1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Remaking the Salon Settee

This model of Roamer came with an L-shaped sofa, or settee, with a sliding bottom cushion that converts it into a bed. The missus likes the design, but the original was badly weathered by the rain that came through the hole in the salon ceiling while the boat was sitting on Purgatory Row in southern Maryland for several decades. When we dismantled the boat, I saved most of the pieces of the settee to use as patterns when I rebuilt it. I never thought it would take this long, but I finally got around to remaking the salon settee.

The original settee in as-found condition

Why didn’t I just run away?!?!?

Seriously, what was I thinking?!?!

The original settee back panel was barely pattern-grade

It roughly fits the hole but the angles are off

The leading edge was even rougher

But it’s got lots of clues to help me remake it

The outlines of the original framing are a big help.

I had to pull a panel from the plywood stack

The stack is getting smaller and smaller. It’s my overall progress-o-meter. When it’s gone, the project will pretty much be done.

30 minutes later, I finally had the new panel chosen

These are 4′ x 8′ sheets of mahogany plywood, so it’s a challenge moving them around the salon. Fortunately, with my EZ-One tracksaw table, breaking down full sheets in the salon isn’t too difficult. Unfortunately, it appears EurekaZone, the company that made the table, has gone out of business.

Ready to cut the panel

First cut is done

Next I cut the ends

Next I made the solid mahogany end piece

I traced the angle from the original piece to the new lumber

Looks about right

There’s a lot of character in that new mahogany. I think it’ll look great when it’s varnished.

Time to test fit

This end piece will be prominently visible when entering the salon, which is why I wanted it pretty. The other sofa parts aren’t visible and the original wood is in fine condition, so I’ll reuse them.

Test fit checks out

The salon is widest at the mid-point between the aft wall and galley forward bulkhead. So this long settee panel takes a curve to match. A benefit of using the original lower settee frame piece is that Chris Craft’s magicians formed the complex bevel on the back edge so it matches the curve of the side decks that the cabin top and interior panels all follow. It would have taken a while for me to make that from new stock.

Next, I glued and screwed the lower frame to the new back panel

Test fit looks good

Next, I coated the panel with ICA base coat clear urethane

The tape is where I’ll be epoxying the solid mahogany parts that will be visible when the settee is complete. No point in applying ICA there only to have to sand it off when I glue and screw the new parts in place.

Next day, sand the first coat of ICA with 220 grit

2nd coat of ICA base looks good

The panel is ready to install.

Next day, I coated the bond areas with US Composites 635 epoxy

I applied wood flour-thickened 635 epoxy to the solid mahogany cleats

This is very strong glue

Boom

So that’s the first part of this salon settee rebuild. It’s a complicated piece of furniture, and I’m doing some things differently than Chris Craft did. That makes this project even more complicated, but I think it’ll turn out nicely in the end.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Remaking the Salon Settee II

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Salon Cabinet Install

For the foreseeable future, I’ll be posting new things on this blog, but it’ll be a mixture of things I did years ago but never posted and very recent stuff that’s wrapping up aspects of the project that began as much as a decade ago. Longtime readers who find themselves thinking, “wait a minute…I think I’ve seen that before” will be right to a degree. There’s just a lot of stuff that I started on and wrote about but never finished up until much more recently.

Waaaaay back in 2015, I cut some mahogany panels to replace rotten ones we found just under the surface of the original salon cabinetry. Chris Craft didn’t finish the inside of most of the salon cabinetry, so when you opened the gorgeous mahogany cabinet doors, you saw not particularly attractive gray and white paint on plywood or the bitumastic-coated aluminum hull. I decided I wanted attractive cabinet interiors instead. So with the mud dauber screens installed in the engine room air intake vents, it was time to build and install the port interior cabinet box.

In fact, I did all of this work sporadically over the last three years, but it was only days ago that I installed those wasp screens and put a bow on that part of the refit.

I’m going for the same basic look as the original, but without all of the rotten mahogany

The bulkhead behind the stairs and the panels next to the stairs and behind the settee were rotten in spots. Those were the ones I replaced in 2015.

