As Wayne mentioned in his blog this week, we took a couple of days away from the boatyard to see one of Turkey’s most visited and photographed regions: Cappadocia, famous for the unique “fairy chimney” structures on the landscape, cave dwellings, and the underground cities first built by the Hittites around 3000 BC, and enlarged by the Byzantine Christians, the Romans, the Ottomans, and used by the Turks as food storage until they were discovered by archeologists who made several into museums.
I had started to be afraid that we would never get our chance to visit this magical place before leaving Turkey, but a surprise visit by friends made us decide to take the risk in these unsettled times. We didn’t want to go in a hot air balloon with over 20 strangers, but we were able to make a reservation for four people and a pilot.
We were visited by our Swiss friend Philip, whom Wayne has known ever since they first met in Ecuador while single handing their very different vessels: Philip was aboard his Outremer 43 catamaran Blue Bie, and Wayne was on his Bruce Roberts Custom 52′ steel cutter, Learnativity. Throughout the next ten years, they would meet up in some corner of the South Pacific. And we had the much anticipated opportunity to meet our friend’s partner, Nancy, a fascinating American woman who met Philip at the end of her two year stay in Vanuatu with the Peace Corps.
After a couple of days of local sightseeing around Antalya, we flew on a very short direct flight to Kayseri, the city with an airport closest to the Cappadocia region. There we picked up a rental car and drove for an hour to get to our hotel in Göreme, one of the small villages where there are cave hotels. Some of these are actually in caves, while most are just designed to look like caves. There are several other small towns spread among valleys in this stunning region, each known for something different.
The reason this landscape has grown into this eery Middle Earth like place is because of Mount Erciyes, the highest mountain in central Anatolia, with its summit at 3,916 meters. I saw a huge mountain out the airplane window as we approached the airport at Kayseri, and I suspect it was the volcano that erupted thousands of years before mankind settled in the area.
Several eruptions over the centuries rained thick layers of ash down more than 100-meters deep on the area we know as Cappadocia. The ash hardened into something called tuff, which is a very soft stone. Sometimes the different layers would have more hard stone in them. The oddly shaped towers came about because one layer would not erode and it would form a little hat or roof on top of the column of softer tuff, protecting it from the rain.
And yes, one of the valleys in the region was named Love Valley by a Frenchman because of the resemblance between these towers and a part of human anatomy.
So the best way to show you the stunning beauty of the area is to take you along with us on our balloon flight. And you won’t even have to get up at 5:00 in the morning like we did!
Whew! What a week this has been. A shortened work week for Christine and I as we traveled to Kapadokya, as it is correctly spelled in Turkish but Anglophones spell it Cappadocia, with two dear friends, Philip & Nancy who flew in from Switzerland and Australia for a fabulous albeit much too short visit with us. However you spell it Kapadokya should be pronounced “firkin’’ AWEmazing”!!
Captain Christine is busy making a special video just for all of you and will post that separately later today.
**UPDATE: You can watch Christine’s beautiful video of our AWEmazing hot air balloon experience over the equally inspiring landscape of Kapadokya HERE NOW!
*** For more details and photos of our time in Cappadocia including her new video are now available in Christine’s blog post HERE.
But Wait There’s More! She has also already added a great wide angle shot overlooking Kapadokya on our balloon ride and added this to the “slider” photos at the top of the Mobius.World blog so be sure to check that out too.
For now, I’ll just tease you with a few shots that I managed to grab as best I could with my mouth agape.
Meanwhile back at Naval Yachts Team Möbius put in a very full week and made lots of progress on many fronts so I’ve got lots for you in this week’s Show & Tell. Grab your favorite beverage and reading spot and join me for this week’s dive into the building of mv Möbius.
Hot Air!
It is going to steal the show anyway, so let me start with the “Hot Air” part of this week’s title as in our awemazing hot air balloon ride early Tuesday morning with Philip & Nancy. As incredible as it may be, the biggest attraction of Kapadokya is the incredibly unique geography filled with what many call “fairy chimneys” which are tall, cone-shaped rock formations clustered in Monks Valley, Göreme and elsewhere. My photos won’t hold a candle to Christine’s video so I would recommend you go watch her video HERE right NOW before you go any further to get a much better sense of this experience.
No rush, it will only take a few minutes for you to watch, I’ll wait till you come back ………………………..
……………… See what I mean?
Say after me…………. firkin’’ AWEmazing!!
Now that you have a better sense of this incredible natural wonder of the world in Kapadokya, I encourage you to also click to enlarge the photos above and below so you can check out some of the geography of this region. Kapadokya is a UNESCO World Heritage site and as they note “Other notables sites include Bronze Age homes carved into valley walls by troglodytes (cave dwellers) and later used as refuges by early Christians.”
Our original reservation for a sunrise hot air balloon ride was for Monday but this was unfortunately cancelled when the aviation authority for the region issued a weather warning. But we were up at 5am on Tuesday with fingers crossed as they started to luff our balloon and fill it with hot air from these two propane burners while we anxiously awaited word that we would be allowed to take off. Our pilot Hakan, or “Hakan Solo” as Christine dubbed him as he is a huge Star Wars fan, was absolutely fabulous both as a person and as a encyclopedic knowledge of the area and as you saw in the video, a VERY skilled hot air balloon pilot. Hakan received word on his VHF radio that the authorities had approved the balloons to fly and with a few more blasts of propane flames we had lift off!
As you may have noticed we were not the only hot air balloon lifting off and there were a total of 150 balloons in the air that morning. And as if our senses were not already on overload this “Lady in Red” was but one of about ten Brides and Grooms who were taking advantage of this very popular location for wedding photos. We only had them for three days in Antalya and three in Kapadokya but the “density” of our experiences that we managed to pack into those few days was eXtreme and we now have even more memories of their visit with us.
Hot Water!
