More photos to follow!

Things have improved with the engine and seems all hope is not lost. The next stage of deconstruction went well and it can be salvaged.

In Martyn’s words:

“Good News, after a lot of struggling all 6 liners have been removed without
incident and other than a big pile of silt to clean from inside the cylinder
blocks all is well. Will be having some fun making mud pies removing it all
tomorrow!!

We can all take a deep breath now as from this point on it is cleaning,
cleaning and some more cleaning and then the process of putting the poor
Gardner back together again. “

Progress is also being documented on the Marine Power Services website. Check it out here.

Things have been quiet on the blog in recent weeks. However work is still progressing. The welders are still welding. Geoff and Martyn are still undertaking open heart – or more accurately open cylinder – surgery on the gardiner engine.

Unfortunately, it’s not the best news on the engine front…

“On stripping the rest of the engine it was clear that the rust in the
bores has affected five of the six cylinders. We considered if it was
possible to hone out the cylinders to clean them up so that they could run
on some more. Detailed measurement showed that all the cylinders are
already at maximum tolerance so a hone would certainly take them all far
too oversize. So all six liners need replacement.

The bottom line is that the newly discovered issues will prevent the
engine from returning to work unless a top end overhaul is undertaken.”

Unfortunately this means more parts and more man hours. In Geoff’s own words “You need to lay down for this bit”.

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Not like that gizzi!

Thanks to Geoff for the excellent explanation.

I have realised somewhat belatedly that it is A WHOLE year since I shook hands with Neil in the Ostrich Farm on a rainy Friday and took on the Beta III project. That was 13 September 2013…. Ominously on Friday 13th.

A year later I am slowly getting there. The boat couldn’t be moved until December and work didn’t start until January so things aren’t going that slowly really!

(Like a lady who tells whopping lies about her age, Betty’s not actually 1. She’s 88. It’s amazing what shot blasting can do to keep you young!!)

News is the engine has completed the second leg of the journey from Lewes to Poole and is in the trusty hands of Geoff and Martyn.

Here is the progress report so far…

“We have been working on the engine over the last two days.It is now opened
right up and has had all the external fitments removed.As far as we have
been able to see the core engine does not look too salt water corroded,
which is a good sign.

Sadly, a thorough compression check on all six cylinders has not gone
well. Two cylinders are fine while the rest proved deficient, with No 2
cylinder having minimal compression. Using our endoscope we have peered
into the engine (see attached pics). This has shown that the No2 cylinder
liner is rusty. This is probably due to the valves being open to the
atmosphere while the engine lay out of use. The damp sea air has done the
rest. You can see the rust as an arc on the left of the internal picture.
The cylinder should be silvery, shiny and polished. Not good.”

As the pictures below show, they do literally stick an endoscope into the engine.

Two out of six isn’t great but all is not lost. The chaps need to do some further work and strip the cylinder heads to work out what is going on and how bad the damage is.

“OVERALL COMPETITION PRIZE: marine equipment – a wireless wind, speed and depth system with NMEA system sponsored by Raymarine, to be donated to a registered historic vessel and a monetary prize of £1000, to be awarded on a theme or activity involving a registered historic vessel (for example, attending maritime festivals, conservation or maintenance work, maritime skills training, educational programmes held on board an historic vessel).”

The chance to win £1k to spend on the boat? Yes please! The depth gauge thingy would also probably be quite useful.

I enlisted King Dan and Katypoo as moral support and to take the non blurry photos without the lens cap on.

Here are the two entries I have submitted.

I might send in this creepy third one of the engine room (you gotta be in it to win it!) but it was from an iPhone so a bit inferior quality.

I will post Dan’s far superior offering as soon as they have been chosen.

Which means soon the boat will have a bottom once more and everyone will sleep more soundly at night.

The old bilge pumps in the engine rooms were also partly cleaned up. Now you can see through the grub and grime, it turns out they are a thing of beauty.

The top bits are bronze and need cleaning off, likely in a sand chamber. Rather conveniently rumour is toby the welder has just bought one of these.

One of the tops is missing but the remaining four are marked up with initials. There is a prize for anyone who knows what these stand for… Answers below!

Well, it looks brand new. This is almost like one of those before and after home transformations but with a lot less MDF and stencilling and a lot more hours of shovelling grease and filth.

I am sure you will agree the transformation is pretty spectacular. You might not want to eat your dinner off there – it’s still a bit dusty – but you’d probably eat it in there. It will make a great home for the reconditioned engine and is a millions times better than it was before. A lot if hard work gone in there and another example of why I totally ❤️ Shotblasting.

It’s a boat! News is that the surveyors have almost pieced together the model of the boat. They have done most of the data crunching and other, ermm, stuff and will be giving me the full set of info on Thursday. Or rather giving it to the architects who might have some clue as to what to do with it.

In the meantime, they have given me a couple of images of the scan cloud. Basically an x-ray of the boat which picks up every notch and bump and corner in minute detail.

The detail and accuracy are absolutely incredible although the colour and the translucency do make it look like a ghost ship.