January 2005

5 - Puget Sound Maritime Heritage Society - As guest speaker I presented a PowerPoint presentation of the history and the trip up the coast of the 83527.

8-9 Scraped more linoleum. Dean Lachaw, a retired 6-71 engine volunteer visited to see what was going on with the smoking engine. After a valve adjustment we were still smokey. Closer analysis showed that the oil was completely contaminated with water. We started draining the pan.

15-16 -  Pacific NW Maritime Heritage Council Meeting - Presented the status of the project.

22-23 -  We got to the boat about 8:45 and the wind was really howling. We had to re-tie the boat because it was pushed about 4' from the dock. One cleat was almost ripped out on the aft quarter. It took 4 of us about 1.5 hours to get the lines changed and re-secured.

Roxane and Carol Craig spent most of the day scraping linoleum glue in the crew quarters. Slowly we are winning that battle.

Ed Young, former 83527 sailor stopped by with a great photo from his days aboard.

Dean Robins 6-71 buddy and his friend from Hadlock, WA arrived about noon. He adjusted all of the valves with the engine cold per the spec. After starting it still blew white smoke. Oh, no look at the silver brown oil streaming out of the valve cover. Water in the oil! Yes, there is a fresh water leak somewhere. It could be the oil cooler, heat exchanger or engine head. So that creates another project. Tike is going to talk to a Manson 6-71 engine guy and see what usually goes wrong. Dick is going to contact an engine guy he knows and get some more opinions and we will invent a game plan with more info.

Aaron (ham radio friend and AVR fan) came to work on the generator voltage regulator circuit and discovered that there were 2 more bad resistors. It appears that corrosion is killing them. I don’t know if it was a problem from when the saltwater spray was everywhere when the waterpump was bad, before we got the boat. Anyway, Aaron will continue attempt to resolve that. He at least had time to draw up a schematic of the circuit.

We adjourned about 4pm and had a great dinner with Tike and Margaret, Dick and Carol, Royal and Sue and Rox and I. We had never been with Margaret, and she was fun and interested in helping out in the future. Carol and Sue had grown up in a nearby neighbor hood and gone to the same school at the same time. I'm not sure if they remembered each other from then though. They had fun

27 - Pulled an oil sample to take to Caterpillar for analysis. We learned that there was no salt water in the oil.

28 - I received the follow letter and photo story today from Joseph A Wright, Jr. CDR, USCGR (Ret)

29 - Scanned Sea Classic Magazine Article on 83 Footers article

 

3-1  Earlier in the month I noticed an ad in Western Maritime newspaper selling two Detroit Diesel engine hulks with "crashbox" transmissions as spares. The deal included two 200 gallon water tanks and two 400 gallon fuel tanks that were pulled out of a 63 foot crashboat owned by Scott Bennedict in Bethel Island, CA.

On Tuesday I scouted out the location of the equipment. Wednesday met my buddy, George Burton in Vallejo, CA with his Chevrolet Duramax Diesel pickup and a borrowed trailer.
 

Thursday we finalized the loading and in the late afternoon we headed for out for Seattle. At a "snack" stop in Red Bluff we noticed a stream of diesel underneath the pickup and trailer hitch. The exhaust pipe was dripping with diesel.  When he pulled the dipstick we saw that the pan was also full of diesel. George found a yellow pages in the payphone book and we saw that a Chevrolet/GMC dealership was 20 miles back south in Orland, CA. So back we went, but by then the dealership was closed. We then took refuge in the "Amber Light" motel on the Westside of town waiting for morning.

At 8 am we were on their doorstep hoping for a "GM warranty" miracle. Apparently this was a common problem for the early Duramax engines. There was plenty of "factory warranty" remaining, so there was little worry about getting the work done, but the concern was "when" would it be done.  If we had to scrub the journey George would just take me to the Sacramento airport in a rental car and I would return home.  The dealership really went to bat for us and by 11am we were on the road with a rental Duramax pickup. Plus, GM was picking up the rental charge. Although it was not a 4wd we were not expecting any weather that would require the extra traction.

