Side-note: I published an update to the Miscellany page that I’m using to document my lawsuits against my former employer. If you’re interested, just scroll down that page to the July 16, 2022, Update.
On the Roamer refit, when I made the new exhaust risers for my Cummins 6CTA engines, in addition to the 1-1/2″ raw water supply fitting, I also welded on a 5/8″ hose barb at the top of the showerhead. The idea was that water flowing out that fitting could be routed to a thru-hull, diverting some of the water that would otherwise have to go through the waterlift muffler. It could also act as a tell-tale of good raw water flow: if I can see water flowing from the outlet on each side of the hull, it means the showerhead is getting a good supply. Getting the raw water system done is essential before I can splash the boat, so this is a high priority.
I haven’t been able to find 316 stainless steel thru-hull outlets that are sized for 5/8″ hose, so I bought something close and made them work.
My custom showerhead with 1-1/2″ raw water inlet and 5/8″ outlet
Getting ready to weld 5/8″ tubing to 316 stainless mushroom thru-hulls
The clear tubing supplies argon inside the part
When welding stainless, you have to keep the weld area shielded with argon or the alloy breaks down and you end up with easily rusted weld joints. It’s easy enough to get shield gas on the outside, since the TIG gun releases argon while you weld. But keeping the inside of a tube shielded requires sealing the far end (I used masking tape) and then let the argon run to fill the tube with argon and purge air from inside.
My dual regulator argon rig supplies the TIG gun and the purge line
First one didn’t turn out too bad
It’s water-tight, and that’s what counts. But for the second one, I stuffed the thru-hull with copper wire to hold the 5/8″ tubing firmly in place and to act as a heat sink, drawing heat away from the weld area.
That’s a nice fit
This time, the tube will stay centered on the thruhull
Attach the argon purge line and get to welding
Nice!
A few dabs of Gasoila teflon thread sealant and the thru-hulls are ready to install
I’ve seen situations with threaded stainless steel parts galling, almost like a cold weld, making it really difficult to unscrew the parts if they’re not lubricated. Gasoila teflon thread sealant seems to solve that problem.
The salon headliner tracks are installed, but before the Whisper Wall panels go in I need to install two stainless handrails on the cabin top. The hardware that attaches the rail ends to the cabin is hidden up behind the headliner material, so they have to go in before the headliner.
Access to the aft-most safety rail end hardware hole is easy
When you exit the helm area to the side decks, Chris Craft put stainless rails on the cabin sides. I like having something to grab onto there, so I’m sticking with the original approach.
The original hole is a good place to start
The center rail support and forward rail end are more complicated
The fasteners for both the center rail support and the rail end go through the cabin top above the headliner. So I had to scrape away a lot of spray foam insulation to get down to bare fiberglass.
Houston, we have a problem
I very carefully drilled the hole for the center support from the outside…and put it directly behind a salon ceiling overhead beam. That’s gonna complicate the install…
Time to put in rail hardware
Looks good!
Nice!
Good looking rail!
Custom hardware for the hidden bolt hole
I cut three of these 1-1/8″ long 1/4-20 pieces of stainless all-thread for the starboard side center rail support. The idea was to slide it in from the outside, put a fat washer and locknut on between the fiberglass and ceiling beam, then attach the chromed bronze OE center support. But every single time I got to the boat, I’d lose the part! I finally got sick of it and just used my fake Fein multipurpose tool and modified the end of the beam so a bolt with a head on it would fit.