While we were away Team Möbius stayed in close contact with me via WhatsApp and the short video below is what Cihan sent me on Monday to share this significant milestone of the first hot water produced on Möbius and tested at the Vanity Sink in our Master Cabin.
Taking a few steps back, this is where that Vanity Sink lives, front and center of our Master Cabin. In spite of the rather rough surroundings this solid glass sink is already stealing a lot of attention as it lights up with that LED light above and even more so when you clear out the protective foam behind the sink and the LED strip light in the bottom of the cabinet causes those blues to become electrifying.
Can’t wait to show you the final result once the Master Cabin is fully completed and all the protective plastic, cardboard and painters tape comes off. We can’t wait to see it ourselves! The ever productive Cihan had a very busy week and can you guess from this photo what his next project was? Correct! He is mounting our two SS “Shower Towers”. This one is in the Master Shower and mounts at a 45 degree angle in the corner on the far Left. And this one is in the Guest Cabin Shower. In addition to their great looks in our eyes, one of the many reasons for choosing this “Shower Tower” style is that all the plumbing is contained within the unit itself rather than being hidden behind the shower walls. The first photo above shows this quite well.
One of our five primary principles for our XPM is lowest possible maintenance so this factors into all our decisions and being able to easily remove this whole shower tower in the future provides me with great access to all the hoses, mixing valves, etc. The only thing inside the walls are the continuous runs of PEX tubing for the hot and cold water lines. Back in the Workshop, Cihan was busy getting many other systems fired up for the first time including this Webasto IsoTemp 75L / 20USG Calorifier that holds all our DHW or Domestic Hot Water and he adjusted this mixing valve to set upper limit of the hot water coming out of this unit. This cut-away demo unit shows how this IsoTemp unit has multiple sources to heat the water inside;
SS loop filled with heated water from our Kabola KB45 diesel boiler.
A second (not shown) SS Loop connected to the engine coolant on Mr. Gee (Gardner 6LXB engine)
230V electric heating element (small U loop in the middle) We expect to use the first option above, this Kabola KB45 as our primary source of heating our DHW as it is so quiet and efficient but we will take advantage of the “free” heat from Mr. Gee whenever he is running and then perhaps use the 230V heating element on the few occasions when we are plugged into Shore Power. Hilmi was working on the KB45 this past week as well and he has now finished the electrical connections for the Kabola with the mounting of the white Siemens thermostat you see on the upper Left corner. It is showing just 23C / 74F as this is the ambient temperature in the Workshop but we expect to fire up the Kabola in the next few weeks once we have some diesel in one tank and will show you that when we commission this unit. Our DHW also flows through the In-Floor heating PEX lines so Cihan was checking for any leaks and also bleeding the air off of these manifolds in the Basement where the circulation pumps push hot water through the three independent loops of PEX tubing inside the floors of each of the three cabins; Guest, Master and SuperSalon. These SS manifolds came as very complete units with build in temperature gauges on both the Upper Supply Manifold and lower Return Manifold as well as three RED flow meters along the top of the Supply manifold, three White flow adjusters on the bottom Return Manifold and bleed valves and drains on the ends of both manifolds. Cihan is also testing all the various plumbing system for proper operation and checking for any leaks and had a problem with this diaphragm switch on the High Water extraction system under the floor on the Port/Left side of the Workshop so he has the floor grate out right now. Back up front in the Master Shower & Head, Serkan has been busy with multiple jobs including gluing the Corian countertop in the Head/Bathroom. They use this clamping system very often of cutting lengths of wood that they bend into place and use the force to push in this case from the ceiling down to the Corian countertop below.
While they are at it, they used longer sticks to clamp and glue a composite water tank access hatch in the floor.
Let there be Light!
Our “Sparkie” aka Electrician Hilmi was as busy as ever this past week and very “illuminating” as he installed and connected most of the light switches onboard and Möbius now has her own interior lights on rather than all the industrial construction lights we’ve been using.
Apologies for the strange colour in this photo but Hilmi now has all our indirect LED strip lighting working such as these in the Corridor from the Engine Room to the stairs up to the SuperSalon with the Guest Cabin entrance on the middle Right. However the real eXciting illumination for me is that he has also been installing these super bright LED fixtures on the ceilings of the Workshop, Engine Room, Basement and Forepeak.
Check out THIS example along the Starboard/Right side of the Workshop and see how light and bright it is in there now with nothing but these three LED lights overhead. Even brighter over here on the Port/Left side of the Workshop overtop of my very long, and VERY messy, Workbench.
I don’t expect too many of you to understand but this makes my little heart go all aflutter as I can now see so clearly what I’m doing as I work here.
However, knowing what I’m doing is another matter all together! Same story inside the Engine Room as Hilmi mounts more of these eXtremely bright industrial LED light fixtures overhead of the Stbd side of the ER. I took a few photos when it was dark out just before leaving last night to show just how bright these working spaces are now. This is peering down into the ER from up on the Aft Deck. And here is what it looks like at night peering through the ER entry door. In addition to these overhead lights I will also be putting in some LED strip lights underneath the two lengthwise AL Engine Beds to light up the voluminous bilge area down there where of course everything seems to end up.
Ask me how I know?!! More exciting milestones thanks to Hilmi such as having these three Victron BMV7122 Smart Battery Monitor Gauges lit up for the first time. Next week I will get round to configuring them with all the right settings which only takes a few minutes.
