Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Stabilizer Performance Report

I've got a couple hundred miles on the stabilizers now and thought I'd report back on how they are working. I'm happy to report I'm still thrilled with the results and the performance. We've been out in a wide variety of seas, the worst being around 4-6 ft. We've had lots of opportunities with head seas, following seas, and quarter seas. With few exceptions, the boat just runs flat - that's all there is to it.

The other day I figured out how to get our roll displayed on the Maretron display and can now actually put some numbers to it. Under most conditions the boat won't roll more than 1-2 deg in either direction. The worst I saw was 5 deg, and that was with a really difficult side sea. With the stabilizers off, I was seeing 12-15 deg rolls. In this worst case situation they are taking around 70% of the roll out, and I'd say under typical conditions they take 95% of the roll out.

Mechanically, things are also going well. There is no sign of leakage, either water or hydraulic fluid. I do have a small ooze from one of the raw water pipe fittings at the oil cooler, but it's almost non-extent so I'm planning to deal with it over the winter.

Speaking of the cooler, the hottest I've seen the hydraulic fluid is 100F, and the starboard engine (the one providing the cooling water and running the hydraulic pump) operates within 1-2 deg of the port engine and so far the max temp I've seen is 172F. From all this I'm comfortable that the extra power load and cooling load are just fine.

Happy Camper and I.

Comments and discussion on this post:

dacust: Awesome.

And thanks so much for the report back. That's a valuable part of the write-up.

askaer: Now I am back to Singapore after a long break to Denmark.

We have not ourselves had enough time to test our Grand Banks 47EU since we had the GB factory to refit Trac Star Stabilizers.

We recognise however your enthusiasm on the effectiveness of the system. We have had a bit of shake at low speed. We have had a few parameters changed which helped. I shall revert later once we have had more time to try.

What is your observation with regards to lost speed and increased fuel consumption?

I added a few photos on our homepage www.askaer.com from a wonderful cruising in Copenhagen on a factory new GB47 - look at the blog. Kind regards

Tanglewood: Hello Heine,

Sorry I didn't see your post here until today.

Yes, at very low speed it does occasionally feel like the boat just got a gentle bump. But my fins only go active when the engines are in forward gear which means a minimum of about 4 kts of headway. I noticed the bumps when we were commissioning the system at the dock and the interlocks that halt the system while stationary were disabled. The fins were responding to boat movement, but there was no water flow over the fins so they were not having much effect. But on an otherwise still boat, you could clearly feel them twitching.

You have the stabilization at rest feature which I don't, so if you are experiencing it at low speed or at anchor, it may just be an artifact of that capability.

Also, there is some different feel to the boat while underway, but I've always attributed it to the fins doing their job, and don't even notice it anymore. I liken it the odd feel of any boat that you are operating for the first, but after a few rides it all becomes natural.

As for speed loss, ABT predicted 0.5 kts top speed loss. I don't have very reliable data because

1) There was different loading (as in fuel and water) for the various measurements I've taken

2) My GPS speed readings typically fluctuate +- 0.5 kts to over a kt depending on sea conditions, so I estimate an average.

The result of all this is that I probably can't measure a difference of 0.5 kts which tells you how important a loss it is. But if I had to guess (which I'm happy to do), I'd say I lost between 1/4 and 1/5 kt. Now that's off cruise speed of 20+ kts where the drag will be at it's max. At displacement speeds I'd say there is no loss, and my measurements might even suggest there is a gain.

All the same applies to fuel consumption. The bottom line with both is that I think any losses are insignificant.

Nice pictures from Denmark!

askaer: Great to hear from you. You are absolutely right that the boat acts differently in the sea not least due to the counter balance movements by the fins. I am very impressed on their effectiveness. My observations are however that I am 1-2 kts slower, that the fuel consumption is up by perhaps 0,5 liter per Nm and with more noise in the cabins while activated. They work fantastic at rest and we have succeeded to remove the shake at low speed (5-6 knots). I have not had any other issues and I am very pleased with the result overall.

That let me move on to another question that perhaps you may be able to address. In fact I wanted originally to install the Seakeeper Gyro System without fins. Unfortunately as an after installation it would have ended up too far at the aft (additional 500 KG) that I did not like. Have you any information or comparison between the Seakeeper Gyro Stabiliser system and that of TRAC fins for Grand Banks or similar boats? Any out there who could provide pros and cons! I have watched some videos of Seakeeper stabilizers that looks as effective. Is that the case?

