Engine is completely detached and ready for lifting

James B, James L and I got the engine completely detached yesterday. It took us about 3 hours, including a trip to the hardware store.

While detaching the engine, we discovered another problem with the system that neither of the mechanics who checked out the boat discovered.  James B found a small clear round piece of plastic in the bilge.  At the time we didn't know what it was and figured it was just flotsam that somehow ended up there.  It turned out to be the entire bottom of the raw water strainer!  This means that at some point, the engine not only lost oil, but also lacked water to the heat exchanger.  Not sure why either of the mechanics who checked this out managed to miss that the entire bottom of the strainer was missing!  We have no idea when this was broken.

Detachment went smoothly, as we carefully detached and labeled each wire and hose.  The last step, releasing the engine mounts resulted in a quick trip to the hardware store.  It seems that none of us possessed a 15/16" socket, and the nuts for the engine mount required one.  We also needed a swivel for the sockety wrench since the port side engine mount is almost impossible to reach.  Since I tend to measure my projects in terms of hardware store trips, this part of the project was pretty successful.

Saturday morning we will lift the engine out and get it to the shop.  We are not sure yet whether we will use Phil's cherry picker or the boom and main sheet to do the removal.  It will depend on how well we can get the cherry picker stabilized, either on the boat or dock, and just how much reach it has.

Hopefully we will be able to dodge the rain showers predicted for today.