Installing a new motor

When I bought the boat, the aging Mercedes 190D had become somewhat temperamental. A homemade heat exchanger mounted on a steel tube arrangement which was glued together with epoxy, served to cool the motor while the oil cooler was reminiscent of something out of the late 1800s.

Picture of the 190D motor below. 

A mesh of wires and cables ran through the motor room and one was never sure of the motor would start after a few hours at sea. This was always a source of concern and caused us no end of trouble, failing at the most inopportune times, like when arriving in the bay in a gale and moving from forward to reverse to stop the boat!

In 2009 I changed jobs and had to relocate to Johannesburg for what I hoped would be a short while. The job took me away from all that was close and dear to me for nearly a year.

I left Lemara in the care of C.B. (name deliberately omitted) a former Western Province Hobiecat champion sailor who had fallen on hard times and taken to drugs.

I met C.B. during the buying process of the boat and learned that he was making an attempt at sorting out his life. Part of that process was to work in the marina as a handyman, building boats when he could and doing odd maintenance jobs around the marina. He was living rough in one of the boats he was building.

At my invitation, he took to living on Lamara and would call me on a regular basis, giving me updates on the state of the ropes and maintenance aspects requiring attention on the boat. He called in a panic one morning, saying that he started the motor to get the juices flowing and in the process, it broke a timing chain.

This is not a good thing to happen to a motor. Generally, it causes major damage and with a motor of this vintage, such damage is usually fatal.

I was living in a garden cottage of a mechanic and he had family in Cape Town who owned a long-haul freight company. He suggested that we move the motor to Johannesburg and take it apart to see if it can be repaired. I contacted C. B. in Hout Bay and he arranged to remove the motor and loaded it on the transport, for the 1 500km trip to Johannesburg.

Once there, we took the motor apart but discovered that we needed a set of spares which were unobtainable. The motor was scrapped.

A year or so later I was transferred back to Cape Town which allowed me to take an active part in the sourcing of a new motor.

C.B.  introduced me to Graham Raynor, who owns a pump servicing and supply company, and also dabbles in marine motor refurbishment.

Graham had a client who was selling a refurbished Mercedes 240D, which is an upgrade of the 190D but has the same mounting spacing and bell housing for the gearbox. 

Graham mentioned that, while this motor is essentially a truck motor, it was a favorite to be marinized for use in small to medium-sized boats. He found a drawing of a Bowman heat exchanger kit which was developed for the 240D in a manual somewhere and said that we should search the Internet to see if we can find the item for sale.

And after a week or so he called me to say that he had located one in the U.K!  A company called Lancing Marine had one in stock. I contacted them by email and lo, they wrote back. After some toing and froing with how to transfer the money to them, I managed to secure the last one on the shelf, and probably the last one they will ever have in stock! Graham also wanted a drive plate for the motor and they had that too.

I had the items flown out to Cape Town and delivered them to Graham's workshop. About a month later I was advised that the motor is ready for collection.

I collected it and stored it at my work warehouse for a year while I prepared the engine bed over weekends to receive the motor.

The old motor was mounted on wooden bearers which had decayed over time and were no longer suitable to serve the purpose for the new motor for another 30 years. I had to find suitable material from which to fabricate new bearers. I looked at a number of options, from recycled plastic to timber. None were found to be suitable for long term installation. I was eventually found a company close to where I work, a supplier of structural nylon, the kind of material that was used in mountings of the bogies of the roller coasters at the local fun park.

At more or less the same time, a sailor arrived in Hout Bay who was en route between Durban and the middle east but who had to work on his boat which needed some repairs. He was happy to make extra money to add to his passage kitty. Francois is one of those people who can fabricate anything from nothing and proved to be a real brick in the process of reinstalling the engine.

He accompanied me to the nylon suppliers and after discussions, they settled on two green strips of super strong stuff about 150mm wide, 50mm thick and 2 000mm long.

Francois undertook to fit the motor in exchange for some of the green stuff that makes the world go round, and upon agreement on a price, he and I collected it from my work warehouse.

Upon arrival in Hout Bay, we picked up some men on the side of the road who were looking for work and promptly manhandled the motor onto the boat using two the booms from the mizzen and storm jib. See pictures below.

 Francois and labor manhandling the motor onto the link bridge

                      

      Graham Raynor and a laborer on the finger next to Lemara 

  

Motor settled on the cockpit floor ready to be lowered into the motor room. The  Bowman heat exchanger kit is clearly visible on the facing side.

                          

              The motor is installed!

And that's where it sat for 5 years!

During that time I constructed the doghouse, Charles moved the wheel and after a 2-year stint abroad, finally, with assistance from Southern Marine, I got the motor started! It runs like a purring lion. That's a Mercedes!!