Under the blue plastic, those stairs are gorgeous

You can see the ventilation hose from the aft stateroom air conditioner. With all of the insulation in this boat, I believe the Flagship Marine 12k HVAC unit will be far more than the aft stateroom needs. So I decided to run a vent line to the salon, since that’s where most of the air conditioning challenges are on these boats.

Building the cabinet box on the back-side of the panel I cut in 2015

The idea is that I want the interior of the cabinet to be attractive when the doors are opened. But I also want to be able to remove the cabinet box if necessary, so it will all be held in place with screws that are easily accessible from inside the cabinet but not particularly visible without putting in some effort. At first glance, you open the cabinet doors, and you’ll see pretty mahogany.

The HVAC vent transition box will attach near the top of the panel

The 1″x1″ mahogany cleats that all the panels attach to are glued and screwed in place

I used US Composites epoxy to wet out the back-side of the panel, then added wood flour to make the glue. The screws are applied from the back of the cleats, so there are no bungs on the panel face.

24 hours later, the epoxy is cured

You can see that I left an inch-wide strip around the perimeter of the panel dry. Those are the contact areas where I’ll glue and screw the panel to the new cleats on the floor and the original Chris Craft mahogany joinery that remains in the salon.

New mahogany 1″x1″ panel cleats got glued and screwed to the floor and aft bulkhead

I used 1/4″ marine plywood to seal the edge of the floor to the vertical plywood panels

This is the same approach Chris Craft used to keep engine room smells in the ER

A tight fit is the key to keeping engine smells in the ER

Upper panel cleats are coated with epoxy glued and ready for the panel

Sliding the wetted out panel into position

Clamped in place, then screwed from the back to pull the panel tight to the cleats

That HVAC transition box needed a bit lopped off

Nice!

A bead of caulk will seal the HVAC transition box to the panel

Nice!

Nylon zip ties screwed to the panel will hold the HVAC duct in place

Just like that!

A bead of caulk will ensure no engine room vapors seep through the floor

Give it a nice fillet to smooth it out

Finish off the floor filler pieces with a heavy coat of brown tinted US Composites 635 epoxy

Time to install the cabinet box parts

I left an access panel in case the mud dauber screens need servicing

Just enough clearance for the HVAC hose

But if anybody needs to service or replace that HVAC hose, the cabinet box top comes off with just a few screws from inside the box.

Viewed from down low, you can just see the stainless screw heads holding the box panels in place

At a slightly higher elevation, you can only see a few screws

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Remaking the Salon Settee

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Mud Dauber Screens

Over the course of this refit (thus far), I’ve probably removed a 5-gallon bucketful of mud dauber wasp nests from the boat. The worst was back when we first started the refit, since the boat had been stored on land and ignored since the mid-1980s. But even in the tent, wildlife would find a way inside and I’d occasionally find more mud nests. I realize they’re beneficial insects, but I really want to exclude them from the boat. Their main point of entry now is the main engine air intake gills on the sides of the hull. So I needed a solution that would exclude the wasps but not be too restrictive on airflow.

A mud dauber nest we found when dejunking the boat in December 2007

Engine air intake gills

304 stainless 8 x 8 mesh screen with .017″ diameter wire supplied by darbywiremesh.com

This screen has eight wires per inch, so the gaps are just under 1/8″, which is small enough that mud daubers can’t get through. And the wire is fine enough that it shouldn’t substantially reduce airflow.

The starboard intake gills from inside the salon

Measure twice, cut once

I initially tried using tin snips to cut the mesh, but they weren’t sharp enough. So I pulled out my trusty Wiss #1225 shears that had proven themselves over and over again, even on the kevlar we used for the bullet-proof cabin top. They cut through the stainless wire like butter, and it was a much cleaner cut than when Darby Wire Mesh cut the piece from a roll.

Cut to size and ready to install

I had some leftover Bostik 70-08A from The Season of Do-Overs…Aft Deck Glass 2.0

The stuff is super tenacious, and I think it’ll do fine holding this screen in place next to the gills.