We have 24 FireFly Carbon Foam L15+ 4 volt @ 450Ah cells which are wired 6S4P meaning that there are four sets of six cells wired in Series (6S) to create four 24V @ 450Ah groups. Two sets are then wired in parallel to create Bank A and Bank B which are each 24V @ 900Ah and then these two Banks are paralleled to create the overall House Battery Bank of 24V @ 1800Ah
Here is how that looks schematically. Two of the three BMV’s thus report on the condition of Bank A and Bank B and the third monitors the total 1800Ah House Battery. Some smaller but no less important jobs Hilmi ticked off this week included this 120V + 230V waterproof connection underneath the Upper Helm Station on the SkyBridge. This push button switch for the monster Lewmar 65 EST winch on the Aft Deck that will be most often used to raise/lower the Tender Davit Arch. This switch is being mounted on the Aft side of the Starboard Vent Box which also houses the 230V Kenyon Frontier electric Grill/BBQ. And running ethernet CAT7 cables in the ceiling of the Workshop. We have ethernet cable running throughout the boat for all the networking and connections between all our many electronic gadgets which we depend upon so highly and this also helps “future proof” the boat for adding more later.
AlucoBond Goodness:
Of course all those LED lights are working so well because Nihat and Uğur spent several days this past week mounting all the White AlucoBond panels on the walls and ceilings of the Workshop and the Engine Room.
These AlucoBond panels are working out eXtremely well as they create a super tough White powder coated surface of the outer 0.5mm layer of aluminium with a 4mm thick mineral core which is all non-combustible to meet and exceed all fire regulations. In addition to the ceilings and walls of the ER and Workshop, they also installed the AlucoBond on the interior of the Doghouse where you enter the Workshop from the Aft Swim Platform.
First they install the supporting framework for the AlucoBond panels using 30mm aluminium L-bar and flat AL plates welded to the frames and stringers of the hull and Doghouse framing. Then they use SS self tapping screws to secure each AlucoBond panel to the AL frames. The AlucoBond can be easily bent to create corners for places such as the panel around the Hatch in the forward end of the Doghouse. The AlucoBond is easy to work with using standard carbide tools such as jig saws, router bits and circular saws.
This makes creating cut-outs such as this one on the Left for the filler tube on the 55L / 14.5USG AL hydraulic oil tank for the Kobelt steering system.
Where edges of cut AlucoBond exist we cover them with U-shaped rubber edging which you can see if you click to enlarge this photo. Even before the protective film with all this Black & Red printing is removed you can see how well these White AlucoBond surfaces reflect the light from just these four LED lights in the ER.
Swim Platform Step& Storage Box
Stepping over the high sill of the Watertight door from the Swim Platform into the Workshop was a bit of a nuisance so Uğur quickly solved that problem by fabricating this Step/Storage box. An eXtremely KISS design (Keep It Simple & Safe) so I didn’t bother firing up Fusion 360 to create a model and drawings for Uğur as there are basically just two pieces of 5mm AL plate; one welded into the Swim Platform and Stbd side Stair and the other for the hinged top that creates the Step Tread. A small strip along the back for the SS piano hinge to bolt to and a small U-channel on the far Right side to act as a gutter for water run off.
Then tack-tack-tack goes Uğur ’s MIG gun and the Step is all framed up. Bend a thin strip around the two outside edges of the hinged lid and mount the SS piano Hinge. We have enough of the EPDM edge trim we are using for the Deck Hatches to use here to make this Storage box fully waterproof as the Swim Platform is often quite wet when we are underway with following seas and such as well as regular rainy days.
Et Voila!! We now have an eXtremely easy step In/Out of this doorway and a very handy Storage box on the Swim Platform for shower supplies, snorkel gear, etc. Thanks Uğur!
Nogva CPP Enters the Scene
Hmmmm……………
What are Cihan and Nihat up to after ours in the dark up on the Aft Deck with the ER Hatch wide open? And what is THIS dropping out of the sky into the beautifully bright Engine Room? Aha! It is Mr. Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox coming in to join forces with Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB main engine.
With a CPP (Controllable Pitch Propeller) we don’t have a transmission per se as there is no forward/reverse gearing. Instead, by simply rotating the four propeller blades in synch we can smoothly change from “neutral” to Forward to Reverse and the push of a lever. The Nogva Servo Gearbox bolts directly to the massive aluminium flywheel housing on Mr. Gee as both have a standard SAE1 flanges and bolt patterns. so it was very quick and easy to bolt these two best buddies solidly together so that they form a single massive propulsion unit. Hussein works for a big shipyard next door where he specializes in engine/gearbox/prop shaft installation and alignment so he comes over when he gets off work at around 18:30 and he and I work on this installation and alignment.
He helped me get the Nogva dropped in place and bolted to Mr. Gee and then I stayed on a bit later into the evening to get everything all ready for the next and eXtremely important step. Getting the Nogva dropped in place and bolted up to Mr. Gee was very quick and easy, now comes the slower part of aligning the output flange of the Nogva Gearbox which you can see at the top of this photo. The prop shaft and flange are fixed in place vertically and athwartships (Left/Right) by the bearings which center it inside the AL prop log tube at the bottom.
So alignment involves moving the output flange to line up precisely with the matching flange that mounts on the forward end of the 65mm / 2.6” prop shaft. I took this shot looking forward towards Mr. Gee to show that we are already reasonably close and now need to move the Gardner/Nogva buddies over to the Port/Left side a bit and down a bit. Here is a side shot to help show how these two flanges meet up. Adjusting the angle and height of the Gardner/Nogva assembly is accomplished by adjusting the height of their respective “feet” or “flexible mounts”. Click to enlarge this photo and you can see how the Noga foot/mount at the bottom center can be adjusted Up/Down by turning the two large nuts on the vertical threaded shaft of the mount/foot. The similar rear foot on Mr. Gee can be partially seen in the very bottom Right corner of this photo. More on all that in next week’s update.
For the observant and curious wondering what that blue articulated hose with the little Red “hats” is, here’s your answer; it is the Tides Marine dripless SureSeal. The prop shaft has to pass through the aluminium shaft log tube and out through the aft end where the 4 bladed 1m diameter propeller sits so that puts a very large hole in the boat that needs to be dealt with and hence this seal between the prop shaft and the prop log tube.
