Crazy subsitutions on Engines.... Have you??

[Boasun]

Jessica Watson used a water pump for a fuel pump on the Yanmar engine of her boat. Would love to hear what the yanmar design engineers would say about that.
Now have any of you had to subsitute an engine part with something that just isn't done that way?
I know on one boat I'd Captained that we had to use a short length of pipe for a rocker suport on a 20 cylinder EMD. Had to grind it to shape it to size.
How about the rest of You?? any subsitutions??

[nolatom]

Bike inner tube for any missing spring assembly.

Pennies to wedge a throttle open when the cable failed and I needed steady rpms for a maneuver.

Funnel with fuel in it, tied into fuel line, to give head pressure when fuel pump failed.

Crank start on Atomic 4 when starter frozen (I know, not really a substitute part)

I've never tried the nylon stocking-as-generator-belt thing, but have heard about it.

[hellosailor]

"Now have any of you had to subsitute an engine part with something that just isn't done that way?"
Well, yes. Friend had just bought a Pearson32 in the winter and it ran just fine--until it heated up. I don't remember which engine that was, but it has a thermostat which acts as a diverter valve, no automotive style, so when the engine heats up the thermostat diverts water from the bypass loop to the cooling loop.
And on "let's bring it home" day, the wx was beautiful and the engine started overheating. Thermostat was bad, no spares to be found, ETA four days if it was put on rush. While he was out making phone calls, two of us thought it over and figured "well, if we just force half the flow through the other loop, that will emulate a half-open thermostat...now what can we put in the thermostat housing to do that?" And I stuck in a rock from the parking lot.

Well, it is insoluble and it ain't going anywhere...

Boat worked fine, but the proud new owner and the mechanic both were kindof aghast that I'd fixed the engine using A ROCK for a thermostat.

A very carefully chosen rock, of course. :-)

[Dolby]

had to use a gallon water jug cap in place of a nylon washer to stop fuel leak from air bleed screw...had the replacement screw and rubber but no nylon...worked perfect for another 100 or so hours...definitely have the nylons in quantity now

[davidpm]

The captain of the Nautilus had his guys go ashore and collect as much radiator stop leak as they could find to fix a leak in the cooling system of the nuclear sub. It was a secret mission as he didn't want his controversial artic mission scrubbed and the Napa solution was not approved.

[deniseO30]

What I found on my boat from the PO were wire ties for just about everything! He had em on fuel lines, the heat E/X, holding things to the rails, oil lines. EEK!

[TQA]

Found this on a boat I looked at recently.

Picasa Web Albums - John

From PACIFICO

The water pump is usually belt driven. For some reason someone had bolted the drive flange of the pump directly to the crankshaft pulley with the only thing restraining the pump from turning being the hoses. It worked and the current owners say they have had no problems with it.

Definitely high on my must fix list though.

[redhead78]

My old engine the impellers went, there were 2 in the chamber, I cleared out the impeller box, brought the seacock water into a small flojet pump and the out into the impeller inlet, electric water pump, pushed the water thru the engine.Had to be careful and only start the pump after the engine was running, and shut the pump b-4 the engine. Red

[SimonV]

Just recently had the water pump on my Perkins 4.108 cark it. The coolant was running out through the shaft seal at the bearings. What I did was connect a hose to the galley tap and stuffed the other end in the header tank, adjusted the flow to keep up with the leak and managed to motor back to the dock using more than half the fresh water in the tank. Gave the bilge pump a work out and cleaned the muck out of the bilge at the same time.

[cruisingdream]

Yanmar water bump belt broke on a sunday , they are smaller than any automotive belts ....so.... I found I could strech a vacuum cleaner belt onto the pullys . I kept the rpms down to 1500 worked great for 6 hours going up river. Then found the same belt fit my sewing machine for making canvas repairs . I now have a better supply of spares and also keep 2 vacuum cleaner belts onboard.