Stabilizer Installation

[twistedtree]

OK, several significant milestones have been reached.

First, the glass work is done on the port side, the hole is drilled, and the mounting plate is positioned and aligned. Now it's time for potting the plates in position.

Step one is lots of mold release on the underside of the mounting plate. This first picture shows the drill holes taped over and the wax can artfully displayed. I sure hope I put enough on.

First thing this morning I met up with my glass guy to do the potting. The night before I positioned the plates where they can be grabbed and lowered into place after placing the epoxy filler around the area. The grabbing and lowering is easier said than done, especially on the port side. It took a while to come up with a body position where I could lift the plate into position without falling into the filler. And the plate is heavy - probably 50 lbs.

My glass guy mixed up the goop to a nice mashed potato consistency - stiff enough to hold it's shape and not sag, but soft enough to press the pate into it - and scooped it into place where the place goes. We then swapped places with me in the engine room and him outside the hull spotting as I lowered the plate. It went in just fine, and our calculations of the quantity of material was pretty good. Math can be your friend. Once set in place, I popped back outside and rechecked the alignment.

Within an hour we had both sides done. If you look closely in the pictures you can see a little bit of filler around the bore looking in from the outside, and the edge of filler around the plate on the inside.

The good news is that the plates are set and potted, but the bad news is that it's curing very slowly. By the end of the day it was still clay-like in its consistency. This is normal in cooler temperatures and it just needs to be warmed up, which I'll do with a couple of heat lamps tomorrow. The down side is that I had a friend lined up to install the actuators tomorrow, but I don't want to bolt them down until I'm sure the potting is fully cured. All I need is for it to not be fully cured and squish out screwing up the alignment. So I'll wait until it's rock hard.

[ASKAER]

Back after 250 Nm south of Singapore to the beautiful and not so well known Indonesian Islands, we crossed the Equator on our maiden cruise with our newly installed Trac stabilizers with Star features. Our immediate observations are 1) highly effective, 2) extremely responsive, 3) predictable both under way and at rest, 4) easy to operate and 5) works well with our autopilot. We tried them in 20 Ms both at 20 kts and at various displacement speeds. if anything negative perhaps there is a bit to much shake at low speed that we will try to work on through configurations. The boat behaves differently with the fins installed compared to before but impressive at all sea conditions so far met. We were a small group of boaters along and it was interesting to observe how different the Grand Banks EU47 went through the waves at great comfort to its passengers. Will report with photos later when I have more time. Continue your great work. It is worth it! But looking at the GBY after installation work on our "ALMA" - it is a major venture for you! Kind regards from Singapore.

[twistedtree]

Thanks Heine. It's great to get confirmation of their performance. I'm hoping to be in the water in three weeks or so, and can't wait.

This is a huge project, but I must say I'm enjoying it - and I'll be glad when it's done.

[twistedtree]

Today I rigged up a heat lamp on one side, and a regular light on the other side. When I arrived this morning the filler had hardened considerably on its own, but the pliers test still failed - I was able to squish some of the filler with pliers - so it needs to cure more. By the end of today the side with the heat lamp had hardened a bunch more, so things are going in the right direction.

While the lamp was shining, I test fit the starboard actuator. I had to nip a little corner off the bulkhead support to fit it, but everything went in fine otherwise. It needs to be shimmed so the actuator protrudes just clear of the outside backing plate. To figure the shim thickness, I need to measure how far the actuator protrudes without any shims. In the picture you can see me holding up the backing plate over the actuator. Visions of things to come....

Back on the inside, I trimmed and test fit the bulkhead panel. It fits great and allowed me to confirm the location of the equipment that will be mounted against it. The last picture shows the panel back out on saw horses with the equipment laid out in its final position.

[twistedtree]

Pictures are still in the camera, but I'll describe yesterday's and today's progress.

The cure finally completed on the filler, so I drilled the 8 bolt holes for each actuator. The battery in my had drill only lasted for two holes, so I broke out the Milwaukee right angle drill. I was probably going to need it anyway since a couple of the holes are partly obstructed by the bulkhead support. Even with the bigger drill it still took almost an hour per side to drill the holes. There was lots of stopping to clear the bit, then restarting.

