Exhaust and Engine Cooling

Lots of engine room work has been completed over the last few weeks. We fabricated a nice little header tank for the coolant that includes a level gauge/alarm that will ring to the wheelhouse if coolant is low. Most of the cooling system plumbing is completed and, with the exception of a few last bits and pieces, we are almost ready to fill the system with water for the upcoming engine run. We also completed the exhaust system including some very nice exhaust blankets that our friend Forest made for us. These will reduce the heat coming off of our dry stack exhaust system significantly and should also help quiet things down when we are running. If you are looking for exhaust lagging or blanket work, drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with Forest. As you can see, he does nice work.

Since our little Cummins engine came out of a truck, there has been a lot of design and fabrication necessary to adapt it for our use on the boat. In the long run if you count all my time I have into it, it might well be cheaper to just buy a marinized plug and play version this engine but, having more time than money and enjoying the challenge, this process has worked for me. I also like some of the design features and solutions that we have been able to build into the install vs. what you get from the factory. Control cables for shifting and throttle are now hooked up using some custom brackets that Sam and I made last weekend. Now we just need to do a little oil pan plumbing (for a level gauge w/ hi-low level alarm), some minor electrical (no electronic controls on these old 12 valve 6bts), hook up fuel lines to the filter, fill up on fluids, put some diesel in the day tank... and we'll be ready for a test run.