Tanglewood: I don't have any first-hand experience with gyro stabilizers, but can give the reason's I didn't pursue them;

1) Physical size. The only place they would fit in my boat was in the laz, and as you say it would have put a lot of weight far aft, and consumed valuable storage/utility space. The active fins don't consume any space that was otherwise usable. This will of course depend greatly on the details of your boat, configuration, size etc. Other boats will not have this issue at all.

2) Weight. I don't know the exact weight of the fin system, but I'd estimate 500 lbs. Not a huge difference compared to a gyro, but 2x none the less.

3) Power. I run my genset only occasionally when needed. It does not run all the time when I am on board. Gyro's all (at least all I've seen) run off AC, and a lot of it, which would require 24x7 gen set operation. It might be possible to rig up some sort of hybrid with an inverter and batteries, but it's a big load to be doing such a thing. By the way, my unwillingness to run a genset all the time (legacy mentality from my sailing days) effectively precludes any form of stabilization at rest since I don't have a power source. If you have a boat with 24x7 power, this too is not an issue.

4) This is all hear-say, but I've heard enough reports of marginal performance regarding gyro's, where I've never heard anything other than complete satisfaction with active fin performance.

I'd say much of the decision was particular to my own preferences and the specifics of my boat, but the last point I don't think can be ignored.

Regarding lost speed and fuel consumption, that's a significant difference. At the same time, you report almost exactly the same speed @2400 RPM as I get. Perhaps your earlier numbers were with a lightly loaded boat? I do see a clear difference between a light and full (fuel and water) boat.

wolfhound: Thank you, Tanglewood.

This thread, now about a year old, is Cruisers Forum at its best.

Any further experience or evaluations from you will be appreciated, as will be similar commentary from your Singapore counterpart.

Tanglewood: Thanks for the thanks. The stabilizers continue to work flawlessly, and we put over 2800 miles on them this year with about 1/2 of that out in very open water. Unless we are on a river or a lake, they are on all the time.

I haven't heard from Heine, but hopefully he's still reading CF and will chime in.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Declaration: The Job is Done!

I'm ready to declare them done!

All the wires are dressed up, the hydraulic lines are sheathed where they contact another surface, and the bonding wires are all installed.

Today we went out for a few hours and had a better chance to see how they work across a variety of seas. It wasn't particularly rough, but we had several opportunities to get into some swells from a variety of different angles. At one point I turned them off to see the difference. The boat got rolling pretty good as we plugged along at 5 kts or so, then I turned them back on. The boat flattened right out and stayed that way. I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

Comments and discussion on this post:

DeepFrz: Congratulations on a job very well done and thanks for posting this wonderful thread. Happy cruising.

Monday, May 23, 2011

The Bottom Line

And now, for the bottom line.

I'm sure a number of people are curious how the costs shaped up for this project. I haven't kept an exact accounting, but I think I can nail it within a $1000.

First, Here's the breakdown for out of pocket costs, i.e. everything except my labor:


  • Hull modifications and reinforcement $8,500
  • ZF transmission PTO kit $600
  • Glendinning relay interlock kit $300
  • Hydraulic hoses & misc $1,200
  • Misc supplies, awlgrip, interprotect, epoxy $1,000
  • Equipment from ABT $30,000
Total $41,600

The biggest cost was the equipment itself at about $30k. Collectively, the installation cost $11,600. The biggest installation cost was the hull work. If we had not needed to relocate a stringer section, I expect this cost would have been 1/2 to 1/3, but to avoid this you would either have to get really lucky, or have a much bigger boat with larger spaces available. The hydraulic hoses were a bit less than I had estimated, coming in at about $70 each where I had expected $100. The Awlgrip and Interprotect are very expensive, especially after you get all the extra potions to thin, activate, clean, etc., accounting for about half of the $1000 of misc supplies.

My labor is harder to value, both because I didn't keep track of it, but also because I was doing everything for the first time and hence taking a lot more time than I'd expect someone who's done this before. Regardless, here's what I think is a reasonable estimate.

