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The Engine
The engine when the boat was purchased. I particularly like the green garden hose used in the cooling system.
The engine is a 'late model' Atomic Four installed in the boat by the previous owner. It reportedly had only 150 hours on it since it was rebuilt. It runs really well. I would love to have a diesel in the boat for the better fuel economy, better reliability, the reduced explosive risk and the ability to use the same fuel for heating the cabin. But with the installed engine in such good shape I simply can't justify it. So I live with the issues of an explosive fuel and appreciate the quiet smooth power only a gasoline fired engine can bring. Freshwater cooling and a water lift exhaust were already installed when I got the boat.
I removed the battery box in front of the engine and moved the battery off to the port side under the galley countertop. With the space opened up in front of the engine I was able to move all the filters, valves, etc. to a single location that is easy to get to and service from a single comfortable location. Details are in the descriptions of the various engine systems.
Fuel delivery
The original, Rhode Island built, Triton fuel tank was made of monel and located in the starboard cockpit locker. The Triton is not blessed with much storage space so it seemed criminal to lose half of the cockpit storage to a fuel tank. My original thought was to use the unused space in the deep keel section of my internally ballasted late model Triton. That seemed like a good idea until I learned that all fittings on gasoline tanks must be mounted on the top panel. This means that the height of the tank must be lower than the cabin sole by several inches to accomodate the fittings and this in turn has a big negative impact on the total capacity. If I had a diesel engine I would consider the bilge tank idea. I decided to try to put a fuel tank in the middle under the cockpit sole, similar to the Sausalito Tritons, and made a drawing.
Then I made a plywood mockup and tested to see if it would fit. I had to modify it a bit to slide it in but once there is sits quite flat on the hull. With the updated drawing and the mockup I had a new aluminum fuel tank made by a local welding company.
One thing I learned is that I need to specify all the details. The welding company I went to makes a lot of tanks for the local fishing boats so when I told them I needed a fuel tank I assumed they would put in appropriately sized fitings and such. That wasn't exactly the case and I had to order up a bunch of reducers and fittings to get it all to work. Lesson learned. The tank has a manual fuel level guage that can be read through the cockpit sole access hatch. The outlet is in the middle on the forward edge and draws from a tube from the lowest part of the tank. The filler neck is in line with the deck fill and is angled to make a straighter run with the fill hose. The vent fitting is located at the rear of the tank. In an early drawing I had thought of a bracket on the front of the tank to hold a filter. I later discarded the idea but it seems the welder didn't get the updated drawing and my tank has an unused and grossly oversized bracket on the front. Total capacity of the new fuel tank is 27 gallons. For every inch the tank 'grows' forward an extra gallon of capacity is added. The tank is about 4 inches wider than the cockpit well so the tank extends slightly into the locker area. I could have spread the tank even wider but then I am back to losing valuable locker space and with the tank geting thin out to the edges there really wasn't much to be gained. The final dimensions seemed like a good compromise between capacity, access to the rear of the engine and the propeller shaft seal, and locker space. Two baffles run fore and aft inside the tank to reduce sloshing.
The original fuel filter was showing signs of seepage.
Leaking fuel into my bilge didn't excite me... or rather it does to an extreme so I removed the filter unit and replaced it with a new Racor unit purchased through Moyer Marine. The new filter unit is installed in front of the engine in the service area.
The engine driven fuel pump worked fine but access was tight so simply to make it easier to work on in the future I replaced the engine driven fuel pump with an electric fuel pump. The 'replacement kit' came from Moyer Marine. and comes with a plate to cover up the hole where the old fuel pump was on the engine block. The new electric pump is mounted in the 'service area' in front of the engine.
A shutoff valve at the tank, and a second valve just before the carburetor completes the system and helps me sleep at night knowing that fuel cannot siphon past a stuck needle valve in the carburetor and fill my bilge with gasoline.
Ignition
To make the engine 'better' I installed a breakerless ignition system that I purchased through Moyer Marine. Replacing the old points in the distributor removed an awkward job setting the points every season and improved the overall reliability. Installing the kit is a simple job requiring a screwdriver and ten minutes.
Cooling
The engine had a freshwater cooling system when I purchased the boat. The original Atomic Four water pump now pumps coolant in a closed loop through the block to the heat exhanger and back. A second pump is mounted on the front of the engine and is driven off the front pulley. This second pump draws sea water to the heat exhanger where it cools the engine coolant and then injects the hot seawater into the exhaust. The heat exhanger originally had an overflow valve that dumped any excess coolant into the bilge. I added a cheap, after market automotive radiator overflow tank to the service area to keep my bilge clean.
Just to make me feel better I replaced all the coolant hoses. Now I know exactly how old they are and when I should replace them.
When I was working on the hull and replacing seacocks I removed the original raw water inlet for the engine. The original was just a thru-hull with a valve stuck on it, not a proper seacock, and with the engine converted to freshwater cooling, the raw water pump had been moved to the front of the engine. It made sense to me to re-locate the raw water inlet closer to the pump and install a proper seacock. The new seacock went in right next to where the old sink drain tube (removed) was. I thought this would work okay.
After my first cruise however, I found that my raw water strainer was clogging up very quickly. I even cruised for a week with two other Tritons, motoring through the same waters, and for some reason I had problems with clogging and they didn't. They had their inlets in the original Triton location. I have no idea why I was having trouble. Maybe some sort of swirling motion was being imparted to the water flowing past and it was positioning the surface scum right in line with the inlet. I really don't know. I do know that it kept clogging up after 4 to 6 hours so I decided to move it again to a point lower down on the vertical section of the hull. Its the upper hole in the picture below.
