| Kaholee Refit |
October 18, 2007 Today, I had what my wife would call a "stream of consciousness" day. I worked steadily all day, accomplishing a variety of small tasks, but there was little truly of note; in fact, I found it hard to remember entirely what exactly I accomplished. I started by preparing orders for more materials (it never ends), this time for the exhaust system in particular. I also needed hose clamps in a variety of sizes so that I could begin to install the head and sanitation system in the near future. With the engine now in place, I decided it was time to install the step base, with Racor fuel filters attached. First, I went ahead and drilled holes through the bottom of the compartment into the bilge, as I discussed earlier, so that drainage from the filter bowls would be possible. I had hoped to be able to replumb the built-in pressure/vacuum gauge on the filter assembly so that it could be read easily from above, but no 90° fittings were available for this conversion. Besides, the gauge was actually readable without too much difficulty by looking over the edge; there was sufficient room to be able to view the reading. |
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With all the plumbing complete beneath the galley sink, it was time to permanently install the sink itself. I attached an appropriate length of 1" drain hose, sawed off the blank on the sump pump for the 1" hose connection, and installed the sink in a bed of sealant, weighting it down with a tool tray till the sealant cured. |
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I spent a little time troubleshooting a few of the electrical systems. I had discovered that the sailing instruments and electronics did not work. I quickly found part of the problem: I had failed to install a fuse in the inline fuse holder for the main electrical circuit. I took care of that, and the sailing instruments and large display unit fired right up. I couldn't figure out why the Raynav GPS didn't work. I checked the wires and decided that it wouldn't hurt to redo the connections; I had re-used some small ends on a cable that I found in the box (this equipment is all used) and had never been truly satisfied. I cut a clean end on the cable and stripped the sheathing to expose the wires; there was no black wire for the ground. I don't know what the two ends were that I had used before, though I had assumed they were the positive and negative wires for this particular cord, since that's all that was stripped and available at the time. (Never assume, right?) I soon determined, after a visit to the unit's manual, that the power/data cable was indeed supposed to contain red and black wires. An online search located an appropriate cable, which I ordered. More perplexing was the VHF radio, which refused to operate. I checked the fuse and the wiring; what was odd was that the stereo was wired into the same circuit, and operated properly. As of this writing, I had failed to determine why the VHF wasn't operating. I decided to wire up the windlass and controls, having received the requisite control box that I'd ordered. Despite the overall complexity of the supplied wiring diagram, which showed every possible switch and operating control, the wiring was quite straightforward. Unfortunately, I couldn't complete the work since I didn't have the proper terminal ends for the 8AWG cable that I'd run; the terminals on the control box were 5/16" studs, and the only terminals I had on hand were 1/4" (previous attempts to drill these out larger failed each time, so I didn't even try). I added the proper terminals to my order list, wired up what I could, and mounted the control box. Of course this is incomplete and the wires hanging all over is not the final installation. |
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While I was up forward, I decided to drill the necessary holes through the bottom of the chainlocker bulkhead so that I could eventually lead the fill and vent lines to the twin water tanks, another task I planned to take care of in the near future. I drilled two large holes for the 1-1/2" fill lines, and a smaller hole for a single vent, since I expected to conjoin the two vents into a single line running into the chain locker. |
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Along with a thorough cleanup of the boat and shop, as well as a variety of planning and research tasks, this pretty much wrapped up the day's work. I ordered a few panel labels to complete, and to better describe, the electrical panel; I found that a mind boggling array of individual and specific labels was available direct from Blue Sea for $0.50 each. |
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