The little Red “hats” as they are called are used to protect the SureSeal rubber lip seals from being damaged as you slide them onto the prop shaft. These simply pull out and are split to remove from the shaft when done.
In next week’s Möbius Progress Update I will pick up from here which is where I left off late last night (Saturday here) so do stay tuned for the next episode of “As the Prop Shaft Turns”.
Let me end where I began, with Hot Air. You have become accustomed by now to all MY hot air so be sure to treat yourself to some truly inspiring Hot Air by clicking HERE to watch the video Christine has just posted that condenses our 90+ minute Hot Air Balloon ride in Kapadokya down to just six minutes. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.
Thanks so much for joining me here again this week and PLEASE consider contributing your questions and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Picking up where we left off last week I will use this same theme of “Go and Whoa” as we work on both systems that help us get going such as our Upper Helm Station for navigation while simultaneously working on our anchoring system to when we want to say “Whoa” and know Möbius will stay put. Apologies in advance as I need to make this week’s update a bit of a rush job as we have some dear friends visiting us who have just flown in from Switzerland and Australia, which is quite a feat these days, and so Christine and I are taking a few days off to do some travels with them. So without any further ado, let’s jump right into this week’s Show & Tell aboard Möbius and see what Team Möbius have been up with this past week.
Meet Rocky!
If you were with us last week you’ll recall seeing Christine and I paint our 13mm / 1/2” galvanized anchor chain with different colours at 10 meter / 33ft intervals as our way of counting how many meters of chain we are letting out for the depth of water we are anchoring in. We then flaked the 110m/350ft of chain back onto its wood pallet and used the forklift to put it up on the foredeck ready to be fed down into the chain bin up front. We will hold off doing so until we get the anchor itself properly mounted on the Port/Left side of the Bow so we’ll just leave the chain here for now. Meet Rocky!
I had installed a 70kg/155lb anchor on our previous 52ft/16m sailboat and we we eXtremely happy with how well it worked and we never dragged once so we decided to go with Rocna again on Möbius. Our anchoring or “Ground Tackle” system is one of the most critical of all for us as we anchor almost every night of the year and depend on our anchoring system to keep us solidly anchored to the bottom in ALL conditions. I am not a fan of having multiple anchors at the bow as I want our “main” anchor to be the one that goes down every time.
As usual for us and the XPM Series we upsized our anchor a wee bit and had this 110Kg/242lb Rocna shipped over to us from Canada where they are made, at the end of last year. Since then, Rocky has been hibernating underneath Möbius all wrapped in his shipping bubble wrap so it was fun to finally do the unveiling this week and welcome him aboard Möbius. While Rocky is the only anchor we have at the Bow we do carry several other anchors for different purposes one of which is this all aluminium Fortress X125 31kg/70lb anchor at the Stern.
We will typically put this out as a Stern anchor to keep us in a fixed orientation under some conditions and perhaps used as a kedging anchor when (never if) we go aground and need to help pull us off.
As per this photo, Fortress anchors have many advantages being so light, easy to store when disassembled and works particularly well in soft muddy bottoms. Next step was to do some fine tuning up at the Bow to create the bespoke Anchor Rollers which Rocky will nestle into whenever he is off anchor duty on the sea floor below us. This quick & dirty render hopefully shows how this rather unique Anchor Roller design we have come up works.
If you look closely, you can see one of the key features we built into this design which is that the flared ends of the two side cheeks of the Anchor Roller brackets, made of 15mm/5/8” AL plate integrally welded in as part of the Bow framing, will match the angle of the flukes of the Rocna. This way we can cinch Rocky’s flukes up tight against these cheeks when we head out on passages and he essentially becomes part of the hull. No movement, no noise even when the Bow is bashing through large waves.
During the build we had left these two cheeks a bit oversize to do this fine tuning so I needed to be able to pull Rocky in the just right “cheeks to flukes” position so Uğur, Nihat and I rigged up this length of square steel tubing and lashed it to the Bow Pulpit rails and hung the chain block off the end to pull Rocky aboard. This setup was as my Dad might have said “The Bees Knees” as it allowed us to easily move Rocky up/down and push/pull him in/out as I tried out different positions with this rather tricky geometry to get the axis of the SS pins that will have two nylon rollers on them in just the right spot. Here for example you can see that the angle of Rocky’s flukes are not quite matching up with the AL cheeks. So the rollers need to be repositioned slightly so the shank end of the anchor seen here, goes down to close that gap. I also wanted to make sure that the forward most end of Rocky was a bit aft of the forwardmost part of Möbius which is at the Rub Rail of the Bow, so we marked off a line parallel with the flukes and Uğur trimmed about 15mm off the ends of the AL cheeks which allowed the anchor to move a bit aft. Welcome to your new home Rocky!
I then mocked up some wooden rollers and pins and was able to move these around to find the just right Goldilocks position such that they would bring Rocky into this home position when cinched up tight up on deck. I may add some hard rubber strips to the end surfaces of those cheeks to make sure everything stays completely silent and there is no movement here even when we put this under eXtreme stress in big seas.
More to come as we machine and install these Anchor Rollers in the coming weeks.
ENGINE ROOM SYSTEMS:
Alongside our Anchoring System at the very top of our critical systems list is the automated fire suppression system in the Engine Room. Christine worked directly with Justin at Sea-Fire International in the UK and they designed the system you see here. While we have extensive smoke/heat/fire/CO detection systems and manual Maus fire extinguishers located throughout every area of Möbius, the Engine Room requires a fully automated Fire Suppression System. This both automatically activates the 3M Novec 1230TM extinguishing agent used in all Sea-Fire systems as well as shutting down Mr. Gee and all the fire dampers to completely seal off the ER so the Novec 1230 ** , which is stored as a liquid and discharged as a gas, can quickly and fully extinguish the fire. ** For those, like me, interested in such details, according to the 3M site “Novec 1230 fluid extinguishes a fire before it starts by rapidly removing heat. In a typical total flooding system, the fluid is stored as a liquid in cylinders pressurized with nitrogen. Automatic detection sensors trigger release when the fire is at the incipient stage, extinguishing it in mere seconds. Novec 1230 fluid evaporates 50 times faster than water. In fact, you could soak a paperback book in a bath of Novec 1230 fluid and within a minute, pick it up and read where you left off.”