Press the screen up against the gills and hold in place while the caulk cures

This Bostik product has a “1-hour drive-away” time for vehicle windshields. After 45 minutes it had set up enough to remove the sticks.

While the Bostik was setting up, I got busy on the next screen

This is working out well

Nice! Time to button up the starboard engine air intake

Starboard side is done

I repeated the process on the port side. The engine air intakes are now mud dauber-proof.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Salon Cabinet Install

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Home Port Trip Follow-up

It’s been great having the boat so close to home and not having to make that awful hour-long drive through Swamp suburban traffic. I’ve been rigging the boat in my new slip, cutting the dock lines to just the right length so when they’re all attached, the boat floats in just the right spot so I don’t need fenders.

But I also found a problem in the bilge: there was a half gallon of diesel floating on top of the water that came in through the shaft logs while we were transiting from the marina in Deale to our current place. After splashing the boat the second time, I had adjusted the shaft logs just to the point that dripping stopped at the marina in Deale. But over the course of the trip, more water was coming in than was necessary to lubricate the shaft packing. Nothing to be concerned about, the bilge pump only came on twice in almost eight hours under way and kept up just fine. And my bilge pumps are designed to leave ~1″ of water in the bilge, so no diesel was pumped overboard.

The first clue I had that something was off was a strong unburned diesel smell in the engine room.

Second clue: starboard injector pump was covered with fuel

Diesel had collected on everything near the starboard injector pump

Diesel accumulated in the bilge

Problem identified: loose injector nut on cylinder #1

When I started the engine, everything looked fine. But when I aimed a bright flashlight toward this injector, I could see fine droplets of diesel spraying from the top of the injector nut. After shutting down the engine, I tightened the nut.

Leaky injector nut resolved

Presumably, the mechanic who sold me these engines loosened the nut to prime the system when I came by to see them run. This is similar to the loose starter bolt I found on the port engine when it wasn’t starting. But fortunately, nothing was harmed by the sloppy workmanship. I pumped most of the diesel from the bilge into a bucket, then floated oil absorbent pads on the water overnight to pick up the rest. This also gave me an excuse to clean the bilge.

While I do that tedious task, I’ll post about things I did previously but never got around to posting. Gotta clear out my camera’s memory card one of these days.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Mud Dauber Screens

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Transiting to Our Home Port!

We made passage from Deale, MD, to Port Tobacco, MD, on Libertarian, our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46, on July 1, 2023, after 4,994 days with the boat in a giant shrink wrap plastic-skinned tent getting refitted.

The 420hp Cummins 6CTAs performed extremely well. The 108 mile trip took 7 hours and 45 minutes, from cast off to first tie-off at our new home port. The gorgeous OEM tachometers are wildly inaccurate, so I can’t say for sure what RPM they were turning. The gorgeous OEM temp and oil pressure gauges, likewise, are obviously not reading accurately, but they were stable for the entire trip. There were no mechanical breakdowns or major issues.

Oil pressure and temp probably weren’t 120psi and 110°, respectively

But they were consistent side-to-side and stable for the whole trip

The Chesapeake Bay was snotty as it can be; we were running south on a rising tide with a southerly breeze, so we saw 1-2’ swells, then white caps, then 2-3” cresting waves, then it got particularly nasty while transiting the confluence of the Patuxent River, forcing us to drop to idle at 6kts. After two hours bobbing through the snot, we were back to 2’ chop with white caps, so I put the sticks forward, got that Roamer hull up on plane and smoothed out the ride by getting on top of the snot.

Lotsa spray when we approached the Patuxent River confluence

The turn onto the Potomac River was fun. Suddenly, the swells we’d been pushing through while heading south turned to beam and then following seas. We’d surf down a swell and stuff the nose gently into the next one, then plow through it and repeat for an hour. The entire boat was very thoroughly leak tested with saltwater coming over the bow…and passed the test. The V-berth portholes saw lots of action, but kept it all on the outside.