Modified overhead beam didn’t lose any structural bits
Starboard side center rail support is installed
The last piece
Last step
Once I’d wrapped up the install, two of those stubby pieces of all-thread came out of hiding over the course of two weeks. I swear I’d checked everywhere, but to no avail. Then, after I’d modified the ceiling beam and installed the center support with a bolt, I reached for a tool or part and–LO AND BEHOLD!!–there’s the little piece of all-thread sitting right there in broad daylight. I suspect it’s just the goddess of the seas messing with me. I’d rather have her hiding fasteners temporarily than sending big storms my way, as I believe she’s done in the past. 😉
I mentioned a conundrum in my article about installing the safety rails: the original chromed bronze machine screws are all 1/2″ too short, and I hadn’t been able to find any fastener specialists that had 5/16-18 x 6″ stainless oval head, Phillips drive screws to replace them. Thanks to everyone who provided ideas for working around the problem, but one reader demonstrated exemplary internet search mojo and found a source that had them in stock! I’m not sure what’s so “environmentally friendly” about this boating supply store, but greenboatstuff.com had them and they’re on the way!
Next, I attached 1/2″ spacers to the overhead frames so the polished stainless machine screws and washers will be at the same height as the Whisper Wall headliner.
The washers and machine screws need to seat up against something at this height, same as the headliner
Three 5/16-18 machine screws go through here to secure the big chromed bronze mast base
Spacers are ready to be installed
I installed small 1/2″ plywood blocks where all of the bolts go through a frame
The screw is only held in place by friction
There’s also a light switch that has to get bumped out 1/2″
There’s also a light switch that has to get bumped out 1/2″
The mast wiring is already in place
That’s a wrap for the spacers
Next, I mixed up some epoxy to plasticize all of the screw holes
Injecting epoxy into each screw hole to prevent rot
This is the same approach I used on the mahogany toe rail stanchions, drilling the screw holes, then filling them with epoxy that soaks into the wood and drilling that out once it cures. That leaves behind a plastic hole instead of a wooden one. If these ever leak in the future, it won’t lead to rotten salon ceiling frames.
Cured epoxy fills the hole
Unfortunately, it doesn’t show up in the picture, but there are bubbles in the top of the cured epoxy from where it displaced air in the wood.
Next day, drill out the epoxy
That’s a wrap for plasticizing the screw holes
Now I just have to wait for the screws to arrive. Meanwhile, there’s more prep going on for the headliner.
While the cracks in the galley window openings were being repaired, I was staring at another issue that came up that needs to be resolved before the headliner can be installed in the salon: the safety rails on the cabin top. Some of the attachment points and fasteners are up in the ceiling, so they’ll have to be in place when the headliner goes in.
First, I drilled through the OEM bolt holes in the salon ceiling frames
I have to admit it was a bit nerve-wracking thinking about drilling holes in my [sort of] new paint job.
Next, I measured to see how much safety rail I’d need
9′ x 2 = 18 feet, so I need a 20′ stick of 7/8″ marine stainless safety rail
Measure twice, cut once
Harbor Freight metal-cutting bandsaw was a great investment
This end piece goes somewhere around here
Putting the fitting on the far end of the tubing reveals the exact attachment spot
The fixture makes a good drill guide
That chrome is kind of yellow
I’ve had those OEM bronze pieces wrapped in tissue and sitting in a box at my house since I got them back from Metro Plating in DC waaaay back in 2009. It kind of looks to me like they polished through the chrome and into the nickel plating below. I’m not at all impressed with their work and may send this off to Hanlon Plating, which did a good job on my nautical themed ashtray and other precious bits a couple years ago.
Looks good
Repeat on the starboard side
Final cut on the handrail
And now for the trouble:
The OEM safety rail bolts aren’t long enough
I’ve got many examples of the original 1/4-20 and 5/16-18 oval head chromed bronze machine screws that go through the salon ceiling frames and OEM fiberglass cabintop to thread into the safety rail guides and ends, as well as the big hunk of chromed bronze that makes up the mast base.
But…
I decided to use Whisper Wall headliner, and the tracks for it put the fabric 1/2″ proud of the original ceiling frames. That’s why I had to do all that work making light mounting panels that were 1/2″ higher than they would have been with an original-style headliner that staples directly to the frames. Add to that the additional thickness of the kevlar and fiberglass “bullet-proof cabin top,” and the bolts are all too short. You could see the problem in the first picture at the top of this article. Only 1-1/2 threads stick up clear of the cabin top, and that’s without a washer in place, which drops the threaded part down even lower in the hole from the topside.
