Henry and Joe
Gregory Engineering have been on board servicing the gearbox. It's great to have such capable guys working on the boat. This is a period of maintenance in the run-up to Easter. Let's hope we get good weather and we can go and get it all wet and salty again.
Henry with the test rig
On the Tuesday after Easter Henry and Joe came back and set up a test rig. The oil pump stood up fine, doing its thing. But dismantling the selector valve revealed a broken spring that could explain the symptoms: a long delay, and harsh engagement.
Selector valve exploded view
Henry sourced a spring and shims from Pacific Driveline in Australia and Zane and Joe came down Friday 27 to bolt it all up and test it. Yay! No more delay. Smooth engagement too, though we'll need to steam at full power for a couple of hours to get things nice and hot to finally prove that one fixed. Well done guys, we're impressed.
Queens Birthday Weekend finally gave us the opportunity to have a proper sea trial and prove the gearbox repairs. We steamed around at 1400 rpm for quite a while and the gearbox casing was up to 70C. The gear shifts were still smooth and near-instant. Job done. Thanks guys.
ReplyDeleteHenry got us another spring and shims to go in the spares locker, just in case they become hard to get in the future. I noticed it was a genuine TwinDisc part.
ReplyDelete