This Novec 1230 is a relatively recent development to replace previous types of gas based fire extinguishers which depleted the oxygen in the space and used other chemicals which were harmful and deadly for any humans who were in the space at the time.
The net result we care about with selecting this system is that any fire would be put out within seconds AND because it is a waterless fire suppression solution, it leaves no residue and is electrically non-conductive, the fire is extinguished without any harm to the engine, electrical devices and other equipment within the ER so that we should be able to fix up whatever problems led to this fire and then continue on our way.
Cihan was back with us on Thursday and mounted the Sea-Fire NF 550AM bottle solidly to the AL framework of the ER.
If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) you can see he has also mounted the Red mandatory manual activation cable off to the far Left with its handle on the outside of the ER beside the door. Cihan and Uğur also mounted the Kobelt Actuator to make sure it did not interfere with the Sea-Fire bottle and pull cable. This Kobelt Actuator converts the electronic signals from the control levers at the Main and Upper Helm Stations into mechanical movement that moves two push/pull Morse cables; one that moves the throttle lever on Mr. Gee and the other moves the Pitch Control lever on the Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox. In the unlikely event that both electronic control systems at the Upper and Lower Helm Stations should fail, you can manually control the throttle and pitch using the two SS handles you see here with the Black knobs on the end.
Redundancy (2 independent Helm Controllers) and manual backups as always!
VICTRON COMMISSIONING:
After the different systems on boats the size of XPM78-01 Möbius have been fully installed, they need to be set up and tested to be working properly by the manufacturer. This is process is referred to as “commissioning” and it was another exciting milestone for us this week when one of our most primary and critical systems, our extensive Victron electrical system was commissioned by Victron.
Yusuf rejoined us and he, Hilmi and myself spent several hours down in the Basement which is where our “Victron City” is located, with my laptop connected into the Victron network via the White ethernet cable via the little Blue/Black Victron MK3 to USB gateway you see atop my laptop. But where is the Victron person you may ask? He is on the other end of the phone that Yusuf is talking with here while simultaneously be connected into my laptop via a remote desktop app so that he can take direct control of my laptop and then use the Victron Connect software to configure and test all our Victron equipment. Ahhh, the wonders of modern technology.
Worked like a charm and was a very cool experience as the Victron expert updated all the firmware on each Victron device, set up all their parameters and configuration files and tested them. The internet connection way down in the Basement where the signals need to go through multiple walls of aluminium wasn’t the best for uploading all the firmware and configuration files but that was no problem as I simply moved my laptop up to the Aft Deck and ran a longer ethernet cable from the Basement.
Now that all the devices are setup we can remotely connect to them using the Victron Remote Management portal or VRM as well as via Bluetooth, WiFi and USB. I was very impressed with how well this Victron remote management allowed us to do the full commissioning virtually. Hard to show this in photos but one of the smart things Victron does is let’s you cause the LED lights on any bit of kit to blink so you can unambiguously identify the specific device you are working on or sending files to.
Welcome to the 21st Century Möbius!
GLASS at LAST!
Well we don’t’ have the glass for all our windows and hatches just yet BUT the reason this scene was very exciting for us to see this week is that what Nihat and Osman are doing here is making the plywood templates for each piece of glass on the boat. This is the one for the Port Deck Hatch on the Aft Deck.
SKYBRIDGE HELM STATION:
Last week Uğur finished welding up this all aluminium Help Station and got it bolted into the stand up in the SkyBridge. This week Hilmi was able to install all the wiring Which come up through this penetration between the Helm Station and the Base below. This is most of the equipment prior to installation. Now partially installed. Now just waiting for the Engine Start/Stop switches to arrive.
We will hold off installing the two 24” touch screens until just before launching when things will be much cleaner onboard. For now, they are all hermetically sealed away as there is still a lot of aluminium and other dust flying around. And th-tha-tha- That’s ALL Folks! for this week’s XPM78-01 Möbius Progress Report.
Sorry this one is a bit rushed and I’ll be back with more again next week.
The focus this week was on building the aluminium Console for the Upper Helm Station in the SkyBridge (the GO part of this week’s title), getting Mr. Gee his fuel supply, continuing to check off more electrical and interior jobs and prepare our anchor chain for anchoring (the Stop part of this week’s title).
We were delighted to welcome back more members of Team Möbius as they return from the other boats they’ve been working on so let’s jump right into this week’s Show & Tell so you can see it all for yourself.
SkyBridge Helm Station
Here is the design we came up with for the aluminium console that will hold all our navigation equipment for the Upper Helm Station in the SkyBridge. Click to enlarge this (or any image) to see some of the items that will be installed in this console and I’ll put a list of all of these below.
As shown in this layout drawing, the equipment that will be mounted in this console include:
2 Side by Side 24″ LiteMax NavPixel Daylight Readable Touch Monitors
Furuno 711C Autopilot Control Head
Vetus Bow Thruster Joystick Model BPAJ
Maxwell VWC 4000 Windlass Up/Down Control
Kobelt Engine Throttle and CPP Pitch Controls
Kobelt Pitch Gauge
Standard Horizon GX6000 Fixed-Mount VHF Radio
Kobelt Control Switches & Remote Walkabout plug-in socket
SH SCU-30 Wireless Access Point
Exterior Lights switch panel
Engine Stop/Start buttons
Horn button
Although the SkyBridge area is quite well protected by the solid roof above created by the aluminium frame for the 8 320W solar panels mounted on top, and the removable plexiglass windows which wrap 360 degrees around the whole SkyBridge, it will still be exposed to wind and rain at times so we needed to build a waterproof console to protect all these critical and eXpen$ive electronics. We had been working on the design of this console for a long time and were very pleased to be able to enlist the help of Burak who had been our 3D modeler when we first started working with Naval 3 years ago, to work out the details and finalise this design. One additional design element we needed to accomplish was that this whole console needed to be removable for two reasons. First being that it needs to be removed when we convert the boat to “hunkered down/Canal mode” and lower the articulated roof. And secondly Christine and I want to try out having this Upper Helm Station in different locations in the SkyBridge as we use the boat for the first year or so. We think that its current location at the Aft end of the SkyBridge will work out best but we won’t know for sure till we can live with it in different scenarios and different positions.