The project took 6 weeks of elapsed time. Some of those weeks I only worked a day or two, and others I worked 7 days. I'd say on average I worked 4 days a week. Some days I worked 8 hrs, but others I got in no more than 3-4 hrs of productive time. On average I think it's fair to say I worked 6 hrs per day. Running the math on that I put in 144 hrs.

If it took me 144 hrs bumbling along with a lot of head scratching, I'd expect an experienced installer to do the job in 80-120 hrs. A couple of installers told me 1 week for two guys which supports the 80 hr number. At $100/hr, that's $8,000 to $12,000 in labor. Let's pick $10,000 as the mid point.

If an installer had offered to do the installation job for $21,600 (my out of pocket installation costs plus $10,000 in labor), I probably would have hired them. But the best proposal I got was $25k, and I still needed to do the hull work, so the total would have been $33,500.

Looking at it another way, buy doing the job myself rather than paying $25k to someone else, I got paid $152/hr for my 144 hrs of time. That's not a bad rate for bumbling around, getting to know my boat inside and out, and gaining the satisfaction of a job that I know is well done. I'm glad the project is done, and I have no regrets doing it myself.

So there you have it. Yesterday I finished securing all the hydraulic lines and the couple of dangling cables. All that's left are the bonding wires and today I picked up the wire ends that I needed to finish that last piece off.

Now it's time for some cruising!

Friday, May 20, 2011

Finishing the Odds and Ends

As is typical at the end of a project (at least for me), there is always one more thing to do. So I don't get discouraged, I'll just talk about the one LESS thing I have to do as I pick off the final details.

The commissioning is complete and the few issues sorted out. The replacement part arrived at 8:00am today and was installed in short order. That fixed one issue, but surfaced another which after some troubleshooting turned out to be a bad plug end on one of the cables. After swapping the plug, everything worked fine.

After the ABT guy left, I finished up the mounting plate for the cooler. My local shop cut the plate, but I had to drill it and file all the edges smooth. The cooler is now all secured.

Wiring, Wiring, Wiring

The last two days I've finished up the wiring, installed and aligned the fin position sensors, installed and aligned the prop shaft speed sensors, installed the reverse interlock relays, and dressed up the rats nest of cables. At this point, everything is done except the oil cooler, filter, and associated hoses. These are held up waiting for a pipe fitting for my raw water system.

The first pictures are before and after of the wiring. Split loom is great stuff.

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The next two show the prop shaft speed sensor. There are two reflectors that get tie-wrapped to the shaft along with a neoprene sheet to block reflection in betweeen. The little yellow thing is the sensor. It shoots a beam at the reflector and looks for the light to shine back, allowing it to count shaft revolutions. This part of the system, as my kids would say, is pretty bootleg. Getting the reflectors, backing sheets, and tie wraps on, aligned, and tight is very awkward. The sensors are exposed too, even though I've got them tucked away as best I can. It would be so much simpler to have a NMEA input (preferably N2K) where the controller could pickup the SOG from the GPS. Oh well, the good news is that I could have much bigger things to complain about, but I don't.
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The next picture shows the reverse sensor relay box (to the right of the copper colored power converter). This wires into the Glendinning shift controller via break-out cables and can be wired to detect forward or reverse on either engine and close a relay. The relay closure tells the stabilizers if the boat is in reverse so it can center and lock the fins.
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Last shows the port side with cables dressed, and you can see the aluminum cap over the center of the actuator covering the fin position sensor.
 
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Thursday, May 19, 2011

We Have Stabilizers!

They work! The ABT service tech arrived at 8:00 sharp and first did a visual inspection. I have to brag a little - he commented to my wife that most professional installations don't look as good - so we passed inspection. The only thing he adjusted was to reposition one hydraulic hose a little bit to provide more certain clearance as the cylinder moves through its full swing.

Working through and testing everything, he found a low fluid alarm that was stuck on. It's a float mechanism, and sometimes it gets stuck during shipping. A little shaking freed it up.

He also found a pressure sensor that wasn't reading properly, but was able to bypass it for the sea trial.

Then we were off to test things out. It was pretty foggy, and I was having trouble configuring my radar (it's a new system and I haven't figured out how it works yet), but we had 1-2 miles visibility so we continued on. The harbor was empty except for two coast guard patrol boats doing exercises. There is a station right here, so they are out all the time.