Here is a view from the inside before everything was in place in the 'service center'.
The raw water now enters through a 3/4 inch seacock on the vertical section of the port side keel. Its the upper of two holes in the photo. After the seacock, the hose turns up to a 'Y' valve. With the 'Y' valve I can draw water from its normal hull seacock or draw from a 4 foot section of hose inside the boat. This makes running the engine out of the water a breeze. A simple flip of the valve and I am drawing from a five gallon bucket in the cabin. When not in use the short section of hose attached to the valve lies in the bilge. In a pinch I suppose I could use this as an emergency bilge pump but if I need a bilge pump that badly then I probably have more problems to deal with (there are already four other bilge pumps on board).
Exhaust
The boat came with a wet exhaust and I haven't changed it. When the exhaust pipes get a little rustier (which they surely will) I am toying with the idea of taking the whole shebang to custom exhaust shop and see if they can weld me up a stainless steel replacement. That would be cool. The Vetus muffler sits next to the fuel tank on the port side and on the port side counter.
Propeller and shaft
The survey highlighted the poor condition of the propeller shaft seal. In a Triton they are absurdly difficult to service and this one, like many others, has probably never been touched. There was simply no way to reach it. I fixed the access issue by installing a big hatch in the cockpit sole and that project is highlighted in the Cockpit page. When I finally reached the shaft seal I tried to loosen the hose clamps with a normal flat screwdriver. The screwdriver slipped and when it contacted the rubber hose it simply went all the way through. The surveyor definitely earned his money by bringing that issue to my attention. I cleaned and re-packed the seal and replaced the hose with a new one.
As a part of replacing the shaft seal hose I had to remove the propeller shaft which first required removing the propeller itself. Naturally it was stuck on there quite well. I bought a prop puller from somewhere online and the instructions said "tighten the bolt and then strike it with a hammer". So I did. When that didn't work I struck it harder. What I didn't realize then is that the bronze shaft is really quite soft and I managed to mangle up the end of the prop shaft. The boatyard owner had an old bronze shaft lying around so I bought it, took it to a local machine shop, and they made me a new one to match the old one. Oh well, its only money...
With the shaft being replaced, I took the opportunity to upgrade the old 12x9 two bladed propeller with an Indigo three-bladed propeller. I have heard from reliable sources that they improve performance in reverse and allow the engine to turn at a faster, more efficient rpm. I never had an opportunity to use the original 2 bladed propeller but I know that my 3 bladed propeller works quite well. The Triton still doesn't back up well but then no Triton really does. Control in reverse is sort of a joke with full keels anyway. In a curious twist of fate, the serial number stamped into the Indigo 3 bladed propeller is #680, almost like they knew it was being made for my Triton.
Engine Electrical
At the moment, the standard Atomic Four 35 amp alternator generates all the electrical power for the boat and recharges the engine start battery. When the house electrical system is installed I intend to upgrade to a 80-100 amp alternator to charge the 400+ amp hour battery bank that I have planned.
The original house electrical panel was installed in the spice rack on the aft face of the saloon. I re-used that space by installing a panel that just serves the engine and a few key items that I would like to actuate from the cockpit (like the nav lights). The switch panel is a stock Blue Seas panel bolted to a peice of black acrylic plastic. At the moment, the plastic is just screwed into the spice rack. At some point I intend to go back and add a hinge so easier maintenance. The switches control - from top to bottom - the bilge blower (high priority in a gasoline powered boat), ignition circuit and engine guages, alternator control (so when the big alternator is installed I can turn it off to reduce the load on the engine and allow the engine to continue to run if I ever have an electrical short in the alternator), steaming light and deck mounted navigation lights (red, green, white). The lowest switch is for the future propane shutoff solenoid just because its right where the cookstove is going to be. Below the switches is the engine start button. I didn't see the need for a key that can break or get lost. Below the start button is an automotive style 12 volt recepticle for handheld GPS's, cell phones, whatever - just a convenient place to plug in 12v devices used in the cockpit.
Engine Indicating
The engine instruments were removed from the starboard side of the cockpit well and relocated to the former access hole in the aft end of the cockpit. The new instruments are all Stewart Warner 'Heavy Duty' style and are mounted on an aluminum panel. The panel is framed by some teak trimming. I chose some basic instruments for now with room on the panel for more later. On the left is the oil pressure and water temperature guages. The center is a tachometer with built in hour meter. On the right is a voltage meter and ammeter that is dedicated to the engine charging system. I probably don't need both volt and ammeters but it helps balance that side of the panel and gives a more complete picture of what is going on. Future upgrades might be a cooling water flow meter to detect a problem in the cooling system, and if I am feeling bored maybe an exhaust mounted O2 sensor to measure combustion efficiency (I am a mechanic after all) and fine tune the carburetor.
Engine Controls
The throttle and choke were mounted on the forward starboard end of the cockpit well. I moved them to the port side just because it felt better to me. I like steering with my right hand and controlling the engine with my left. It was a simple move and the cockpit was being re-worked anyway.
The transmission shifter had to be relocated after I installed a fuel tank under the cockpit where the shifter mechanism used to be. The new shift lever came out of a friends project boat and is a side mounted bronze lever that accepts a winch handle. The lever is mounted aft of the throttle on the port side of the cockpit well and moves a series 64 cable that runs under the new fuel tank and connects to the Atomic Four 'transmission'.
The engine itself it looking a bit shabby with all the work going on in the cabin area. When things settle down in that department I would like to pull the motor and give it a beauty treatment.
More info to follow...