1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Salon AC Unit

So…it’s past the first week of November 2022, and I was sure it’d be splashed and moved to a different marina before Halloween. But the boat’s still in the Tent Model XXX.3.2 in Deale, MD. If the weather holds and the reasons why the boat isn’t splashed yet get resolved/stop happening, I still believe the boat will be in the water and moved before the end of 2022.

That said, getting the air conditioners installed has been a priority item on my honey-do list because they account for three of the six raw water circuits on this boat. Raw water circuits involve inlets for the water the boat is floating in, some sort of mechanism that needs raw water, and the outlet for the raw water after it passes through the mechanism. On this boat, that’s two main propulsion engines, one generator, air conditioners, and two toilets. I want all of the raw water circuits done before I splash the boat, because failures in raw water circuits are the main reason why boats sink.

Most of the Panda genset raw water circuit is done, as is the outlet-side of the main propulsion. The AC raw water pump and manifold are done, and the aft stateroom AC is (mostly) installed. Next up was the salon AC unit.

This is where I’m thinking the AC needs to call home

The AC unit will be on the port side, under the built-in sofa

This shot below of the salon from December 2007, when we started this project, shows the OEM sofa/hide-a-bed that I plan to remake eventually.

Man…that was a looooong time ago

First, I installed vibration isolators on the AC mount base plate

As always, I’m using Tef-Gel to isolate the stainless vibration isolator bolts from the aluminum plate.

Next, I drilled holes in the floor to match the vibration isolators

I then applied some lacquer I had laying around to the bolt holes in the wood to seal the surface. I don’t expect there will ever be much water in there, but the bolts can pull condensation out of the air, and I don’t want it wicking into the wood.

The mounting base plate is installed and ready for the AC unit

Neoprene spacers are on each bolt

The rubber spacers will keep the stainless AC unit base slightly separated from the aluminum plate below. So there’ll be no chance of rattles one day.

Looking good

Original wiring is in near-perfect condition

Chris Craft used 10 gauge wiring on all of the 120v and many of the 12v circuits. That’s overkill for this air conditioner application, but the wire is bright and shiny so I’m repurposing it for the 240v Flagship AC units.

Next, I installed new 5/8″ raw water hose

I bought a 50-foot roll of Shields 200 Series (no-wire) heavy duty water hose for the AC circuits. It’s super tough and lasts an incredibly long time. For example, the 200 Series hoses for the Super SeaMaster twin-turbo and intercooled engines that were in the boat when we got it in 2007 had been installed in 1973 but were still supple and had zero cracks. It costs more than garden or heater hose (either one of which ABYC has no problems with, IIRC), but I never want to have to mess with these hoses again so it’s worth the price.

One hose goes to the aft stateroom AC, the other to the salon

Raw water in and raw water out hoses are attached to the AC unit

The last hose is for the condensate drain

A minor quibble for the manufacturer…

Flagship welds standard female bungs into the condensate tray under the evaporator so you can attach a hose barb for the drain. They angle the bottom of the tray so water naturally collects on the side with the drain bung, which is a nice touch. But that approach causes ~3/8″ of water to collect in the tray before it gets high enough to finally enter the hose barb and drain out. I think a better approach would be to weld a pipe nipple so the bottom of the inside of the pipe matched the bottom of the lowest part of the drain tray. You’d have to use a female hose barb, but water wouldn’t collect in the tray where it will slowly dissolve the aluminum.

3/8″ drain hose is installed

Once all the hoses were installed, I applied clear sealant where they enter the holes in the floor so the hoses won’t move around and get abraded, but also to make sure engine room air doesn’t get pulled up past the hoses.

So that’s two raw water circuits that are more than half done. I still have to route the ‘raw water out’ hoses to their thru-hulls, but that’ll come later.

I’ll be doing the big reveal in my next post on the various vexing problems that have been delaying splashing the boat.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: First Try Starting My Cummins Main Engines

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping up the Exhaust Showerhead Plumbing

Getting the raw water supply and exhaust done for my Cummins 6CTA main engines is a major priority for getting this Roamer out of the tent and floating again. I made the raw water tell-tale thru-hulls recently. Now I need to install those and make some tubing to connect the heat exchangers to the exhaust riser showerheads.