We did a couple of runs up and down the outer harbor at different speeds so he could calibrate everything, then we headed outside to try things out. All in all it was a pretty calm day, but we were able to pick up some 2-3 ft side swells and the system certainly works. It hold the boat nice an flat, and you can clearly tell the different between when they are on and off.

Once back at dock, the tech dug into the pressure sensor problem and concluded that a replacement part was needed. It's being overnighted to us and he'll install it tomorrow and finish up. This is great customer service. He's leaving no stone unturned, and staying as long as it takes to get everything working properly.

From here, there are just a few odds and ends to finish up. I had a stainless plate cut to properly mount the oil cooler and that needs to be drilled and installed. I also have a couple of hoses and cable bundles that need to be secured in a few places, but I think that's it. Oh yes, one other thing - I need to add ground bonding wires to the actuators. Can't forget that.

Comments and discussion on this post:

Woodsy: Wow! Don't doubt that there are a lot of us following this install.
Oh, and very nice work!

dacust: Awesome!

There is nothing like getting a compliment from a pro!

Don't forget to keep posting the follow ups. I am bookmarking this thread for the future.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

FInal Hookup

The finish line is in sight.

Scattered over the past few days I hooked the cooler up to the raw water system and made up the final hydraulic hoses for the return lines. I also relocated the oil filter to improve access to the starboard side equipment, which is still tight but serviceable.

The pictures show the new filter location. It's mounted to the bracket that holds the engine coolant expansion tank using a small stainless plate made up by my local marine shop.

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Next shows the oil cooler all hooked up.

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And the really cool news - the boat's in the water as of this afternoon. No leaks - either water or hydraulic oil - so everything looks good so far. Tomorrow the factory service tech is here for the commissioning. Stay tuned for the sea trial report...
   

Friday, May 13, 2011

Hydraulic Cooling

A bunch of time today was spent on other projects, but I did get two things done on the stabilizers. The first was to reinstall the battery charger. I had to cut off the wire lugs to remove it so new ones needed to be crimped on with shrink-wrap sleeves. The first picture shows it all back together.

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The next was starting to install the oil cooler which requires some re-plumbing of the raw water intake for the starboard engine. I've been waiting for a 2-1/2" x 5" pipe nipple that I ordered and it finally came in today, so I started putting it together. But first, one of the old fittings had to be removed from the strainer, and my 14" pipe wrenches couldn't budge it. A quick trip to the local plumbing supply shop armed me with two 24" wrenches, and that did the trick.

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The last two pictures show the cooler in position straddling the front of the engine. Water comes out of the strainer, through the cooler, then down under the engine where it loops around to the pump. The new hose run will be a few inches shorter than before, but of course the length of the cooler is being added. This cooler body is a good bit larger that what's required to cool the hydraulics, but provides less intake restriction on the engine.

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Tomorrow AM I plan to cut and hook up the water hoses, then mount the oil filter and sort out the return hydraulic hoses. After that, I think I'm done.
 

 

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Hydrauic Hoses

Yesterday I started making up hydraulic hoses. I wasn't certain about exact lengths, straight versus angled ends, etc. Also, hydraulic hose bends but doesn't twist, so if you have two right-angle ends, their rotational orientation needs to exact or the fittings won't go on the devices. To deal with this, I decided to take a two-step approach.

Starting on the starboard side, I made a first cut at each hose's length and fitting styles, rounding hose lengths up to the next foot. Hose sells by the foot, so I was paying for it anyway. Then I went to the hose shop and had them cut the hose, but only crimp one of the two ends on the hose, and give me the other end loose. By the way, we have an awesome marine supply shop here in town that can do all this.

I hauled all the partially assembled hoses back to the boat and test fit each one, marking them for cutting as needed. It turned out I only had one hose with right-angles on both ends, so I only had one alignment challenge to deal with. I also miss-calculated one of the hose lengths so I had to eat one partially made hose.

Then, with all the sample hoses in hand, I test fit them to the port side to figure out how those were going to work. After all that, it was back to the shop to get the ends crimped on, and give them the list of port side hose to make up. In the process, I cleaned them out of #6 JIC fittings. Once back at the boat, everything fit perfectly.

In tightening up all the fittings, I concluded that I need to relocate the oil filter. It's not too hard to do, and frees up some access space on the starboard side which is otherwise very tight. I still have the return hoses to the oil cooler and filter to make, but I'll wait until I have the cooler installed and have sorted out the new oil filter location.

