Nahani puts on weight (engine mounts in place)

The Repowering Project: Day 22 (Wednesday)

Day started well - up early, Keith & Jason arrived with the engine mounts beautifully painted and ready for installation (see picture). With the mounts in place, bolted to the old mounts and with the engine sitting on top, the engine lined up well, not only the drive from the gearbox with the prop shaft, but also the exhaust outlet and water trap. Keith and Jason suitably surprised and pleased. We worked out appropriate solutions for supporting the water trap, and re-routing the cockpit drains in the guest cabin in order to make room for the exhaust. The engine came out again to give us room to work on implementing these.

Next step was to get the hole drilled in the transom for the exhaust. Jason started with a hole saw, but it wasn't coping so he had to drill all the way round the new 100mm diameter hole, which took ages. We had planned to put something below the hole to catch the metal fragments as the hole was cut, but failed to remember at the critical moment, so much of the afternoon was spent extracting teeny bits of metal from the bottom of the lazarette using magnet and vacuum cleaner. With the final lining up of the engine now checked, the prop could be fitted and the engineer had major problems getting it all lined up, snapping a spanner in the process. But it did finally get done. When not assisting with something else, the mate got some cleaning and sanding work done, ready for a whole lot of painting jobs, now scheduled for Thursday.