By the time we passed Colton’s Point, where we found the Roamer on Purgatory Row of Colton’s Point Marina in December 2007, the Chesapeake’s influence had waned to the point we were just cruising along on the calm Potomac. It’s hard to tell for sure with the inaccurate tachometers, but I believe our comfortable cruising speed was ~1850rpm at 15.5kts for the majority of the trip.

Nice wake at 15.5kts and ~1,850rpm

Now let’s see if I can make a video link work right.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Home Port Trip Follow-up

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Retiring Tent Model XXX’s Alarm System & Depth Sounder Install

A depth sounder is one item that wasn’t on my pre-launch punch list but I feel is essential before leaving port. While I was waiting for the replacement seacock to arrive after my failed Splash Day, I was installing a new sounder head unit and stared for a while at the tangled nest of wiring for Tent Model XXX’s alarm system. I decided to remove all of the associated wiring, sensors, and noisemakers, and that really cleaned up the helm wire chase in the salon.

What a rat’s nest

But the thing is…it worked. I installed the alarm system after the bastard thieves stole many tens of thousands of dollars worth of materials, parts, and tools in 2014. I suspect that the thieves knew the marina and the boat. But once the motion detectors were in place and the tent would light up with strobes, scream alarms, and even an air raid siren if anybody entered the tent or came onboard, the streaming cameras picked up no more nighttime visitors.

Recently, after de-tenting the boat, several people with boats at the marina have come by to offer congratulations. A few have commented that they gave Tent Model XXX a wide berth so-as not to set off the alarms. At night, the LED strobes would absolutely light up the white shrink wrap plastic if anybody strolled too close (<5 ft), with scream alarms going off inside. I didn’t tell them that was intentional, but it kind of was. 🙂

Infra-red motion detector on the left, depth sounder head unit on the right

The alarm system is based on a commonly available car alarm, so all of the inputs (i.e. IR sensors) and outputs, like LED strobes and air raid sirens, are 12v. I used cat5 cable for the long wire runs around  the tent.

Tent Model XXX’s alarm system

I will probably reuse parts of this to alarm the boat once it’s in my home port. Better safe than sorry.

Alarm wiring removed, but it’s still messy

I applied clear shrink tube to the OEM wiring identification stickers

Much better!

Many of the OEM wire ID stickers are unraveling

The shrink tube fixes that problem.

Now, that’s much better…on to the depth sounder

I grew up on the West Coast, where the sea floor drops from tens of feet deep to hundreds pretty quickly, and it doesn’t get shallow again until you get to Hawaii or Asia. When we moved to the East Coast and first bought our 1967 Chris Craft Constellation 52, we were motoring north to DC on the Chesapeake, a mile from shore. On the West Coast, there’d be hundreds of feet of water below us. So I thought that the depth sounder on our new boat was defective, because it kept showing just three to five feet!

Chart? What is “chart”? Who needs a chart when there’s hundreds of feet of water below your keel?!?!

When the sounder alarm went off and indicated one foot of water below the transducer, I happened to turn around and see the chocolate-colored trail we were leaving as we motored through the muddy shallows a mile off-shore.

And that’s when I realized the importance of charts and depth sounders. On the East Coast, don’t go anywhere without both!

Hawkeye head unit should work once it’s in water

The Hawkeye DT2B is the one gauge in my dashboard that doesn’t look even remotely period correct. I considered installing a depth sounder from the era, which show up on ebay frequently, but they’re incompatible with modern transducers. I installed a new transducer in this boat back in 2009, before moving the boat to Deale, MD. So all I had to do was connect the transducer wires to the Hawkeye head unit and give it a 12vdc supply, which I pulled from the starboard ignition switch. I don’t like the plastic factory mount for the depth sounder, so I’ll have to figure out something more attractive. But for the purpose of motoring the boat through the treacherous Chesapeake Bay to my home port on the Potomac River, this will do fine.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Transiting to Our Home Port!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Transom Name and Home Port

My Roamer is a US Coast Guard documented vessel, which means (among other things) I can’t legally navigate away from the marina until the name of the boat and its hailing port are prominently displayed on the transom. My first shake-down cruise out to the jetty and back doesn’t count. 🙂

After the Paperwork SNAFU got resolved in 2012, I got the boat documented and used the name of our then-current boat for the application: Libertarian. I like the name because ‘lover of liberty’ and ‘taxation is theft’ are fundamental to libertarian philosophy, and they’re quintessentially American concepts. The name has absolutely nothing to do with the Libertarian Party, though it’s funny how people almost always assume that’s the case.

