If the last post left you hanging, don’t worry. We returned to Kaleo last weekend to fix the unresolved heat exchanger issue. Earlier in the week, I took the original rebuilt heat exchanger to the cooling place that claimed to have rebuild it. After a quick pressure test, it proved to be faulty, which is why we dumped all the coolant and overheated coming back in from the night sail.
I found a replacement through Mr.Cool, who had a new one rush built and shipped to our marina by Friday (for less money than the original rebuild). Jim, from Mr. Cool, was very helpful and I would highly recommend them. While waiting for the heat exchanger to arrive, I replaced all the fuel filters (our motor has 3) and the raw (ocean) water impeller, which had 4 of 6 vanes broken. Our engine is partially cooled by raw water which runs through the heat exchanger to cool it. But that same water is also corrosive which eventually caused the failure we just experienced.
Matt in the engine room (room in a misnomer, it’s more of a very small box)
After getting everything put back together, Christie’s parents joined us to hoist me up the mast. I spent almost 3 hours up there, got a nasty sunburn, but installed the new Garmin wind sensor and OGM tricolor/anchor light. Upon returning to sea level, I discovered only the anchor part of our tricolor light doesn’t work. Oh well, something else to add to the infinite project list.
We then took the boat out and motored fairly hard to test the cooling system and she worked like a champ. We’re ready for a trip to Galveston next weekend with friends!