With the holes drilled, it was time to separate the mounting plates from the filler. After seeing how sticky the filler was, and seeing where some of it found it's way up the side of the plate, I must say I was worried how easily the plates would separate from the filler. Per ABT's directions, you just crank down on the jack bolts which lifts the plate. Much to my relief, it worked exactly as described and the plates came right off. The jacking bolts and filler are a really good approach to precision mounting and alignment of the actuators. I can't even imagine trying to build up the hull and glass in a wood block per other designs, and have any expectation of correct alignment when you are done. Obviously people manage to do it, but the ABT approach strikes me a simple, yet highly effective solution.

With the plates removed, my glass guy performed his final magic and cleaned up the edges and other imperfections in preparation for painting.

With everything cleaned up, "painting" began. As a first step, I put a coat of Inter-protect over the new glass. It acts as a primer and also helps show any additional touch up work that might be required. This first coat didn't reveal any imperfections inconsistent with and engine room, so today I moved on to Awlgrip. Actually, the interior of the hull is finished with Awlcraft, not Awlgrip, but it's still a nasty two part mixed paint. I was smelling the Inter-protect and Awlcraft through my respirator, so I bought a new one today. Problem solved, but it's still nasty, nasty stuff.

After three coats of Awlcraft, the engine room is starting to look like it's old self again. I also spent a bunch of time vacuuming, followed by removing the plastic bagging around the engines, bulkhead, cabling, etc.

Tomorrow is a big day. A friend is coming to help do the final install of the actuators! It's a huge milestone and represents the conclusion of the messy work.

Changing topics a little bit, a while back I installed the hydraulic pump and transmission PTO kit, and in doing so found the tranmissions main oil line no longer fit because on interference with the new pump. It turns out the solution was very simple. The other end of the oil hose had a 45 deg end, so by simply turning the line around and rerouting it slightly, I was able to reconnect the existing hose. It took a while for it to dawn on me, but I finally figured it out.

Stay tuned for tomorrow....

[twistedtree]

They are in! And man am i tired.

The only puzzler that came up had to do with the thru-bolts. We found that the tapered heads were bottoming out on the hull before drawing the outside mounting plate fast against the hull. A slight countersink of the holes is all that was needed, but ABT's otherwise impeccable instructions said nothing about this and I was worried that we might have the wrong bolts, backing plate, or both. But a quick call to ABT confirmed we had all the right parts adn just needed to relieve the holes a bit. They are a great company to deal with! In 10 minutes we were back on track.

The first side took 2.5 hrs, much of which was spent sorting out techniques for applying and containing the 3M 5200 sealant. That stuff will get on anything and everything, and attempts to get it off usually result in it spread over more stuff, not less. But by 2:00 it was in, torqued down, and cleaned up. Just in time for a late lunch.

The second side went faster as you might imagine - probably 1.5 to 2 hrs - but after 4 tubes of 5200 sealant they were in!

The pictures show the gray inter-protect coating from the other day, followed by the awlcraft bringing the work area back to matching the rest of the hull. Next are the actuators in place on both sides, then some outside views. The tape and packing material on the shafts protects them until the fins are ready for installation. In the shot from the bow you can see the shafts on both sides of the hull.

With this, I think all the messy work is done. As long as I don't create a hydraulic leak, it should all be clean work from here on out.

Tomorrow I'll start putting the bulk head back together and mounting the hydraulic components.

[twistedtree]

Today I started putting the bulkhead back together. On the starboard side I added some extra backing support to hold the oil tank which is pretty heavy. To mount it, as well as the hydraulic control valves, I'm using captive nuts on the back side of the panels so I can thru-bolt the equipment to the panel. The captive nuts are the kind with prongs that dig into the back side of the panel. I figured I'd use the mounting bolts to pull the nut prongs into the wood, but in doing so I experienced the wonders of seizing stainless steel. Boy that stuff is a pain in the rear some times. Now I have a nut and bolt fused together, and of course I brought my sawsall home just yesterday figuring I was done with it. It never fails. Tomorrow I'll haul the saw back to the boat and cut off the bolt. Having learned my lesson the hard way, I hammered the rest of the nuts into place and bedded them with some 4200.

