October 18, 2016
Acadia 18
Tuesday
One more light sanding brought the cockpit gauge patch to its final contours. A little later, I’d prepare the nearby area and prime and paint the patch to match.
The owner was on hand to help out, and I set him to work on the pedestal control cables. During the course of the morning and early afternoon, he (and I, to some extent) worked to secure the cables in the new internal clamp and then, with difficulty, get the clamp down into position within the pedestal. This required substantial slackening of the steering cables and removal of the cables from the sheaves beneath the pedestal in order to pull the chain off the sprocket and make room within. Afterwards, it took some adjustments to return the quadrant and helm to the proper relationship with the rudder and ensure that straight was straight. Sorry, few photos of this process.
Eventually, the cable clamp was secure, the helm was straight, and we could begin to reassemble the top of the pedestal. For the moment, we left the cables detached, and installed only the control module and drink holder (along with the pedestal guard bracket). For better access to the tops of the cables later, since they still needed to be secured to the control arms, we chose to leave off the compass and binnacle bracket. It was a relief to have the cables’ replacement in the record books.
During this time, as possible, I worked on some of the final electrical installations in the engine room and nearby. I led the wiring for the new engine room blower through the cockpit room and into the engine room, where I’d make final connections later, and cleaned up the other remaining wiring in the engine room, releading some of the existing wiring that I’d pulled aside early in the project and making up and securing final connections to the battery switch and batteries. I added a negative distribution buss and positive terminal block to accept some of the excess wires that had originally connected directly to the batteries or switch. I was glad to clean up the final wiring through the space, as this was the final preliminary step required before I could continue work on the engine foundation and actual engine installation.
To that end, at the end of the afternoon I made final preparations to tack the foundation in place. After a final dry fit to ensure that everything still looked good, I cleaned the bonding surfaces as needed and prepared a small batch of thickened epoxy adhesive, which I spread around in a few areas where the foundation would contact the hull. To avoid interfering with the wooden alignment blocks, I only used a little adhesive at this point: enough to hold the foundation securely, once cured, so that I could press on with final fillets and glassing. I cleaned up any excess that squeezed out and left the foundation alone while the epoxy cured overnight.
Total time billed on this job today: 6.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
50°, clouds. Forecast for the day: clouds, drizzle.