George and I had a great time gabbing and telling sea stories and just drove straight through to Seattle, actually Port Ludlow and my home at 1:30am.

Two or Three days later we started offloading the engines from the trailer. Unfortunately the John Deere tractor with loader that I had arranged for could not pick up the engine/transmission combination. So, we had to drag them off of the trailer onto 4X4 boards to then skid them into place where I was storing them.
 

6-11 - During this week George volunteered his time to assist with the identification and modification to the AC electrical circuits. We got some circuits marked for removal and some split or relocated and documented. Although there is a long way to go it was a HUGE start to get the elementary drawings completed.

12 - This work party was low key. It was mostly electrical system wrapup and lower deck linoleum cleanup. Tike Hillman and Mike Mallet put some time into defining the extent of damage to the bottom of the spray shield. The major goal is to reduce or eliminate water from seeping down from the overhead into the crew compartments. George got the bilge/fire pump rewired and tested.

19-20 - Started the engine oil change, adding kerosene to flush. Changed the drain plug to a ball valve for ease of draining. Thompson fixed aft vents to spin open easily and added fans for air circulation. We had a walkup guest, Franz Gruber, from Port Ludlow. He served on the 83527 in the early 60's.

22 - Craig and Withers decided the starboard starter was not up to the task and took it to Townsend Electric for a rebuild. visited BM2 Whitney Crookham at Coast Guard Station Port Townsend and got the real color info on the CG Buff paint color. It is officially "Jarvie Spar Buff" 24635, Color Code 10371. (Sample below)

24 - finished scanning the Twin Disc Installation and Maintenance Manual and Detroit Diesel Manuals placed online here.

26-27 - We removed deck plates in the Chiefs, galley and crew berthing compartment and took them home to strip off the hardware and linoleum. See the photos here.

The Wabash was built in Tacoma in 1942 at the Todd Seatac  facility and several volunteers and friends of the WWFM actually worked at the shipyard on the ship.

Our mission was to visit with Earl Johnson, the Fleet Operations & Maintenance Officer to gain access to the boat and find some artifacts for the WWFM to commemorate that boatbuilding effort. We arrived at the office about 13:00 for the initial briefing about how the process works to go aboard one of the boats.

This letter from Luke Curtis, the 3rd amigo, will sum up the adventure.

This  slideshow of the trip is composed from many photos taken by Dan and Luke.

Part of the afternoon of the first day was spent at Mare Island visiting Mike Stone and the USCGC Alert. Mike is part of a group that is planning to restore the Alert and bring her up the coast to an Oregon or Washington shipyard for some work.

Luke and Dan were leaving on Tuesday afternoon. On the way to the Oakland Airport we swang through the Berkeley Marina to find an 85' Crash Rescue boat moored there.

The advantage for the 83527 was that a pair of 12" signaling search lights were located and a request for additional items was made to MARAD. A second road trip is being organized to get the items for the WWFM and CCOA/83527.

All hangers and hardware removed and the rusty areas were sanded and a coat of NAPA rust converter was applied. The seam where the angle iron plate that attaches to the pilot house and the spray shield was chipped and sanded and all caulking, bad wood and general crap was removed. The rusty edges of both sides were painted with the rust converter. More work is required to finish this part. The final fix will be completed another day.

26-27 - The weather was raining all weekend. Nothing significant happened on board.

29 - Dick Craig and Dan started re-assembly of the engine. We got the head "yarded" over the engine with a chain hoist and a big c-clamp attached to an overhead beam. It is now torqued down to spec ready for the injectors to be installed.

30 - Hurray, the Port Ludlow Marina has cut us a break and we can stay one more month, but at a different slip. That move will probably take place tomorrow with the help of Mike Mallet and the Vessel Assist boat.

[ Forward to Next Page Starting April 1, 2005 ]