Burak sent over all the 2D construction drawings last week and so Uğur jumped right in on Monday morning and spent most of this past week taking this console from start to finish by Friday. Let’s follow along as he works. It would have taken another week or more to send out all the AL plate to be CNC cut and I think Uğur enjoyed the chance to go back to some “old school” ways so he quickly laid out all the parts directly on the AL plate and cut out the pieces with the in-house bandsaw and a cutting disk on his angle grinder. As we have tried to do throughout the design and build of XPM78-01 Möbius, we KISS’ed (Keep It Simple & Safe) the design of this console so there are only 8 pieces in total and they are all made out of 5mm / 3/16” flat AL plate which are easily tacked in place. To provide ready access for installing and maintaining all the electrical connections and components inside this console we made the whole back side a removable plate that will be bolted in place with a watertight gasket. With a quick check that all the dimensions and angles were all correct, Uğur got to work doing all the finish welding.
BTW, for those who might wonder why all the photos of welding have these lines in them it is due to the MIG welders being the newer Pulse type and the camera freeze-frames these pulses. With the welds cleaned up a bit Uğur laid out the various cut-outs for each item to be installed on the dashboard and then cut these out with a hole saw or cutting wheel. We are still waiting for a few switches to arrive but we have all the primary components so Uğur and I did a quick check to make sure they all fit properly before continuing. Next it was time to finalise the location of the console on top of the foundation built into the SkyBridge (and for Cihan our Master Plumber to get in this quick cameo!) The two cushions on the Port/Left side allow someone to comfortably join the person on watch as well as a great spot to lie down for a nap up here. After trying a few different spots we settled on this positioning with the same amount of overhang around the three sides. This is our Llebroc Helm Chair which will soon …….. reside here, in the center of the space behind the dashboard.
This penetration on the inside provides a watertight pass through for all the cables. Once all the cables have been installed and all systems checked that they are fully functional, this and all other penetrations throughout the boat are filled with certified “goo” to create a fully watertight seal. Here is how the Upper Helm Station it looks from the back side. Holding the camera at about eye height here to check the sight lines which are great as you can easily see the whole forward end of the bow anchor area. Whenever we prefer to have an even better close up view of around the boat, we have one of these Kobelt 7176 “Walk-About” remote controllers at both Helms.
With 10m / 33ft of cable, I’m not willing to trust wireless for this critical control, we can stand almost anywhere on the boat from the Swim Platform to the Bow, either side deck and from anywhere in either the Main or SkyBridge Helm areas and have all the controls literally at our fingertips when docking or take this remote controller to wherever we are sitting.
The two side levers control Throttle and Pitch and up on top are controls for Rudder, Bow Thruster, CPP Clutch and Horn. Can’t wait to try all these out on our upcoming sea trials once we launch.
And Yes, Launch Date is still “Thursday”, just don’t ask which one!
Plumbing Progress:
We finally have Cihan back full time again (we hope!) and he was his usual busy productive self all over Möbius. Cihan and I started by working on the two heat exchangers ….. …….. that needed to be mounted in the very aft end of the Engine Room. We built in this removable section of the flooring to provide full access to this important area where the prop shaft enters the boat. The composite grid flooring lifts out and then this aluminium floor plate can be unbolted and removed as well. Access is particularly important whenever I need to service the “dripless” Tides Marine SureSeal Drip Free Self-Aligning Shaft Seal that keeps all the water out of the joint where the prop shaft exits the log tube. I will cover more details when we are installing this SureSeal but here is a quick overview of how it works. Today though we wanted to access the very aft ends of the two Engine Beds on either side where we wanted to mount these two Bowman heat exchangers. The red one on the far Port/Left side is for cooling the hydraulic oil in the Nogva CPP Gearbox and the Silver one on the far Stbd/Right side is for cooling the Gardner’s water/antifreeze engine coolant. Both of these heat exchangers have cool seawater being pumped through their outer shells while the oil is pumped through a round “stack” of CuNi (Copper/Nickle) tubes that you can see here in this cutaway illustration. Fun Fact: Bowman is another one of the world leading industrial companies we have found here in Turkey and so it was fun to find that our Nogva Norwegian CPP system came with that Red Bowman Heat Exchanger.
My apologies for getting too busy to get too many photos of this installation of these two heat exchangers but the basic flow of the seawater is that it first enters the Left end of the Silver Heat Exchanger at the top of this photo, exits out the rear and then flows through the Gray (protective wrap) hose on the far Right here where it will enter the aft end of the Red Heat Exchanger at the bottom. Inside the Engine Room, the seawater exits the front end of the Red Bowman Heat Exchanger through another rubber hose that goes up to the Halyard SS mixing elbow on the Gardner’s wet exhaust system and then exits the boat through the large Exit Sea Chest in the ER. Much more to come on all that once we start installing the exhaust system in the next few weeks. Another new plumbing addition that Cihan installed this past week is the small little circulation pump with the White faceplate you can see at the bottom middle of this photo of the underside of the Stbd/Right side Workbench in the Workshop. These Jabsco/Xylem 24V “vario” pumps are very cool and very eXpen$ive but boy do they work well. These are a relatively new pump generation that are super quite with minimal energy consumption, shaftless spherical motor and permanent magnet technology. On Möbius we are using this D5 Vario 38/700B pump to keep hot water circulating through our DHW (Domestic Hot Water) loop that ensures that there is always hot water immediately available to every hot water tap and shower on the boat. No more wasting time and water while you wait for hot water to come out of the sink faucet or shower nozzle!