The first picture is hard to see (I think my hat blocked the flash), but it shows the back side of the starboard panel with the extra supports and nuts on place.

With the starboard side on hold, I moved over to the port side. That panel needed to be trimmed and have the backing nuts added, and I had to re-mount the water lines which live behind the panel and had been moved to make room for the glass work. With the panels back in on the port side, I mounted the control valve, and re-attached the bilge pump line. The pictures show the finished port side. The wires hanging out are for the battery charger which I won't remount until later so it doesn't block access.

[twistedtree]

We have fins!

They arrived this past week, but I had to be away for a few days on business so I wasn't able to get started until yesterday. The first step after un-crating everything was to paint the top of the fins with anti fouling paint since it won't be accessible after installation. The first picture shows the fins with the tops painted. You can see the notched profile on the top to clear the hull chine.

Now that the fiber glass work is done and Glass Guy has moved on the other projects, I have my friend Fin-man helping out. In the next picture he's proudly posing next to the first fin that we installed. At first we had some trouble getting it on until we discovered that there was a layer of epoxy that had flowed down into the shaft socket on the fin and was causing it to bind up on the shaft. Once we figured out what was going on it was a simple thing to scrap it off, then everything went together as expected.

The next photos show the fins installed with the bottom winglet in place.

From there we moved inside and put together the inside mechanism. The last picture show one side assembled, and you can see how close the fit is against the bulkhead panel, but everything appears to clear OK.

I must say, I breathed a big sigh of relief today.

[twistedtree]

The other part of this week's shipment were all the cables. Yesterday I managed to fish the three hardest cables - two to the lower helm, and one to the fly bridge. What makes fishing them so hard is that they have quite large connectors on them. But they are in and the control panels are now connected and ready for final hookup to the brain unit.

Another sigh of relief.

[twistedtree]

More progress today. The first pictures show the port mechanism going together. The first is without the top plate installed and shows the hydraulic cylinder that controls the shaft rotation. You can also see the plunger cylinder below. It extends into the notch and locks the fins in their centered position. When active, the pin retracts and frees the fins to rotate.

Next I installed the starboard control valve and the hydraulic tank and filter. The tank has an assortment of ports that either have to be plugged or have valves and accessories installed. The next picture shows the tanks on my make-shift work bench with the valves and fittings lying around, then installed.

The next two are the pressure regulator installed centrally between the two actuators. This maintains a constant operating pressure independent of engine/pump speed.

One thing that became evident after installing the tank is how tight things are on the starboard side. It's tighter than I'd like, but I can get at everything so I think it will be OK. I figure it's no worse than working on most cars. Worst case, I'll remove the tank if major work is needed.

The next two pictures show the oil cooler and in it's tentative location, then a wider shot of the bulkhead including the 12V to 24V power converter (the copper colored box up high). I still need to finalize the cooler location, figure out how to mount it, and re-plumb the raw water intake for the starboard engine.

And last but not least, the pump with suction hose installed. That's the first of 16 hydraulic hoses that need to be made up. 15 left to go.

[twistedtree]

Yesterday I started making up hydraulic hoses. I wasn't certain about exact lengths, straight versus angled ends, etc. Also, hydraulic hose bends but doesn't twist, so if you have two right-angle ends, their rotational orientation needs to exact or the fittings won't go on the devices. To deal with this, I decided to take a two-step approach.

Starting on the starboard side, I made a first cut at each hose's length and fitting styles, rounding hose lengths up to the next foot. Hose sells by the foot, so I was paying for it anyway. Then I went to the hose shop and had them cut the hose, but only crimp one of the two ends on the hose, and give me the other end loose. By the way, we have an awesome marine supply shop here in town that can do all this.

I hauled all the partially assembled hoses back to the boat and test fit each one, marking them for cutting as needed. It turned out I only had one hose with right-angles on both ends, so I only had one alignment challenge to deal with. I also miss-calculated one of the hose lengths so I had to eat one partially made hose.