Let me apologize in advance for the poor lighting in some of these pictures. The ER is darker in some places than others, and white things in the frame make the camera ‘see’ the dark areas as far darker than they are to the human eye.

The port engine’s HEX raw water outlet and showerhead inlet are pointed in different directions

Oh, and the outlets and inlets are 1-3/4″, not 1-1/2″.

Given that marine exhaust hose is somewhat flexible, the fact that the outlets and inlets aren’t pointed at each other is a lesser problem than that the HEX outlets point directly at the middle of my brand new risers, and the insulation is only 3-1/2″ away.

The starboard side is even worse

The starboard showerhead inlet is on the far side of the riser dry section from the HEX outlet

I’d been thinking about how to resolve this problem, but after spending many hours trying to find pre-formed hose that would work (my on-the-fly, couch engineer assumption when I made the risers), I finally decided to just buy some 1-3/4″ mandrel bent stainless tubing and make some twisty raw water pipes that’ll have short sections of hose attaching them to the inlets and outlets.

One U and one EL will do the trick

vibrantperformance.com had the tubing I needed at a fair price, and the shipping was super fast.

Grab a Sharpie and start marking where to make the cuts on the U-shaped tube

Eyeball the angles and mark with a Sharpie where the U tubing needs to be cut

Starboard side is more complicated

The straight section that I’ll cut off the U-shaped tube I used on the port side will help make the stretch to the showerhead on the starboard side.

The EL wraps nicely around the starboard insulated riser

It was a good decision to go with a long-radius EL for this application. It pretty much follows the curvature of the exhaust insulation wrap. I’ll cut off a bit of the straight section here, and use some of the leftover U mandrel bend from the port side to point the tube toward the HEX outlet on the starboard side.

Back at the garage, I put my Harbor Freight metal-cutting bandsaw to work

Test fit port side…looks good! (sorry for the lousy lighting!)

Test fit starboard side…looks good!

12″ Shopsmith disk sander comes in handy for final-fitting tubing before welding

That’s a professional-grade fit, if I do say so myself

Final dry-fit

I rotated the mandrel bends until everything was pointing in the right directions. Then I drew a Sharpie across each joint in a couple of spots so I can reproduce their orientation back at the shop. I used some tape to hold the joints together for the last, very last, final dry fit.

Back to the garage for some TIG welding.

Tackin’ and TIGgin’

I used my double argon regulator rig to supply the TIG gun and for a purge line that goes inside the tube. I capped off both ends of the tube with aluminum foil and tape, leaving small gaps for air to escape as it’s forced out by the heavier argon shield gas. After a minute or two of slow purging, I tacked the tubes and welded around the joints.

Looking good!

Almost done

Last joint to weld

Done! (sorry for the terrible lighting!)

The Big Day has arrived!

Nice final test fit!

Perfect! Ready for hose!

This is Shields 200 Series, no-wire 1-3/4″ exhaust hose, date stamped May 2022

Boom

BTW, I’m using Breeze constant torque hose clamps in this application.

Port showerhead raw water connections, including 5/8″ tell-tale line, are done

I’ll attach the 5/8″ hose to the thru-hull later

The thru-hulls are currently in use as grommets for wires that need to go outside the boat.

Starboard is next

Absolutely perfect fit, with ~1/2″ of clearance to the riser insulation

Starboard showerhead raw water connections are done

5/8″ raw water overflow/tell-tale hose goes from the showerhead to the thru-hull I made recently

Maybe I should redo those thru-hulls with 90° mandrel bends instead….

Outside the boat, the 316 stainless raw water thru-hulls look good

Ignore the goo that got splashed on my paint in the picture above…it washes off.

Port side thru-hull is being used as a wire grommet

So that’s a wrap for the exhaust raw water system. I still need to install a 2″ aluminum standpipe for the main engine raw water inlets, and connect the strainers. But it’s too hot to weld in the tent now. I’ll wait for late August or September for that. In the meantime, I’m getting more mission critical stuff done in preparation for splashing ASAP.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fuel System Plumbing