The last element of the installation of a new head and holding tank was down to running new "smell-proof" sanitation hose from the holding tank to the waste pump-out fitting. Everything was completed months ago except running that one long hose from the deck fitting to the holding tank hose behind the vanity in the head. We considered using the old hose that was already in there but, Frances asked why use old, compromised hose. So we decided instead to purchase 12 ft. of new 1-1/2" ID hose made expressly for marine heads. Our plan - and we mean plan, because we discussed this thoroughly before we attempted it - was to pry up the old waste deck fitting, remove it, and then couple it to the 12 ft. of new hose and then guide the new hose in by pushing the new hose from the deck and at the same time, pulling on the old hose from our only real vantage point, the area behind the AC unit in the salon.
Here's what 12 ft. of this extraordinarily stiff new hose looked like on our deck before we tried to install it.
This stuff is Sealand hose made, we noted, in Italy and like pasta cooked there, was definitely al dente. No, those curves don't straighten out, even with a heat gun.
We pried up the old waste deck fill (extraordinarily bad quality piece of plastic junk) and attached the end of the old hose to our new Italian revenge Sealand hose. Don't laugh, but this is what it looked like before we started feeding the new hose in.
We couldn't use ordinary hose clamps to hold the old and new hose together because we were afraid the clamps would catch somewhere, so we taped the two together using electrical tape. Electrical tape?. Hey, it worked.
With Frances on the deck pushing and Bill on the floor of the salon pulling from behind the AC unit, eventually we pulled the new hose down to where we could at least see it. Not a lot of room to work with there.
From there, the new hose had to run behind the AC unit , the galley cabinets and then into the area under the vanity in the head. We won't bore you with the mistakes we made doing this but eventually, with lots of pushing from the deck and pulling from the salon, we managed to push the new hose all that distance. It was a happy time on Act Three when we saw the new hose finally appear in the head. Here it is on the deck and in the vanity.
We installed the new new waste fill on the deck and will make one more connection under the vanity tomorrow.
The hoses we removed were not up to modern boating standards. Silverton apparently plumbed the head waste with exhaust hose. It was so soft we could jam a screwdriver through it. We can only imagine how it would perform with human waste in it. Sorry, bad thought.
We were both tired at this point and Bill tends to make mistakes and get grumpy if worked too long. Time to go home and have a good dinner.
Easter Sunday
We began the day with The New York Times as we do every Sunday during the non-boating months. Properly nourished with "all the news that's fit to print," we headed to the boat. We began by finally finishing the head/holding tank installation. That meant connecting the hose to the waste deck fitting that we installed yesterday to the holding tank. That done, we reinstalled the shelf under the vanity that we refinished during the winter.
Next, we lifted the engine hatches, set up some lights and crawled down between the engines to deal with the dreaded stuffing boxes. For those readers who have boats with out-drives or outboards, the stuffing box on an in-board powered boat is really just an assembly that allows the engine's propeller shaft to exit the transmission on the back of the engine and go out under the boat to the prop. That means that it is supposed to keep water from leaking into the boat around the shaft as it spins. That's accomplished by a gland nut that forces cotton fiber strips down into the place around the shaft where the shaft exits the bottom of the boat. Today, stuffing boxes no longer use cotton but instead use thin strips of Gore-Tex or other lubricated fabric. When this stuff gets wet, it swells up, sealing the joint except for a few drops of water. The trick is to tighten the gland nut just tight enough to allow a tiny amount of water in. Too tight, and the shaft overheats as it spins through this gland and that can result in a broken shaft.
The stuffing boxes on our boat dribbled at the dock and apparently admitted a lot of water while underway. Today, we found out why.
Our tools consisted of a 14-inch and and 18-inch pipe wrench, big enough, we thought, to back out first a 2-1/4-inch lock nut and then the packing gland that is the same size. The space turned out to be very limited for wrenches that big and even when we got a grip in the lock nut, we couldn't break it loose. A friend at the boat yard gave us a can of some kind of "freeze off" penetrating oil. We read the label, decided it would never work and sprayed it on the starboard stuffing box. After waiting for ten minutes, we applied the pipe wrench again and the gland nut backed out perfectly.
Here's what the glad nut looked like after we unscrewed it.
In this photo, the gland nut is pushed back up the shaft. The shiny spot on the shaft was where the gland nut would normally be when assembled. The rusty area above the stuffing box is actually on the starboard V-drive. This gland had been leaking for years. The rust on the V-drive was superficial. We'll prime and paint that once this stuffing box thing has been fixed.
Here's a closer shot that makes this easier to see.
We probed the inside of the gland nut with a small screwdriver looking for old rings of packing material, which would have to be removed We found a few fragments but basically, there was no packing material left to speak of inside that nut. No wonder it leaked.
The photo makes this look easy but in fact, there is very little room down there to apply a wrench properly. We also found lots of debris and crap back in that area. We stuck our Shop Vac down there and sucked up lots of old wire connectors, a few nuts and screws and some old oil.
Next weekend, we attack the port stuffing box and maybe, if we're lucky, pack them both and cross this nasty little task off our list.
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