Day 414

Gena took a break away from the engine, wiring, and blue-stuffing to make the mount for the heater stove as there are already signs of winter even though it's only the second week of August. There were frost warnings for this morning!

We always had the idea of having tiles around the base of the heater, mostly for looks, but also because of the heat it will throw out.

We were uncertain how to cut the tile as this type is no longer in the stores, so didn't want to destroy any. It turns out the steel cut-off saw is well capable of cutting tile. Gena wore protective clothing and a face mask just in case.

The edging was flipped around so a 1" hole appeared ( this can be seen just under Gena's right hand in the top picture ) and the feed lines can go through. She didn't like the idea of drilling a hole in the tile, so this was a good solution!

Custom made brackets in vise to mount stove

We haven't tried the heater yet as there is still a hook up or two to do. One thing we discovered was the fan that has a variable speed control on the heater isn't to blow air over the outside, it blows air inside, thus blowing out of the flue. This thing has just become more interesting. I don't know how much info on this is in the manual, but it's strange it would slip by us. Maybe that will assist in reducing diesel soot on the exterior of the boat as well.

Gena fitting 1st alternator

To finish her afternoon, Gena started making brackets for the alternator. The one will charge only the engine battery. The second alternator ,that will charge the house batteries, presents a nasty problem.

We want to have a cooling fan on the engine. Problem is, the second pulley required for such a large alternator interfere with the fan.
To further complicate things, most large alternators that are either serpentine belt, which we don't have a pulley for, or dual belt, which would use up even more fan space.

I don't know a lot about engines and their characteristics, so I recommended we just make a 3" extension for the fan. Gena informed me that it would cause vibration and ruin the water pump bearings/seal. Ugg!

So there is the problem. We are now considering using an electric fan out of our New Yorker ( The car I stole the seat out of ) so stay tuned.

I also suggested we get a normal alternator and use an auto-switch to charge the house batteries once the engine battery reaches a certain voltage. It would be a waste of engine power though, i.e. 110 amps vs. 255 amps. Alternately, (excuse the pun!) a single large alternator could charge both sets of batteries at the same time, even though AGM batteries are very different than Lead-Acid.

My day went quickly as I assembled the radar antenna gimbal.

Day 414:
9 hours: Put together the radar ant. gimbal, Mounted stove, made alternator brackets.

This gimbal has been planned for almost 2 years so I'm pretty happy to be actually making the thing! The rod is 1/2" and has been bent to inset a piece of plate that will support the bearing unit. I have previously mounted 2 tabs on to the radar arch mount this to, so the tabs here must match.
The cradle that pivots was a real trick to bend! I basically had to match every move I made on the one side, to the other. It took nearly 2 hours to do the bending, but it finally took shape. The edge matches the shape of the radar antenna base.
Once together, I added a short length of 3/8" ID SS pipe to hold the pin. (Hard to see in the photos) Next a bar with 13 holes in it will be welded across so the pin can be used to stop the tilt at several angles. After palying with it for a while, I realized the bearing block was rotating in a cup!! Not like the pillow blocks which are stationary. I had to pull it all apart and weld the edge of the bearing casing to the block's frame. It was a very touchy job! I'm wondering if my original idea of using a large bolt and nylon washers wouldn't have been better. This bearing thing will need to be coated well as it will rust not being stainless. The feet still need to be put on so that'll be tomorrows job.