While the refit proceeded, every once in a while people would ask what I was going to name the boat. I toyed around with changing the name over the years. The missus thought her family crest would be a good way to pay respects to her father, but Sagarifuji doesn’t exactly roll off of American tongues.

I came up with Aluminaughty. Alumin for the aluminum hull, and naughty because…well…it’s a classic Chris Craft yacht and sometimes naughty things happen on boats…or so I’m told. And then there was the alleged connection of some of America’s Founding Fathers to the Illuminati. Washington DC was my home port at the time, so it struck me as fun to have a name that sort of rhymes with a somewhat obscure connection to America’s founding.

I also recently considered Belphegor, the archdemon of sloth (one of the Seven Deadly Sins), after it seemed my starboard engine was possessed and didn’t want to go to work. Since we figured out the secret to making the starboard key switch work right, the engines are back to lighting off immediately. Check out this video from when the boat finally splashed for real:

Back to the boat name, ultimately I decided to stick with Libertarian and went with Elegant font, which is a cursive font reminiscent of Madison’s calligraphy in the US Constitution. I got the decal from SignSpecialist.com for $54.40.

I also renewed the USCG documentation. But instead of just sending me the new Certificate of Documentation, they also sent me the Abstract of Title, which they didn’t send me back in 2012. What I learned from the Abstract of Title was that the boat had several more owners than I previously believed.

According to the USCG documentation, the Chris Craft dealer Grand Craft in Memphis, TN, originally sold the boat for $80,000 in 1971 to one Jerry Hull, who named the boat Outward Bound. Mr. Hull sold the boat in 1972 to Frank Harris, who named it Becky-Jane III and proceeded in 1973 to have the original Ford 427s removed and replaced with the absolutely gorgeous Super SeaMaster turbocharged and intercooled monsters that were still in the boat when I found it. Mr. Harris sold the boat to Oscar Brill in early 1975, who named it Marguerite and subsequently sold it to Stephen Wordell in 1981. Mr. Wordell kept the name and refinanced numerous times before selling it to Epifanio Vargas-Dones in 1986, who named the boat Sa-Va (Let’s Go) and allowed the boat to almost sink during a bad winter freeze in the late 1980s. I bought the boat for $1 from Mr. Vargas-Dones in December 2007, and here we are today.

It’s funny that I’ve owned the boat longer than any of previous owners but Vargas-Dones, yet I’ve only had a few hours on the boat while it’s floating. That’s going to change going forward. 😉

But first…the missus and I got the transom lettering installation done today.

Transom decal is laid out flat on the dock

I put a bit of compound on the transom to remove wax and any accumulated dirt. Then taped the decal into place, measuring several times. I measured from the portholes to the edge of the decal backing paper on both sides initially, but a guy driving a boat by kept hollering “TILTED!” I’m glad he did, because it turned out measuring to the edge of the backing paper was the wrong approach. I then measured from the lower rub rail to the bottom of the lettering on each side, then applied tape to indicate where the top corners of the backing paper should go. Measuring to the bottom of the lettering and making sure it was the same on both sides was the key.

Backing paper removed

Transom sprayed with soapy water

Ten minutes’ work with squeegees, and the boat name is done

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Retiring Tent Model XXX’s Alarm System & Depth Sounder Install

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Splash Day Redux

My 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 is floating in Rock Creek, MD, after a successful splash with a nearly dry bilge, followed by an idle speed maiden voyage out to the Herring Bay jetty and back!

New Forespar Marelon 1″ seacock to replace the leaking OEM one

Installation was super easy. The boat was ready to go back in the water.

