Monday, July 18, 2011

Hinckley Day 4 - At a dock

Exhibit 1 - what have you got to say for yourself??
Today Hinckley started working on the genset. It sits forlornly in the mechanics building, feeling I suspect somewhat ostracized (for good reason!) The first step was to take all the accessories off the main engine (fresh water pump, salt water pump, heat exchanger, etc.) so the mechanic could get at the governor. The first report back was that the mechanic saw nothing obvious (broken spring, sticking pin, etc.) but it could still be a spring that "relaxed" (became weaker over time) which is much harder to find. So far we're still in the diagnostic stage to find the problem before ordering parts.

I received a call from Panda service (I'm famous down there now...) asking for the mechanic to give him a call for consultation, perhaps he could help. He offered to supply whatever spare parts we needed at a discount. Well, a discount is a relative term when talking about Panda from Germany which is based on the euro - the dollar is not so good against that currency at the moment. Hopefully I can get it fixed at less than the cost of a brand new Panda!
 
Common Egret - in the marina
Meanwhile we continue to do minor boat projects. It's hard concentrate on major projects with the repair of the Panda hanging over your head. So far we have no timeline on when the Panda will be fixed, it depends on what we decide Tuesday after the mechanic completes his tear down of the engine. I don't think I'll ever install another Panda, give me a good Japanese diesel any day.

1 comments:

sharman said...

Hope all works well on your repair of the generator.......we just replaced the 2 raw water pumps on our engines. BOAT: break out another thousand!