See below for boaty ramblings, its engine time aboard little star this week!
Stars engine isnt happy at the moment, shes had a slow oil leak for some time that I had admittedly been ignoring because it wasn't causing major issues and oil levels were staying fairly level. I did a total of 29 hours cruising over 4 days a few weeks ago, moored up and discovered she had emptied all her oil into the bay below...
Some investigation has revealed a very badly worn rocker gasket that (for reasons I will never be able to explain) someone has applied vitcas silicone to. I have removed the rocker cover and worn gasket and ordered a replacement, but i cant move until its been replaced which does mean i am now on an overstay. The Gasket might not be the cause of the leak, but its a start in narrowing down what is causing it.
I had intended on mooring up here and replacing my drive plate, as its dreadfully clunky and definitely failing, but this oil leak takes priority. The worn drive plate is unlikely to actually fail entirely, itll just get noisier and noisier until its replaced, so whilst its irritating it isnt particularly urgent and replacing it would be a relatively expensive and time consuming task. I'll likely fix the oil leak and then move on, replacing the drive plate when I reach a mooring that is closer to a station so I am slightly less stranded should anything go wrong.
The engine on star is very weird, its a BMC marinised by CT engineering at some stage in the 90s, but its had several non-standard alterations done since then. My favourite is the milk carton expansion chamber attached to the coolant system, but the weirdest of all of them is the air filter. Lots of marinised BMCs dont have one, instead leaving the manifold open as the engine is in an enclosed space so the air doesn't require filtering like it might in a more open car engine bay. Someone has retrofitted an air filter by jubilee clipping a flexible hose to the manifold and bolting a filter to the underside of the stern deck, with its inlet running out of a vent in the side of the boat. I have no concerns over the air filter setup, but it's an odd quirk, and much like the expansion chamber it does make you wonder what issues arose that caused the previous owner to make those alterations.
Its weird being broken down, but I'm in an area that is quite nice and there is a station that, whilst only operating an hourly local service, does allow me to get to work and so on. I miss the countryside as equally as I miss the big city I grew up in, and I am starting to get itchy feet again having been in this general area for almost 3 weeks now. I cant wait to replace the Gasket and the oil so I can get going again... I'm bored now!