Speaking of hot water, the Captain aka Christine, is eXtremely eXcited about Cihan installing two of these SS towel warmers; one in each cabin’s Head/Bathroom!
Christine has been wanting to have one of these for years and after a very long and winding road to find these Goldilocks just right versions, she will finally have one in our Master Cabin as will all our guests in their Bathroom. Yet another example of the Turkish manufacturers making eXtremely high quality products, Christine fell in lust for these “Laris” model SS towel warmers from Hamman Radiator. The towel warmers attach to the walls with these very clever SS tubes which Cihan first attaches to the walls using an expanding bolt on the inside of each tube.
And then there are four round SS pegs on the back of the towel warmers which slide into these tubes and are locked in place with the little set screw you can see on the bottom here.
The two SS square fittings the bottom are the water valves to control the flow of hot water through the towel warmer.
Here is what the finished mounting looks like.
Many won’t understand, but to my eye, all of this hardware and the towel racks themselves are just beautiful works of art and engineering that are part of our “boat jewelry” collection on Möbius.
Interior Progress:
Looking around our Master Head/Shower/Bathroom do your sharp eyes might spot a few other new additions?
One job Serkan just completed is the mounting of those two SS latches now installed on those bottom two cabinet doors underneath where the sink will mount. And if you look very closely you will see that the White Corian countertop has arrived. There will be a clear glass partition that extends up that slot between the shower seat and the ceiling and will be sealed to that vertical surface at the end of this countertop. And what is this new addition that just showed up this week beside the VacuFlush toilet? Aha! That’s the wireless remote control panel for the BioBidet BB-1000 Supreme bidet seat. It clips into a holder mounted on the cabinet so the curious can remove it and discover all the MANY functions available. The same BioBidet is installed in the Guest Cabin as well BTW.
Surely you didn’t think I put the eXplorer in XPM for no reason did you?
More examples of how XPM78-01 Möbius is a true world eXplore can be seen in another new addition this week as Hilmi starts installing all our Vimar “Arké Metal” switches and plug ins. We have designed Möbius to be a true “World Boat” and so she has both 120V 60Hz and 230V 50Hz AC plugs like these throughout the boat. We also have wired CAT7 ethernet plugs spread throughout the boat for maximum internet speeds. This one is tucked away below the “floating” shelf on Christine’s side of our King size bed. And these are what the matching Vimar light switches look like. Of course these will all look MUCH better once we remove all the protective plastic coverings and do a good cleanup prior to launch, but until then we are very glad to have all the interior surfaces covered up while construction continues. And here is Hilmi installing a set of four of those Vimar switches for the LED lights around the stairwell leading down into the Master Cabin. Serkan has also been busy in the Master cabin adding finishing touches such as these solid Ro$ewood handholds on the “Swiss” (as in Swiss Army Knife) door that is the door for both the entrance into the Master Cabin and the full length hanging locker as it is here. He needed to radius both ends of these so that they cleared the door jambs when closed on the Entryway. The upper panel will soon be covered with the same Green/Gray leather you see throughout the Master Cabin walls.
Aluminum Finishing:
Nihat also had a very productive week as he took on the eXtremely big job of finishing all the exterior aluminium surfaces. We’ve settled on the “brushed” look that these 3M abrasive discs create when used with a random orbital sander such as this pneumatic one in the photo here.
Let us know what do you think of this look but we are very pleased with it.
Feeding Mr. Gee!
I managed to make more time for Mr. Gee again this week and focused on installing his “feeding” system to deliver the Goldilocks just right amount of scrupulously clean diesel fuel.
This is one of his six fuel injectors that have been refurbished to factory new condition by Michael and his crew at Gardner Marine Diesel at the Gardner “factory” in Kent England. Injectors just don’t get much better or simpler than this. NO electronics just a simple supply connection under the Red seal on the Right and a matching return connection on the Left. Each injector slides into the tubular hole you can see underneath the tip of the injector here. Then one of these lever arms is tightened down using the castellated nut just to the Left of the Red cap here. This lever presses the angled end of the injector body into its matching seat inside the tubular hole in the cylinder head and forms a perfect seal to keep all those literally eXplosive forces inside the cylinder where they belong and where they then supply all the mighty “draft horsepower” and torque that Mr. Gee delivers to our propeller. Now each of those injectors need an equally robust set of piping to deliver the diesel fuel to/from them so my next job was to clean up all these steel fuel lines and give them a couple of coats of shiny black epoxy.
Can’t have any bare steel on Mr. Gee that would just rust now can we?! Here is what those shiny Black steel fuel lines look like when they are connected to the bottom outlets on the Fuel Injection Pump and then go up to the injectors in the cylinder heads through the AL valve covers I have set in place here.
Again my apologies for being too busy installing all these fuel components to take more photos but I will take more this coming week and put them into next week’s Progress Update for you.
For now I hope this quick shot of where I left of yesterday (Sat. Oct. 10th) will do.
Yachts Play Games Bula Bula Right?!
Christine and I spent Saturday morning doing a job that believe it or not, we have long been looking forward to; painting the length marking strips on our 13mm / 1/2” galvanized HT anchor chain.
The joy in this job is that it reminds us that in the not too distant future (we hope!) we will be using these marks to tell us how much anchor chain we have let out in the latest anchorage we have just arrived at.