With as many hoses in place as possible, I switched to the wiring harnesses and started getting them hooked up. Tomorrow I hope to finish the cabling.
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Sunday, May 8, 2011

Installing Control Components

More progress today. The first pictures show the port mechanism going together. The first is without the top plate installed and shows the hydraulic cylinder that controls the shaft rotation. You can also see the plunger cylinder below. It extends into the notch and locks the fins in their centered position. When active, the pin retracts and frees the fins to rotate.

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Next I installed the starboard control valve and the hydraulic tank and filter. The tank has an assortment of ports that either have to be plugged or have valves and accessories installed. The next picture shows the tanks on my make-shift work bench with the valves and fittings lying around, then installed.
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The next two are the pressure regulator installed centrally between the two actuators. This maintains a constant operating pressure independent of engine/pump speed.

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One thing that became evident after installing the tank is how tight things are on the starboard side. It's tighter than I'd like, but I can get at everything so I think it will be OK. I figure it's no worse than working on most cars. Worst case, I'll remove the tank if major work is needed.

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The next picture shows the oil cooler and in it's tentative location, then a wider shot of the bulkhead including the 12V to 24V power converter (the copper colored box up high). I still need to finalize the cooler location, figure out how to mount it, and re-plumb the raw water intake for the starboard engine.

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And last but not least, the pump with suction hose installed. That's the first of 16 hydraulic hoses that need to be made up. 15 left to go.
 
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Saturday, May 7, 2011

Fin Installation

We have fins!

They arrived this past week, but I had to be away for a few days on business so I wasn't able to get started until yesterday. The first step after un-crating everything was to paint the top of the fins with anti fouling paint since it won't be accessible after installation. The first picture shows the fins with the tops painted. You can see the notched profile on the top to clear the hull chine.

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Now that the fiber glass work is done and Glass Guy has moved on the other projects, I have my friend Fin-man helping out. In the next picture he's proudly posing next to the first fin that we installed. At first we had some trouble getting it on until we discovered that there was a layer of epoxy that had flowed down into the shaft socket on the fin and was causing it to bind up on the shaft. Once we figured out what was going on it was a simple thing to scrap it off, then everything went together as expected.
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The next photos show the fins installed with the bottom winglet in place.
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From there we moved inside and put together the inside mechanism. The last picture show one side assembled, and you can see how close the fit is against the bulkhead panel, but everything appears to clear OK.

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I must say, I breathed a big sigh of relief today.
 

 

 

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Bulkheads and Control Equipment

Today I started putting the bulkhead back together. On the starboard side I added some extra backing support to hold the oil tank which is pretty heavy. To mount it, as well as the hydraulic control valves, I'm using captive nuts on the back side of the panels so I can thru-bolt the equipment to the panel. The captive nuts are the kind with prongs that dig into the back side of the panel. I figured I'd use the mounting bolts to pull the nut prongs into the wood, but in doing so I experienced the wonders of seizing stainless steel. Boy that stuff is a pain in the rear some times. Now I have a nut and bolt fused together, and of course I brought my sawsall home just yesterday figuring I was done with it. It never fails. Tomorrow I'll haul the saw back to the boat and cut off the bolt. Having learned my lesson the hard way, I hammered the rest of the nuts into place and bedded them with some 4200.

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The first picture is hard to see (I think my hat blocked the flash), but it shows the back side of the starboard panel with the extra supports and nuts on place.

With the starboard side on hold, I moved over to the port side. That panel needed to be trimmed and have the backing nuts added, and I had to re-mount the water lines which live behind the panel and had been moved to make room for the glass work. With the panels back in on the port side, I mounted the control valve, and re-attached the bilge pump line. The pictures show the finished port side. The wires hanging out are for the battery charger which I won't remount until later so it doesn't block access.
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Friday, April 29, 2011

Actuators Installed

They are in! And man am i tired.

The only puzzler that came up had to do with the thru-bolts. We found that the tapered heads were bottoming out on the hull before drawing the outside mounting plate fast against the hull. A slight countersink of the holes is all that was needed, but ABT's otherwise impeccable instructions said nothing about this and I was worried that we might have the wrong bolts, backing plate, or both. But a quick call to ABT confirmed we had all the right parts and just needed to relieve the holes a bit. They are a great company to deal with! In 10 minutes we were back on track.