Time to light off those Cummins 6CTAs!

Once the Travelift dropped me in the creek, I turned the starboard key to the START position, but the engine made the dreaded CLICK sound as the bendix engaged and the starter turned the engine over for just a fraction of a second, then nothing. The same exact problem from Splash Day had returned! And that was after lighting off four times while the boat was blocked on land still in the Travelift slings!

After doing a bunch of pointless things, a buddy mentioned that sometimes marine starters get hung up and can be awakened with a firm smack of a hammer. He volunteered to turn the key while I manned the hammer in the engine room. At my signal after a good smacking with the mallet, he turned the key and…the engine fired up normally!

My buddy shut down the engine and I went to the helm, very happy that the sledge seemed to have worked. I gave the key a twist to restart the engine and…it made the same massive CLICK sound again and then nothing!

I said something about me being jinxed, and I asked my buddy to give it a try with me standing there. He turned the key and…the engine lit right off! He was laughing his butt off at this point as he shut the engine off.

I stepped up to the helm and, with my buddy still laughing beside me, turned the key…the damned engine barked a massive CLICK and refused to start. My “buddy” appeared to be experiencing physical distress, he was laughing so hard.

At my request, he once again turned the key and started the engine as if this was all perfectly normal. I was becoming more and more convinced that some demonic presence had possessed the boat…a ghost of past tents, perhaps? Maybe a wraith from the Super SeaMaster engines the Cummins 6CTA’s replaced? Was Belphegor, the archdemon of sloth (one of the Seven Deadly Sins), perturbed that this boat that lay fallow for so many decades was expected to move under its own steam???

It just occurred to me that Belphegor would have been a great name for this boat’s transom…

Anyway, my buddy’s laughter was certainly sounding kind of demonic to me at this point. But he took a breath and told me to try again. “Turn the key slowly,” he said, just as the howling laughter started again.

So I did. And the engine started perfectly normally, and it has ever since.

The problem, it turns out, wasn’t a finger-tight starter bolt (though it’s very good that I found and fixed that). It was that one of the brand new Sierra (Made in America?) ignition switches I installed is defective. When you turn a key to START, it usually engages the starter simultaneously with hitting the pin that stops the key from turning more. That’s how all my cars and other boats have always worked, including the port ignition switch on my Roamer. But on the starboard side, the START contacts line up before the stop pin. I was twisting the key past the point where the contacts closed. The contacts would close momentarily, but when the key hit the pin and stops rotating, the contacts are no longer closed. Which is why the bendix would engage so enthusiastically and the motor would start to rotate, then stop dead with a little hiccup as the START contacts closed briefly when the key returned to the RUN position.

So, having figured out the secret to starting my starboard engine, I had a few other things to work out before going for a ride. Like confirming that the automatic mode for the bilge pumps works. So I brought a hose onboard and intentionally flooded the forward and aft bilge compartments. The aft bilge pump worked perfectly. The forward pump…not so much.

That’s not right

After flooding the forward bilge compartment for three minutes, I wondered why the forward Jabsco pump was running and running but not actually clearing water from the bilge. Upon investigating the problem, I was surprised to see that since I installed the pump, the plastic hose barb fitting broke.

There’s less than 1/16″ of critical plastic holding that barb together

These Jabsco pumps are the most expensive bilge pumps around. Yet they rely on hose barbs that strike me as very flimsy. This thing is up against the forward bulkhead. It can’t be stepped on or otherwise abused. the hose connections were straight, so no stress. Yet the plastic broke.

Swap the expensive Jabsco pump out for a slightly less $$$ Shurflow pump and we’re in business

The Shurflow pump is quieter and faster than the Jabsco pump…and half the price. I don’t think these Jabsco pumps are worth $400 when you can get a better Shurflow pump for less than half that. If anybody thinks the Jabsco belt-drive diaphragm pumps are better, please let me know why in the comments below.

With the automatic function proved to be working for the aft and forward bilge pumps, the boat was ready to get wet.

