The Forward Engine Room Bulkhead

What a mess. You can see, from the pictures I took when the blog started, the 12 Volt wiring was a complete mess. It looked like two octopuses trying to mate in a wind tunnel. So, the first step was to remove everything from the bulkhead, and paint it white. I use a moisture cured polyurethane paint from Wasser. It is expensive, at around $125.00 gallon, but it applies in one coat, and is almost indestructible once fully cured.

I then re-routed the battery cables into sealed, ventilated compartments located on each side of the freshwater tank, so I can remove the batteries from the engine room. Before anyone considers duplicating this modification, there are a few items to remember:

 1st - Conventional flooded lead acid batteries vent considerable amounts of water and acidic gas. I have changed to sealed AGM style batteries from Optima. These batteries recycle almost all of the water and gasses liberated during charging, and therefore do not contaminate the compartment with acidic fumes.

2nd - I have vented each compartment back into the engine room.

3rd - I have installed a modern, "intelligent" style charger. I will sell the smaller charger on Ebay, to recoup some of the expense. The new one is a 40 Amp, three bank charger from Promariner, from their ProNautic line. These chargers accommodate AGM style batteries, and provide a "float" voltage once the batteries are charged, to maintain the batteries without overcharging. Older style ferroresonant chargers can potentially overcharge a battery, and drive the battery into aggressive out-gassing. If you have one of these, you should seriously consider upgrading to a modern charger - it will probably save you money in the long run

Turning things around

Well, I have been hard at work these last few weeks removing all the old hoses, wiring, sea strainers, seacocks, etc., so I can paint the bilge. A clean, well maintained bilge is important on a boat. Leaks are readily apparent, the space is brighter and easier to work in, and it just looks good. So, everything is coming out. I am filling all the old screw holes with thickened epoxy, as I will be re-routing most of the plumbing and wring on the boat. Sea Ray does an "ok" job with this, but not up to custom boat builder standards, which is where I intend to be when this is done. Today's pictures show the beginnings of the bilge refinishing. As you can see, the mufflers, muffler supports, batteries, prop shafts, and rudders have been removed from the boat, and the painting has begun. I will be posting a bit more often now, since things have gotten rolling.

A New Workspace

In order to complete the restoration, over the cold New England winter months, I needed to construct a shelter over the boat. I considered a steel building, or even new construction with a foundation, but these options were just too expensive. Kits for portable garages and greenhouse style shelters are also available, but these ran about $5,000 for the size I needed, and I thought that was a bit much also. So, I designed a structure based on schedule 40 black pipe footings, driven deeply into the ground, with 1" EMT structure mounted on top of them. The EMT fittings are available online from http://tarps.com, along with some very useful information, and the pipe and EMT are local hardware store items. I procured the actual tarp from http://www.tarpsonline.com. I used the heavy white tarp, in a 40' x 60' size. Once the tarp was stretched over the structure, I screwed it every 18 inches, at the bottom, to wooden strips that are U-bolted to the pipe. All in all, it worked out beautifully, and I now have a dry space to work all winter. As the weather gets cold, I will be putting heat out there as well....