I’ve looked everywhere for replacement hardware. I found 1/4-20 stainless screws at McMaster-Carr that are long enough (5-3/4″, so 6″ works) and can be polished to look like chrome, but they don’t have 5/16-18 that are long enough (5-1/2″, so 3″ won’t do). Fastenal came closer, but 5″ isn’t long enough when you need 5-1/2″. A buddy recommended Buck Algonquin, and it turns out they’ve got bronze strut bolts in 5/16-18 x 5-1/2″ long…but they’re slotted, not Phillips or Reed Prince, like the originals, and they’d need to be chromed, which would add to the cost.
I considered using stainless all-thread, which is readily available and cheap. Acorn nuts would be easy and cheap but not very attractive. Since these machine screw heads go through the headliner and will be very visible, attractive is a factor. I have ideas for making custom oval head nuts that would be attractive, but neither easy nor cheap. Attractive stainless machine screws that are long enough can be ordered at a good price per unit, but you have to buy a minimum of 700, which isn’t cheap since I only need five. Which leaves me with this thought: how about taking the fasteners I’ve got and cutting off bits and pieces and welding them onto the existing chromed bronze bolts, extending their length as needed? It’s not a pretty solution, but I think it’d work.
If anybody knows where to get 5-1/2″ stainless oval head Phillips machine screws, please let me know in the comments.
Back in November 2016, I polished the worst of the stainless safety rail stanchions. In December 2016, I made three new stanchions out of stainless pipe and pipe nipples to replace some that were curiously made of tubing. I moved on to other things before getting around to polishing the new stanchions, so they’ve been sitting in my garage, nicely welded together but with nothing but the mill finish. I took advantage of a warm day recently to try and put a polish on one of them.
The good, the bad, and the ugly
After sanding with 80 grit, the ugly starts looking better
Top to bottom in the above picture is a 50-year old OEM pipe stanchion, a mill finish stanchion as welded by yours truly, and another one I made that’s been sanded with 80 grit.
120 grit…looking better still
220 grit and it’s getting kinda shiny
Transition to 400 wet or dry, and it’s even more shiny
I keep an old Tupperware lid nearby with a bit of water in it to keep the wet or dry paper wet. It seems to last longer.
600 grit…gonna need protective eyewear for the shiny glare soon
After 1200 grit, the reflective quality is roughly equivalent to 6-pint beer goggles
My stockpile of sandpaper tops out at 1500
Time to switch up to polishing compounds.
The black colored compound stick really lit up that stainless!
The brown compound does an even more amazing job
WARNING! DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SHINY STAINLESS!
Seriously…this stuff could cause permanent eye damage on a sunny day
When polished stainless looks like chrome…
Well…that was fun. Two hours, including fancy polishing table setup time. I’ve only got two more of these to polish, plus about 15 of the OEM ones. But the really tough part will be polishing the curved pipes that go around the bow.
Last week it was the Throne Room paint job that finally got done. This week, the exhaust risers got installed.
On the way to the boatyard
Hanging by a string
I suspended the showerhead from the CO2 fire extinguisher pipes to take the weight while I put the bolts in.
Starboard showerhead is pointed toward the muffler inlet
New old stock
I’ve had this 6″ exhaust hose for a long time, but it’s been wrapped in plastic and the rubber is still like-new. It’s nice to finally be installing stuff like this that’s been in the way for so long.
Starboard riser is installed
As a precaution, I used stainless safety wire to secure the Inferno Wrap, especially near the flange and the showerhead.
Not elegant, but it works
Exhaust temp sender
Temp sender base is installed in the flange port
Starboard side exhaust is done
Port side riser is ready to install
The flange gasket is hanging from the raw water outlet of the heat exchanger in the picture above. It’s not a metal gasket, which is what came with the engines. Hopefully, this type will seal better than the originals.
