The circumstances were as mysterious as the result. Our venerable old Atomic 4 sputtered once and lapsed quietly into silence. No preamble, no horrible cacophony of clashing metal gone wrong, just the kind of peaceful passing that we all wish for but so few ever get. The engine was dead; we were four nautical miles southwest of the entrance to Mattituck Inlet on Long Island, and about 11 out from Clinton Harbor. After seasons of doting over that ungrateful block of cast iron to make it more reliable, here we were. Our long weekend away from the kids had just taken an unscheduled turn.
I had a decision to make. The wind was blowing south-southwest. Mattituck was out of the question because even if we hit the approach just right and the current at the entrance wasn’t too strong, the inlet takes a few too many twists and turns to make it a fun sail. We turned and ran back for Clinton Harbor, making the inner harbor and thus shortening the distance we’d have to be towed. I’d like to tell you we made a graceful landing, but I’d be lying if I did. I was shooting for the town dock but settled for the next marina over and the first empty slip I could point the boat at. I then bushwhacked back to our marina and put together an impromptu press gang to tow us back to our slip.
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The remainder of the season, was a memorable one for me, as I’m sure it was for the rest of the folks at our marina. I soon found myself cast in the role of oil soaked comic relief, as daily I would trudge up and down the dock muttering to myself with this part or that. It was my vain hope that the solution to my engine problem would be simple and we’d soon be able to rejoin our sailing brethren and sisters for the few waning weeks of the season. Such was not to be the case. I went through the fuel system. It was fine. I rebuilt the carburetor anyway. I went through the ignition system, which was fine also. I replaced it component by component. A cursory examination by a qualified mechanic scored me a puzzled look and the information that I had two dead cylinders for no particular reason he could find. The problem was that I had spark, fuel and good compression in all four. The timing was fine and everything worked, except for the not running part.
As the kindhearted inhabitants of B-Dock no doubt noticed, my weekly travails with the motor had taken on the aspects of a grudge match. Threats, percussive maintenance, arcane incantations, an army of expert mechanics and well-wishers, assistants, all the kings horses and all the kings men, couldn't get that engine running again. I wandered up and down the dock like a madman, carrying ever-larger chunks of engine to be forensically examined and refurbished. It was enough to make a sailor eschew the evils of internal combustion and instead fall back on that old stalwart of the traditional mariner, the evils of drink.
My visits to the boat in September were more of a haunting than anything else. All straws had been grasped, all logical alternatives explored, and indeed the only plausible reasons the engine apparently wasn't running were bad karma, or a rift in the space/time continuum, and either one of those is a pretty tough sell around our marina. So I would stare for hours at the beast, thinking of ever more far-fetched causal scenarios and potential solutions. At one point I had my hand on the phone ready to dial our local Voodoo Shaman, but somehow the thought of having to clean up all that chicken blood on top of everything else, stayed my dialing finger.
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So home came the engine, and weekly I'd go down into the cellar to commune with the cast iron she-devil. I re-examined every system on the engine and found all to be well within acceptable parameters. I had replaced most of the suspect parts and reassembled the ungracious harlot with meticulous care, making sure to re-torque all the nuts and bolts to their proper values. I dotted all I’s and crossed all T’s. I didn’t want anyone insinuating that I wasn’t doing this by the book. Still, the engine scoffed at my attempts to get her running. She'd sputter and snicker at me, cast a derisive sidelong glance, and then lapse back into catatonia, a drip of gas hanging symbolically from her air intake.
There was just one sub assembly that I hadn't taken apart. That was the riser assembly that attached to the exhaust manifold. I knew it was going to have to be broken to get it off and since I could easily blow through it and the inside of the manifold itself looked good, I couldn't see any reason to have to mess with it.
As fall started to look more like winter I got serious. After a good solid week of coming home from work, descending the cellar stairs into the pit of despair, and throwing the ubiquitous screwdriver across the starter solenoid terminals, to hear the surly creature taunt, wheeze but not start, I relented. When all logic has been eliminated only illogic remains, so I turned the engine around and took a look at where the riser was bolted to the manifold.
The two bolts, and I use that term in the most rudimentary fashion to describe two threaded fasteners that had once had heads designed to accommodate wrenches, were now decayed beyond the capacity to be removed with anything less than a cold chisel. In a Murphyesque manner they had decayed only enough to resist removal, but not enough to compromise their functionality as fasteners. So it was with some spiteful glee, a one inch cold chisel and a large ball peen hammer, that I commenced to smite at the exhaust flange bolts, eventually breaking the flange, as predicted, but liberating the standpipe assembly which looked just fine. At least it did at first.
The top of the assembly consists of a T fitting. The exhaust enters the bottom through a 1-1/8 inch pipe and exits the left-hand side through the same on it's way to the muffler. On the right hand side of the T a half-inch elbow allows water to be injected from the cooling system into the exhaust gasses. It appeared to be pretty straightforward...but I'm getting ahead of myself here.
After the removal of the pipe I once more reset everything to square one. Carburetor jets, Timing, all by the book. I then threw the screwdriver across the poles whilst controlling the throttle and choke with my other hand. VROOOOOOOM! It started up and purred like a happy
puppy greeting its master at the door. Vroooom, vrooom! Gouts of black smoke filled the cellar in seconds and languidly wafted upstairs where my visiting Mother-In-Law, long suspecting my fundamental mental disfunctionality, had now become thoroughly convinced of it.
I shut down the engine and then commenced to examine the standpipe assembly. What was not immediately obvious was that there was a section of half-inch pipe INSIDE the T that led the water past the riser so that water couldn't back into the engine while starting. A good idea, IF one knows it is there. The inside of the 1-1/8 T had corroded and scaled and built up a semi porous muck of exhaust particles and rust, which eventually closed around the 1/2 inch internal pipe. Like plaque in the arteries of a barbecue chef. While one could blow freely through the T (or so one would think) in fact you were just blowing through this internal pipe, the exhaust passage itself being thoroughly blocked.
After spending around a thousand dollars on parts we really didn’t need, it was in fact around $50 bucks worth of parts, most of which could be had at the corner hardware store, that brought our flatlined engine back from the brink. Persistence pays, but more importantly, never give up on a good engine.
So we are looking forward to conducting water-skiing clinics off of Lorelei next spring, and running the PWC's into the marshgrass! Well maybe not, but we are looking forward to NOT being TOWED back into the marina in ignominy again.
For those of you otherwise amused sailboaters, it's a good lesson in not taking things for granted. Often, you don't notice things so much when they happen gradually over months and years. All the symptomatic things I can think back on with the benefit of hindsight are handily explained now, and I'm glad I was as persistent as I was, for though we spent a good chunk of money on the engine, it's still cheaper than re-powering.
Author's Note:
"Maintenance extends beyond the engine. Regular examinations of intake, exhaust, cooling, control and electrical systems as well as any other systems that derive their functionality from the engine systems through PTO’s or plumbing should be performed. Having someone familiar with your engine may provide the objectivity to spot gradually worsening problems more easily. Although the age and past care of a boat is an indicator of what problems you can expect, good past maintenance is no guarantee of trouble free performance."
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