I opened the galley window at the bow seat since….well…I could

It’s warm and humid near the Swamp (AKA Washington, DC) and being able to open this window had the exact benefit I’d hoped for. A nice breeze wafted through the salon after I opened it.

It looks good, too!

The open window at the bow seat also lets me listen to music when I’m on the bow, without having to crank up the volume and disturb others.

Backing out of the Travelift well

My videographer buddy couldn’t make it today, but marina staff enthusiastically helped out with pictures of the Roamer finally splashing. A video might have been better, but here you go anyway.

The water spraying out of the thru-hull in front of the exhaust is a tell-tale

Most of the main engine raw water exits via the exhaust. But I welded a hose barb at the top of the showerhead when I made the dry-stack exhaust, which connects to the thru-hull that’s dumping raw water in the pic above. If water is pissing out of the tell-tale, it means the showerhead is fully cooled.

I touched the dock just long enough for a boat buddy to jump aboard

Those tinted windows look soooooo good!

And we were off and running…

…slowly…

…with zero local knowledge…

…in a fairly shallow Chesapeake tributary…

…but everything turned out fine

Back at the dock after a run out to the jetty

The shaft logs were dripping, so I adjusted them to stop the leaks when they’re no longer moving. The rudder logs are dry, as are the seacocks. This will be a dry bilge boat, I think (hope).

That’s a good looking boat

It’s so different seeing the whole boat vs what I could see when it was in the tent.

Booyah

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Transom Name and Home Port

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Starboard Engine is Back in Business!

Way back in 2013, when I bought my right proper Cummins 6CTA engines, I drove up to Long Island, NY, to check them out. The engines were bolted to pallets, and the shop selling them had rigged up battery connections and a raw water source so they could fire them up and demonstrate that they operated properly. I  bought them, had them trucked to Deale, MD, and craned them into the engine room through the salon roof hatch and proceeded to make them more and more functional over time.

One thing I never touched were the starter bolts.

That said, I was really frustrated that the starboard engine died and wouldn’t restart on 2023’s Splash Day (sorta). I found no problems with the engine when I went through the intake, exhaust, and fuel system trying to find potential mechanical issues that could cause the engine to die and refuse to restart. When I found nothing wrong with the mechanicals, I decided to go through the engine electrical system from the key switch at the helm to the fuel solenoids and starter to see if I could find a fault.

Brand new Cole Hersee key switch checks out

All connections were tight, and the switch is supplied with 13vdc. The key switch wasn’t the problem.

Next, I hot-wired the fuel solenoids

The Fuel ON and Fuel Hold solenoids both worked fine. I left the Hold solenoid engaged for two minutes after manually moving the fuel lever to the ON position. This simulated having ignition on with the engine running. The Hold solenoid remained engaged the whole time, so the engine would have kept running if I had actually started it.

All of the engine cable and wire connections were tight

This was starting to get frustrating. I was not looking forward to pulling the starter and having it tested.

That’s when I noticed something strange…

That starter bolt didn’t look right…

It almost looked like it wasn’t snugged up to the starter base. There’s a tiny gap. So I reached in with a finger and thumb and it turned!

I removed the bolt and cleaned the underside of the head to bare metal. Then I reinstalled it, and torqued it to 57 lb-ft.

What I suspect happened is that the mechanic on Long Island loosed that bolt and used it as the battery ground, but forgot to tighten it after removing the negative cable. I checked all of the other starter bolts on both engines and found them tight. That one loose bolt was somehow enough to provide insufficient ground for the starter to work consistently.

Since the Fuel Hold solenoid worked as it should, I still have no explanation for why the engine shut down. But as you’ll see in this video, the starboard engine is back in business! One funny thing in the video is that I had removed the impeller and aftercooler zinc, so when the engine lights off, some raw water and diesel exhaust come shooting out of the cooler and raw water pump. When I went into the ER after the test run, I was stumped as to why it stunk like exhaust. Now I know! lol

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Splash Day Redux

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Splash Day Breakdown

I mentioned previously that splash day didn’t go so well. I’ve got parts on the way to, hopefully, resolve a leaking OEM Chris Craft-branded seacock. But there’s actually a problem with my starboard Cummins 6CTA that’s got me stumped.