The first side took 2.5 hrs, much of which was spent sorting out techniques for applying and containing the 3M 5200 sealant. That stuff will get on anything and everything, and attempts to get it off usually result in it spread over more stuff, not less. But by 2:00 it was in, torqued down, and cleaned up. Just in time for a late lunch.

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The second side went faster as you might imagine - probably 1.5 to 2 hrs - but after 4 tubes of 5200 sealant they were in!

The pictures show the gray inter-protect coating from the other day, followed by the awlcraft bringing the work area back to matching the rest of the hull. Next are the actuators in place on both sides, then some outside views. The tape and packing material on the shafts protects them until the fins are ready for installation. In the shot from the bow you can see the shafts on both sides of the hull.

With this, I think all the messy work is done. As long as I don't create a hydraulic leak, it should all be clean work from here on out.

Tomorrow I'll start putting the bulk head back together and mounting the hydraulic components.
 

 

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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Painting and Prepping

Pictures are still in the camera, but I'll describe yesterday's and today's progress.

The cure finally completed on the filler, so I drilled the 8 bolt holes for each actuator. The battery in my had drill only lasted for two holes, so I broke out the Milwaukee right angle drill. I was probably going to need it anyway since a couple of the holes are partly obstructed by the bulkhead support. Even with the bigger drill it still took almost an hour per side to drill the holes. There was lots of stopping to clear the bit, then restarting.

With the holes drilled, it was time to separate the mounting plates from the filler. After seeing how sticky the filler was, and seeing where some of it found it's way up the side of the plate, I must say I was worried how easily the plates would separate from the filler. Per ABT's directions, you just crank down on the jack bolts which lifts the plate. Much to my relief, it worked exactly as described and the plates came right off. The jacking bolts and filler are a really good approach to precision mounting and alignment of the actuators. I can't even imagine trying to build up the hull and glass in a wood block per other designs, and have any expectation of correct alignment when you are done. Obviously people manage to do it, but the ABT approach strikes me a simple, yet highly effective solution.

With the plates removed, my glass guy performed his final magic and cleaned up the edges and other imperfections in preparation for painting.

With everything cleaned up, "painting" began. As a first step, I put a coat of Inter-protect over the new glass. It acts as a primer and also helps show any additional touch up work that might be required. This first coat didn't reveal any imperfections inconsistent with and engine room, so today I moved on to Awlgrip. Actually, the interior of the hull is finished with Awlcraft, not Awlgrip, but it's still a nasty two part mixed paint. I was smelling the Inter-protect and Awlcraft through my respirator, so I bought a new one today. Problem solved, but it's still nasty, nasty stuff.
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After three coats of Awlcraft, the engine room is starting to look like it's old self again. I also spent a bunch of time vacuuming, followed by removing the plastic bagging around the engines, bulkhead, cabling, etc.
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Tomorrow is a big day. A friend is coming to help do the final install of the actuators! It's a huge milestone and represents the conclusion of the messy work.

Changing topics a little bit, a while back I installed the hydraulic pump and transmission PTO kit, and in doing so found the tranmissions main oil line no longer fit because on interference with the new pump. It turns out the solution was very simple. The other end of the oil hose had a 45 deg end, so by simply turning the line around and rerouting it slightly, I was able to reconnect the existing hose. It took a while for it to dawn on me, but I finally figured it out.

Stay tuned for tomorrow....

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Actuator Test Fit

Today I rigged up a heat lamp on one side, and a regular light on the other side. When I arrived this morning the filler had hardened considerably on its own, but the pliers test still failed - I was able to squish some of the filler with pliers - so it needs to cure more. By the end of today the side with the heat lamp had hardened a bunch more, so things are going in the right direction.

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While the lamp was shining, I test fit the starboard actuator. I had to nip a little corner off the bulkhead support to fit it, but everything went in fine otherwise. It needs to be shimmed so the actuator protrudes just clear of the outside backing plate. To figure the shim thickness, I need to measure how far the actuator protrudes without any shims. In the picture you can see me holding up the backing plate over the actuator. Visions of things to come....

Back on the inside, I trimmed and test fit the bulkhead panel. It fits great and allowed me to confirm the location of the equipment that will be mounted against it. The last picture shows the panel back out on saw horses with the equipment laid out in its final position.
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