scenario there would be that they get drilled out and replaced with bolts and nuts.  The other two, the hardest to get at (naturally), go into blind holes...

And so the saga continues...

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