I test fired both engines at least a half-dozen times on land as part of my pre-splash punch list, with no impeller installed because there’s no raw water source. And the engine lit off reasonably quickly and had a stable idle even on splash day. But then it stalled and wouldn’t restart. Even stranger was that the engine wouldn’t even roll over with the starter after it shut down. Check out the video and watch it as it happened.

Scroll to the bottom of the video screen and click Cancel after the video is done or the host will roll another randomly selected video.

The Travelift operator hollered “GOOD WATER!” just before the engine shut down, meaning plenty of raw water was starting to exit with the exhaust. Then the engine flat-lined.

I also started the port engine, which lit off and ran perfectly for a minute or so, until I turned it off. So, two Cummins 6CTA engines with identical run time, recent maintenance (i.e. aftercooler service during the refit), similar dry-stack exhaust, identical waterlift mufflers, new batteries, new start switches, and tight wiring connections, but one starts and runs and the other starts, runs, dies, then won’t even turn over.

Once the boat was hauled and blocked again after the failure to splash, I put a wrench on the starboard alternator pulley bolt and rotated the crank through 8 revolutions. It feels perfectly normal. But when I try to start it with the starter, the starter engages but won’t turn the crank far before it stalls. If I manually rotate the engine a bit and engage the starter, it will start rolling the engine over but quickly stall out.

I presumed that raw water had somehow gotten into a cylinder, since the problem manifested just after the Travelift guy hollered GOOD WATER! I thought maybe I’d miscalculated the spillover height for the wet exhaust out of the muffler. If the muffler output loop is higher than the dry stack loop, I’ve been warned that water will naturally find level and pour over whichever spillover point is lowest in the event that the muffler overflows.

Dry and wet spillover heights look pretty similar from this angle

Similar spillover heights are a recipe for disaster. The dry side MUST be substantially higher.

But from this angle, it’s clear that the dry spillover height is at least four inches higher

There’s 2″ of insulation on the dry stack exhaust tubing, and even the lower edge of THAT was approximately level with the midpoint between the bottom of the wet loop (spillover point) and the top of the wet loop tube, which is 6″ OD. So there’s plenty of safety built into my riser.

But just to be sure, I pulled the wet loop and looked inside the muffler. If it’s filled to the brim, raw water may have somehow backed up into the engine.

Not a pleasant task

OK, it wasn’t a pleasant task, but I really appreciate that whoever designed this system gave some thought to future maintenance needs so everything is relatively easily accessible. 😉

Raw water is 1″ above the bottom of the exhaust pipe inside the muffler

The pipe inside the muffler ends ~2″ off the bottom of the muffler, so there’s only 3″ of water in it. The muffler was working right, and there’s no way water from the exhaust backed up into the engine.

But what if I misinstalled an O-ring when I serviced the aftercooler? The raw water goes through the gear cooler, then the aftercooler before continuing on to the heat exchanger and then the exhaust showerhead. If I botched an O-ring in the aftercooler, it could flood the intake air circuit. But if that happened I’d expect the engine to be waterlocked, and I wouldn’t be able to manually roll the crank over with a wrench on the alternator pulley bolt.

Better check anyway.

I pulled the tube from the aftercooler to the intake manifold

The tube and hoses were bone dry inside

Flexclaw pickup tool with a piece of cotton cloth probed the depths of the aftercooler

Bone dry

It appears the engine didn’t ingest water from the intake or exhaust. It was just a coincidence that the Travelift guy reported GOOD WATER just before the engine died.

If the problem was fuel related, the engine would turn over and not start.

I’m stumped. If anybody has any ideas, please leave a comment below.

In the meantime, here’s the video from Splash Day, the most interesting part of which was using the forklift to pull the Travelift out of the soft gravel while it was lifting my Roamer. Never seen that done before!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Starboard Engine is Back in Business!