The OEM flange gaskets showed signs of leaking
Major blowouts
Port riser showerhead is pointing at the right place
Port riser hose is installed
Port exhaust temp sender is installed
The only thing left to complete the exhaust installation is installing raw water hoses. It’s taken a long time to get to this point, but it sure feels good getting this done.
With the V-berth head finally painted, I had the chance to do one of my favorite things: tearing off plastic and masking tape to reveal the finished paint job. I couldn’t resist temporarily putting a throne in the throne room, as we’re calling it. With that done, I spent a weekend dealing with my busted truck, but I also finished up the exhaust riser insulation. The risers are ready to install.
Finally! Light through the porthole opening!
The fume extractor worked great, but having the duct in the porthole opening made the head very dark inside.
Test fitting “the throne”
Shower basin turned out very nice.
I think it looks even better than the plan
The Throne Room plan
Now…on to the exhaust insulation.
Starboard riser, double insulated and ready for final wrap
I wrapped this riser before with Inferno Wrap when I was still thinking about using a fiberglass hard shell. But since I’ve decided to skip the shell, I wanted to do a nicer job on the wrap.
Nice and uniform wrap
I’ll use stainless safety wire to secure the wrap when I install the risers
Time to insulate the port riser
Cheapo Craft Bond holds the ceramic blanket in place well enough. It’ll cook off the first time I run the engines, but it only needs to last long enough for me to get the Inferno Wrap installed over the blanket material.
This bend before the showerhead will be much easier to insulate than the starboard side
Several people have asked about the purpose of the 1/2″ tube coming off the showerhead. I explained my raw water overflow bypass idea in the article on Welding the Starboard Exhaust Riser.
Cutting the ceramic blanket for the mandrel bends
The leftovers come in very handy for filling in small gaps later on.
First 1″ layer of ceramic blanket is installed
Straight sections are easy
Double-wrapped with 2″ of ceramic blanket rated at 2,600°F continuous
The seams are where the leftovers go
Ready for Inferno Wrap
Ready to be installed
And that, as they say, is a wrap.
So, finally, the risers are ready to install. Booyah.
When I was dry-fitting the starboard safety rail, I found that some of the stanchions were obviously not original equipment. Convinced that it would be a mistake to use the replacements, with their threads only cut to half-depth, I decided to make myself some new stanchions from proper stainless pipe instead of tubing.
Center OE stanchion is pipe stock, the two on the left and right are tube
The OD for 1″ tubing is smaller than for 3/4″ pipe, so you don’t get a full set of water-tight NPT threads if you use tube in stanchion bases that are NPT threaded. I absolutely don’t want water getting into the toe rail mahogany like it obviously had before we started the refit.
Two 72″ sticks of 304L stainless 3/4″ pipe
Cut to size
Four stanchions need to be threaded
I considered buying pipe threading tools, but I can’t see myself ever using them again so it’s hard to justify the cost. Plus, I remembered that the local big box hardware store can cut and thread pipe. What could possibly go wrong?
Houston…we have a problem
The threads cut by the local home center were clearly not right. They’d only thread in 3~4 turns, and there’s no way that would be water tight. On the suggestion of a couple of fabricators, I went with a different approach.
304L stainless nipples, factory threaded in NPT
The home center threads look OK sideways
Trianglized pipe = fail
The helpful fellow working the thread cutter at the home center did mention on the 4th cut that the die was maybe not as sharp as it once was…THANKS!
2×4 block + bronze Tee contraption makes a perfect jig
The wooden 2×4 block was cut perfectly square and the same length as the Tee, which I’ve had for years in my spare plumbing parts bag. The Tee holds the nipple square, so the cut will be very nearly perfectly square to the centerline of the nipple. This is very important for what comes next.
Deburr the cut nipple
A match made in…my garage
Nice, full depth fit
Looks square enough
Insert the new pipe into the stanchion base
Argon purge line sealed on one end of the pipe
I’m using argon to purge the inside of the pipe to keep oxygen away from the weld area, so the stainless steel remains “stainless.”