Then, with all the sample hoses in hand, I test fit them to the port side to figure out how those were going to work. After all that, it was back to the shop to get the ends crimped on, and give them the list of port side hose to make up. In the process, I cleaned them out of #6 JIC fittings. Once back at the boat, everything fit perfectly.

In tightening up all the fittings, I concluded that I need to relocate the oil filter. It's not too hard to do, and frees up some access space on the starboard side which is otherwise very tight. I still have the return hoses to the oil cooler and filter to make, but I'll wait until I have the cooler installed and have sorted out the new oil filter location.

With as many hoses in place as possible, I switched to the wiring harnesses and started getting them hooked up. Tomorrow I hope to finish the cabling.

[twistedtree]

The last two days I've finished up the wiring, installed and aligned the fin position sensors, installed and aligned the prop shaft speed sensors, installed the reverse interlock relays, and dressed up the rats nest of cables. At this point, everything is done except the oil cooler, filter, and associated hoses. These are held up waiting for a pipe fitting for my raw water system.

The first pictures are before and after of the wiring. Split loom is great stuff.

The next two show the prop shaft speed sensor. There are two reflectors that get tie-wrapped to the shaft along with a neoprene sheet to block reflection in betweeen. The little yellow thing is the sensor. It shoots a beam at the reflector and looks for the light to shine back, allowing it to count shaft revolutions. This part of the system, as my kids would say, is pretty bootleg. Getting the reflectors, backing sheets, and tie wraps on, aligned, and tight is very awkward. The sensors are exposed too, even though I've got them tucked away as best I can. It would be so much simpler to have a NMEA input (preferably N2K) where the controller could pickup the SOG from the GPS. Oh well, the good news is that I could have much bigger things to complain about, but I don't.

The next picture shows the reverse sensor relay box (to the right of the copper colored power converter). This wires into the Glendinning shift controller via break-out cables and can be wired to detect forward or reverse on either engine and close a relay. The relay closure tells the stabilizers if the boat is in reverse so it can center and lock the fins.

Last shows the port side with cables dressed, and you can see the aluminum cap over the center of the actuator covering the fin position sensor.

[twistedtree]

A bunch of time today was spent on other projects, but I did get two things done on the stabilizers. The first was to reinstall the battery charger. I had to cut off the wire lugs to remove it so new ones needed to be crimped on with shrink-wrap sleeves. The first picture shows it all back together.

The next was startign to install the oil cooler which requires some re-plumbing of the raw water intake for the starboard engine. I've been waiting for a 2-1/2" x 5" pipe nipple that I ordered and it finally came in today, so I started putting it together. But first, one of the old fittings had to be removed from the strainer, and my 14" pipe wrenches couldn't budge it. A quick trip to the local plumbing supply shop armed me with two 24" wrenches, and that did the trick.

The last two pictures show the cooler in position straddling the front of the engine. Water comes out of the strainer, through the cooler, then down under the engine where it loops around to the pump. The new hose run will be a few inches shorter than before, but of course the length of the cooler is being added. This cooler body is a good bit larger that what's required to cool the hydraulics, but provides less intake restriction on the engine.

Tomorrow AM I plan to cut and hook up the water hoses, then mount the oil filter and sort out the return hydraulic hoses. After that, I think I'm done.

[Vyndance]

Thank you so much for documenting and sharing your project. Great Job!

[twistedtree]

The finish line is in sight.

Scattered over the past few days I hooked the cooler up to the raw water system and made up the final hydraulic hoses for the return lines. I also relocated the oil filter to improve access to the starboard side equipment, which is still tight but serviceable.

The pictures show the new filter location. It's mounted to the bracket that holds the engine coolant expansion tank using a small stainless plate made up by my local marine shop.

Next shows the oil cooler all hooked up.

And the really cool news - the boat's in the water as of this afternoon. No leaks - either water or hydraulic oil - so everything looks good so far. Tomorrow the factory service tech is here for the commissioning. Stay tuned for the sea trial report...