SABB Diesel Engine Work

Today was a big day: Zee of Shoreline Diesel "tore down" the SABB diesel engine.

I first got wind of the plan last night when I saw an email from Mark telling me of the plan and asking me to visit is office at 9 AM today. This was unexpected and unfortunate because I had gone to a lot of trouble to get enough car insurance to book a car for today so that Brenda and I could visit Hurricane Ridge and other sights at the Olympic National Park.

I met Mark at 9 AM and he said that he could find time to work on the engine today and I knew better than to do a postponement. But there was the matter of tenure of my slip. He telephoned the marina office and said that he was going to disable my boat for possibly up to 3 weeks. The reply was that I would have to move. Slip D269 was chosen and I told Mark that I would have Pachuca there within the hour. I visited D269, warned the fellow in the next slip that I was coming, then rushed to Pachuca to break the news to Brenda. We said our goodbyes to Janet on the next boat and started to get the boat ready enough with the move. I use the phrase "ready enough" because I left in place boxes and other gear that I had moved into the cockpit to give Doug Roth access to the refrigerator compressor. On the deck was my folded up genoa and Zodiac. Anyway, with the help of Zee the mechanic we managed to make the move without mishap.

Zee took the head off and made his inspection. The good news is that Mark was pleasantly surprised at how well the cast iron has stood up to the salt water. He did not find the degeneration that he had feared. He says that SABB puts a lot of nickel into their cast iron and it outlasts just about anything else around.

The no. 2 cylinder (rear one) is in top condition. The head had a good coating and the cylinder still showed the etching marks from either manufacture or a previous overhaul. The only flaw there was a thin line of scoring possibly from the seize-up when a cooling water hose coupling failed out of New Zealand.

The no. 1 cylinder has had a harder life. There is evidence that gas has escaped through the head gasket and, worse, salt water has been ingested through the same pathway. The piston and cylinder show some of the effects of this, with some evidence of blow-by.

There is no evidence of leakage from the outside of the cylinder liners and the judgement is that I can get by OK without replacing the cylinder liners and pistons.

However, the No. 1 head must be either replaced or machined. The cleaner option is to get a new head and valve set. I have sent a query on the cost of having one delivered to Shoreline. If it must be sourced out of Norway, as I expect, then I'll probably pay to have it air freighted to avoid a 3-week delivery time.

Some minor leaking was found from seals at the hand cranking unit and that will be fixed.

The accompanying photos show some of the components that were removed. The bottom photo shows the water silencer which looked horribly corroded but turned out to be OK, saving me about $800 from memory. The next photo up shows the two heads, with the damaged No. 1 head at the rear. You can see the corrosive effect of the leakage and can compare the deposits on the two heads.