How Hard Can It Be To Change the Oil on a Diesel Engine?!

This week's agenda included addressing the diesel engine on our sailboat.  A dirty secret among sailors is how often we turn the key and fire up the "iron jenny" (jenny is slang for the headsail, or Genoa jib).  We sailors are almost never happy with the wind - there's too much of it, too little, or it's from the wrong direction to get where we want to go.  So - we start up the trusty engine and use fuel to get going, or to assist the sails.  We needed to change the oil and inspect the engine, which is now 30 years old, like the rest of the boat.

Our Yanmar diesel engine - access by taking off the stairs and box surrounding it

Changing the oil is one of the messiest jobs on the boat, and we tend to avoid it as long as we possibly can.  In fact, neither of us really likes maintaining the engine, and it drops down to the bottom of any to-do list we make.  Nonetheless, we had to take the bull by the horns and get to it.  The whole process is like parking your car in the living room and taking it apart, while trying not to spray black oil around our living and kitchen quarters.

We use a hand pump to get the oil out.  Long ago, I changed the oil on all of my cars.  That was an easy process compared to this - cars have a handy nut at the bottom of the oil pan, you are working on it in a garage with a cement floor, and a minimum of fuss and bother gets the whole job done quickly.  Not so here - the hand pump and its lengths of hose tend to get away from us and dribble on the rugs, the cushions, the walls, the floor - everywhere but on the plastic sheeting and newspapers we have put down.  More than two hands are always needed to keep the pump's hoses more or less where they should be.  Then the oil filter has to come off - and it drips oil all over as well.

With the engine and transmission in full view, we then decided to check the transmission fluid.  It has its own handy dipstick just behind the engine.  We knew something was amiss when Larry said, "Does this thing screw out?  It's just pulling up and out...."  And half of the dipstick came up in his hand.  The other half, a plastic screw assembly, remained firmly stuck in the transmission.  I often tell Larry that all this problem-solving on the fly we do on the boat is really good mental exercise, and he won't get such made-to-order mind joggling in a nursing home later.  He tried screwdrivers of various shapes, needle-nose pliers, and finally - in a burst of a mental ah-HA moment, a wire crimpers that fit perfectly in the hole left by the remaining end of the dipstick.

Transmission Dipstick - broken in two

So, I left the boat to go up to the mechanics' shop in the boatyard.  How convenient we are finding these problems here - just get on the dock and walk to the shop!  Jack, the guy in charge, sees more problems on boats of all types every day.  He had just the part to fit and I left with a new dipstick.  In Venezuela, for instance, this would be an insolvable problem, and we would be left trying to Super-Glue the old part back together.  Spare parts are impossible to find there.  But here in Curacao they abound.  What they don't have can be shipped in.

Now, with everything put back together on the engine, the moment had come.  Turn the key and see if the engine starts, and observe it carefully for problems.  OH NO - water dripping from the raw water pump!  We have had problems with this in the past - and replaced the pump five years ago.  Here's where some of the corrosion that has suspiciously been invading the left side of the engine.

Larry trying to combat the rust overtaking the engine

The pesky water pump

So, today has been another day with Mr. Engine.  We've had the pump off before, but we both had conveniently forgotten how it was done, and need to figure it out again.  The manual for the engine we have has many helpful diagrams, but the text tends to say "Remove the raw water pump."  Not how, or which screws to take off first, or the fact that the lower fan belt assembly needs to come off with it.  My trigonometry text in high school was written in much the same fashion - "The proof is left as an exercise for the student."  I used to hate that phrase, and this manual has many such omissions.  After several fits and starts, we have the pump.  It looks fine to us, but what do we know?  We'll have to take it up to the machine shop and have the experts tell us.