Clamped to the welding bench
Just a wee bit more tungsten stick-out than usual
That’s a 3/4″ wide roll of painter’s tape for comparison. Total stick-out is an inch, heavy. Between the argon purge and argon coming from the #8 TIG torch gas lens I’m using, I think it should weld OK.
This is nuts
I’ve found many times that the key is to quit thinking about it…just hit the pedal, watch the puddle, and go.
That tacked up just fine
Good fit between the parts, too. That little Harbor Freight metal cutting bandsaw does a good job cutting square once you ignore the gibberish in the factory manual and set it up right.
Shorten up the tungsten stick-out and set up V blocks
This is the perfect job for a parts rotator, but (again) I can’t justify the cost. So I’ll hold the torch with one hand and rotate the pipe with the other. The big hunk of aluminum angle at the threaded end acts as a dam to keep the argon inside the pipe and absorb some of the weld heat. I’ll just fuse the parts rather than using filler.
So much easier than welding inside the pipe
Not bad for a first effort
Great fusion on those tack welds
Two down; purple means too much heat/too little argon
Again, good fusion on the tacks
And that’s three
I held the tungsten within 1/16″ of the pipe here, which really tightened up the arc and kept the heat affected zone to a minimum. I wish I could do that consistently on all of my welds.
last one
Light touch on the bench grinder and done
So, now I’ve got all of my stanchions the same size in all dimensions, with pipe threads on one end that fully seat into the chromed bronze stanchion base. The next step will involve sanding and polishing…man, I’m sick of polishing stainless. But the winter will be long this year, and it’s a good garage job. Also, I plan to wrap up the exhaust riser insulation this weekend and apply the hard shell FRP coating. Once that cures, they’ll be ready to install.
In other news, my painter is reportedly back in the mood to moonlight. So hopefully I’ll have some progress to report on the V-berth head paint job that was supposed to be done seven months ago. Also, word has it Santa dropped some tinted glass off the other night. So that’s the good news.
The bad news is that last weekend I pulled the catalytic converters on my Nissan Frontier and found evidence of heavy beating with a large hammer by the shop that rebuilt the transmission. I understand they had to remove part of the exhaust to get the tranny out, but I’m not sure beating it hard enough to put dents in the pipe was the right approach. Since we got the truck back it’s sometimes felt like maybe the engine wasn’t quite right. When I got the forward cats out, the matrices inside were mostly large chunks and ceramic powder. The rear cats were completely plugged since they were downstream of the disintegrated front cats. I did a compression test, since these engines are known to have significant valve overlap under certain conditions. Compression was 175~185psi on the driver’s side bank, then 200 on the rear and 110psi in the center cylinder for the passenger side. The front spark plug on the passenger side is inaccessible without pulling the intake manifold, but that 110psi hole suggests that ceramic dust from the broken cat may have been sucked in through the exhaust valve, taking out the rings and cylinder bores. This would be even more likely with the exhaust plugged. And the connection this has to my Roamer refit is that I need the truck to move my Miller Trailblazer mobile welding rig to the boatyard and weld up the main raw water inlets. That’ll be on hold while I figure out what to do about this most recent development with the truck.
Either this is the most unlucky truck ever, or the tranny shop fractured the catalytic converters when they beat on the exhaust pipe. Running the truck normally then blew the converters apart. It looks like it needs a new engine. Naturally, the transmission shop says there’s no connection between what they did and my latest truck woes. Like I said before, my Life Is An Old-School Country Western Song.
Bad news! My wallet is significantly lighter, and now the catalytic converters are tripping codes! I may have to think about monetizing this blog!
