Hinckley at Savannah - Bob finishes work on the engine

Just north of the bridge, a face dock at Hinckley Marine

A front came through last night and the high today was only 64! The low is forecast to be 47! It was quite warm going north until today but it is supposed to warm up later in the week, into the high 70's. All the seals and gaskets came in as ordered and Bob the mechanic returned to the boat around 10:30 to finish the job. The heat exchanger had been cleaned and was returned to the engine, the new thermostat was installed, the new temperature sensor was installed and the new temperature gauge in the cockpit was installed. Then the engine was flushed with CAT Cooling System Cleaner for 60 min followed by several rinses and then filling with Rotella ELC 50/50 antifreeze especially formulated for diesel engines.

Bob, our mechanic, working on our engine

The test consisted of running the engine at 1700 rpm with the boat tied off to the dock for 60 minutes. The temperature never got above 84C which was well within spec. However, in the course of starting and stopping the engine when adding antifreeze, Bob noticed that sometimes the temperature gauge in the cockpit increased immediately when the rpms were increased - like they were tied together. At other times, the gauge acted normally and didn't increase right away with an rpm increase. So, there's still something strange going on with the temperature read outs, some poor connection somewhere I suppose. More food for thought.

With everything  done with the cooling system we could think of, we are ready to continue north but will delay our departure until Monday, taking Saturday and Sunday to rent a car and explore Savannah. Our next stop will be Beaufort, SC on Monday night.