Sleepless Night

After work yesterday, I went down to the boatyard excited to finally work on Felicity.  I was thinking about it all day.  Made copies of all my Engine manuals, brought a change of clothes with me.  It wasn't raining.  There was still daylight.  Everything was perfect.  I had to stop at my Ex's house to drop off some medicine left at my house when the boys were over the night before.  Took me 20 mins to get out of there, but I finally did.  Driving fast and psyched up listening to the radio, I get to the boatyard.  The gate was locked.
I stood there, at the gate, pining like a puppy for about 10 mins.  I was about to leave when one of the owners of the boatyard goes into another private entrance with his dog, apparently taking the dog for a walk.  He doesn't make eye contact with me, still standing at the gate.  I get his attention and after 5 mins, he lets me in.  There's a 'clicker' we need to put a $50 deposit on that allows us to get in and out after hours.  He was very nice and proceeded to tell me I needed to get one during 'regular business hours'.  It's a boat yard!  What are regular business hours for a boatyard??  I convinced him to get me a clicker now and to put it on my account.  I was annoyed because I had just sent my final check for winter storage that week, now I owe another $50.  He then let his dog pee on my boat stands and my car tire.  Life of a boat owner.  I here people say to me "Wow!  You own a boat!  You must have some money!"  That always makes me laugh.  Boat owners never have money.
I survey the work Jim had done.  Nice job buddy!  It looks great!  A nice neat pile of stuff I need to go through.  Everything else is cleaned out.  I found where the boat is leaking when it rains.  It seems the window in the head is having some issues.  I conected power so I could have some light.  All the cabin lights are working.  I took the stairs off and stood staring at the engine.  It stared back at me.  The same way two people stare at each other when they're about to enter a battle to the death.  I'm not a mechanic.  i don't pretend to be one.  I'm an engineer by schooling and a computer programmer by trade.  I know how engines work.  Never REALLY got my hands dirty with one before.  I've tinkered with this one in the past.  Fuel pump, carb rebuild, pretty basic stuff on an Atomic 4.  This time was different.  I was embarking on open heart surgery and someone gave me a scalpel and said 'just fix it'.  I got out my tools and dove in.

I started easy.  I took off wires and labeled them as I did.  I then proceeded to the alternator.  no sweat.  Bolts loosened easily and in 10 mins I had it in my hand.  I removed the water tubing for the coolanet, the spark plug wires and the spark plugs.  I was going for the head.  I wanted to see what I'm dealing with and why she's seized up.  All the head bolts loosened easily enough.  I took off the thermostat housing.  The smell nearly killed me. Wow.  I never expected that.  it looked in good shape.  I threw it in the bucked of engine parts I wanted to take home.  I took all the nuts off the head.  12-13 of the studs stayed in place (there are 17 in total).  I tried to lift the head off.  I tried to pry the head off.  I broke my screwdriver trying to pry the head off.  It wouldn't budge.  I stopped, knowing, feeling that I'm about to break something.  Another day.  It was time to go anyway.  I took the parts and left feeling good abut the progres I had made.  I was just happy the nuts came off without any struggle.

After I got home about midnight, I couldn't sleep, so I got out the parts I had just removed from the engine.  The alternator seems to be in good shape.  It needs some cleaning though.  This weekend, while the boys are playing, I'll be taking it apart and rebuilding and cleaning it at my kitchen table.  I took a close look at the thermostat housing and realized there was no thermostat in the housing.  No idea why.  I've never looked in there before to confirm if there was EVER a thermostat.  There was never a need to replace it because the engine temp was always fine.  Later, reading online about it, I found that it's bad practice to run the engine without a thermostat (duh!) but it's still done.  I got a screwdriver to scrape some of the crud out of the housing and the internal metal crumbled.  It wasn't the bronze it's cast in, but some other internal fitting.  In any event, the whole housing will need to be replaced.  I realized that this component was in direct contact with the salt water, hence the corrosion.  The smell, I determined was old antifreeze, so I'm not too worried about that.  I'll get a new one when we start re-assembling the engine.
I also looked on Moyer Marine's website to try and figure out how to get the cylinder head off without breaking another screwdriver, or the head itself.  There was a FAQ from a guy with a similar issue.  The answer was to keep prying a little at a time from each side.  It said that it's a lot harder to do if there are studs that haven't yet been removed.  Of the 17 nuts I took off, only 3 or 4 of the studs came off.  I ordered a stud removal tool from the website last night at 1:30AM.  It should come in a few days.  I'm not going to attempt to remove the head until I get the studs out.  It will be too much effort and could potentially cause damage to the head from all the prying that would need to be done to lift the head over the studs.  Until that comes, I'll be learning everything about alternators and how to clean and rebuild them.