Props to commenter Tom aka Florida Boater for reminding me about this hilarious song from the TV show Hee Haw in response to my last post lamenting my life as an old-school country western song. I hadn’t heard that song in decades, but it’s absolutely perfect for this refit! 🙂
That said, I finally wrapped up the welding on the stainless exhaust risers. Next is insulation on the dry sections. I initially planned to use Inferno Wrap from Heatshield Products, and bought 200′ worth of the 2″ wide version. But when I test wrapped one riser, I decided it just wasn’t thick enough to hold in the heat. A fellow on boatdiesel.com said that with 3/8″ of fiberglass wrap, he was seeing 400°F on the outside of the wrap during a run at high cruise speed. I want these things insulated well enough to be able to touch the exterior shell without getting burned. I considered using dry fiberglass cloth since I’ve got lots left over and could easily build it up to a 1″ wrap or more. But then I found ceramic fiber blanket material. This stuff is commonly used in the manufacture and installation of wood and pellet stoves. It’s rated for 2,600°F continuous, which is 2x what it will ever see, can easily be cut with professional-grade scissors, and comes in various thicknesses. I got a 1″ x 24″ x 50′ roll and gave my idea a go. It turned out pretty good, I think.
The mandrel bends are challenging
After doing some rough measuring and cutting, I snipped wedges out of the insulation so it would be able to have 100% contact with the the tubing around the mandrel bends. I used el cheapo spray adhesive to stick the center of the wrap to the tube, then snipped additional bits off of one section at a time to get just the right fit. Then I hit it with more spray adhesive, stuck the section in place, and moved on to the next. The spray adhesive isn’t heat rated. I’m only using it to keep the insulation in place until I do the second layer wrap. The adhesive is going to stink when I first run the engines, but once it cooks off I don’t expect it to be a problem.
Use Inferno Wrap as the second layer
In retrospect, I didn’t need the Inferno Wrap at all. I could have just cut a bunch of fiberglass strips from the rolls of cloth I’ve got leftover. But since I’ve got it, might as well use it.
Also, I found it was easiest to use a separate piece of the insulation blanket on the inside radius of the mandrel bends, then form a second piece on the outside radius and sides of the tubing. Doing it all in one go is unnecessary and much more difficult…just gotta make sure there’s 100% coverage.
That’s much, much easier doing the mandrel bends with two pieces
That’s 1″ of ceramic fiber topped with Inferno Wrap
That should keep the heat in
It looks like this approach will work. Next I’ll slice a bunch of strips off the 54″ rolls of fiberglass cloth I’ve got and wrap the riser again, then apply a final layer wetted out with high temp epoxy for the hard shell. Sounds like a good project for this weekend, but only after I get the catalytic converters swapped out in my truck.
The port riser showerhead was a bit easier to weld up than the starboard riser since it doesn’t have that sharp mandrel bend just before the showerhead can. Still, it took pretty much a whole day to cut all the holes, fit the water inlet and overflow pipe, purge, and get the welding done.
First, cut the raw water inlet tube
Point it just behind the exhaust flange and mark with a sharpie
Cope the raw water inlet tube to match the showerhead pipe
Fire up the Zeny Cut 50 and rough cut the raw water inlet hole
The Zeny plasma cutter is a very useful tool…and only $188!
Next, clean up the hole with a carbide burr
Cutting the hole takes less than ten seconds. Cleaning up the hole takes another minute or two. I don’t need a plasma cutter all the time, but it’s great to have one around! What a time saver!
Looks good!
Mark the hole for the raw water overflow
And fire up the Zeny again
Line up the marks, start the purge, and start welding
Fuse the inside joints after the outside is welded
Ready to weld the showerhead to the exhaust
The top of the showerhead is welded
The nozzle plate gets welded last
Done!
Next I have to take the risers to the boat and do a final test fit. I still need to add a tab to the showerhead so I can attach a support arm; I don’t want all of that weight hanging off the turbo flange without additional support. Then I’ll insulate the riser with a combination of ceramic fiber blanket, which is good for continuous exposure to 2,600°F, then a layer of Inferno Wrap to hold that tightly in place, topped with fiberglass coated with high temp epoxy. I have a bottle of white epoxy colorant, which would look nice when the riser is new. I suspect it will brown a bit on the exhaust flange end once the engines run for a bit. All of the other hardshell risers I’ve seen are black, presumably because it hides any discoloration. Feel free to comment below about black/white preferences.
1969chriscraftroamer46 