We started by dragging all 300 meters / 328 feet of chain off the factory pallet onto the shop floor and arranging it in 10 meter long loops with paper underneath both ends where we would be spray painting the chain. There are a LOT of different ways to mark an anchor chain and even more opinions about which is best but we have both anchored thousands of time in our marine lives and find that painting different colours onto the chain and then adding some matching coloured nylon zip ties is the Goldilocks just right method for us. We paint a different colour combination each 10 meters / 33’ and to help us remember the distance of each colour we came up with the acronym YPGBR based on the colours of paint we have used this time. As you might figure out from this photo, YPGBR stands for Yellow-Pink-Green-Blue-Red which is the order of the colours we painted onto the chain every 10 meters.
These are the odd numbered 10 meter marks starting with Yellow at the first 10m mark at the top here, then:
Pink @ 30m,
Green @ 50m,
Blue @ 70m
Red @ 90m At the other end of the loops we use a combination of the colours to mark the even starting lengths of;
Yellow/Pink @ 20 meters
Pink/Green @ 40m
Green/Blue @ 60m
Blue/Red @ 80m
Confusing right?
Nope! Easy for us to remember when the YPGBR acronym stands for is:
Yachts
Play
Games
Bula Bula**
Right?!! For those who might wonder, Bula is the Fijian greeting, always said with great Gusto, which we learned so well from all our years cruising in Fiji
Once the paint dried we flaked the chain back onto the pallet and it is now ready to be pulled aboard into its Chain Bin inside the Forepeak but that will have to wait for next week’s Progress Update here on Möbius.World.
Thanks as always for joining us and be sure to add your thoughts and ideas in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
This week’s Progress Update will be short and sweet as we are still working very shorthanded on XPM78-01 Möbius and it has been another very full weekend of boat related work for Christine and me so it is already late Sunday here as I sit down to write up this week’s Progress Update for you. However, progress is being made and there are interesting new developments to show you so let’s jump right in for this week’s Show & Tell aboard the Good Ship Möbius.
INTERIOR OUTFITTING:
Serkan was onboard for two days this week as he continues to work on the last of the hardware related work in the Master Cabin. On Tuesday he was installing the last of these beautiful SS latches on the doors and drawers on the front Starboard/Right side wall of the Master Cabin. He is down to the last latch on the bottom drawer below the vanity sink that you can see in the bottom Left here. A bit different perspective on Thursday, looking straight down the centerline towards the bow of the boat you can see that the bottom drawer has now been installed along with the two matching latches on the White bottom cupboard doors inside the Head/Bathroom on the far Left.
And Serkan has almost all the Green/Gray leather panels installed now, just the small strips around the Vanity cabinet at the far end. The door of that Vanity as well as the main Head door will soon have mirrors mounted on them to finish this area off. Upstairs in the SuperSalon an exciting new development is now visible. The window frames are now all filed with their plywood templates which will be sent out to the glass company next week so they can cut and prep all the 25mm/1” thick laminated window glass as well as the other glass for the flush Deck Hatches. And the “eyebrow” around the upper SkyBridge.
Still very much a “work in progress” but the whole SuperSalon is beginning to come into view now.
It will be a VERY big day when we finally get all the glass installed onboard and make Möbius fully weathertight for the first time.
ALUMINIUM WORK:
Our faithful Dynamic Duo of Uğur and Nihat had another full and productive week. If you were with us last week you’ll remember they were busy getting the ceiling over the Outside Galley on the Aft Deck all fully insulated wtih 50mm EPDM foam and the attachment points for the White AlucoBond laminated sheets that will form the ceiling itself. As with the other AlucoBond panels you’ve seen them mounting in the Engine Room and Workshop, they use these very nice covered screws to attach the AlucoBond to the aluminium L-bar supports. If you look closely at the screw in the upper Left here (click to enlarge any photo) you can just make out the brass threaded washer around the head of the countersunk screw and then the chrome dome cover thread onto that to completely hide the underlying screw head. Here is what the ceiling looks like viewed from down inside the SuperSalon looking up and out the Entryway WT Door onto the Aft Deck Galley.
For those wondering, the White, Black and Red lettering is just a protective film on all AlucoBond panels which will be removed just before we launch to reveal the White anodized aluminium outer surface of all these panels. And here is what it looks like from the other end out on the Aft Deck.
The Black wiring hanging down is for the six LED lights when we are cooking in this Outdoor Galley or dimmed down for safe lighting when entering or leaving the boat. This is the Port/Left Vent Box which served double duty as one of our Outdoor Galley countertops with this SS sink in it.
The rectangular openings are filled with the Mist Eliminator grills and damper system for the Entry Air going down to the bottom of the Engine Room. And this is the matching STBD/Right side Vent Box with the two rectangular openings for the extraction air from the Engine Room and Workshop.
The raised surface on the Left will be the main countertop in this Galley and the lower countertop will soon house the 220V electric Grill/BBQ.
All the countertops will be Turquoise Turkish marble to match that in the inside Galley.
For the observant ones who might wonder, the two small outlets on the Aft facing bottom of this Vent Box on the far Right are for the quick connect water fittings for our Deck Wash hoses; one for Fresh Water, one for Salt. However the most exciting new milestone Nihat and Uğur hit his past week was that they started on the final cleanup of all the bare exterior aluminium surfaces. Nihat spent most of the rest of the week working on the AL surfaces surrounding the SkyBridge.
This is a two part process, first grinding all the welds to be either flush or nicely radiused corners such as you can see Nihat has done here on the frame for the SkyBridge Console and the surrounding interior walls. Then he moved on to all the AL surfaces and welds on the surfaces outside of the SkyBridge itself. Such as the tops of these “horns” on either side of the Front hinged Solar Panel bank and the outer walkway that runs down the sides of the SkyBridge. Uğur took on the daunting task of grinding down all the welds on the outside surfaces of all the Hull plates. There are three longitudinal runs of welds down each side where the different thicknesses of hull plates butt together. The top one he is working on here is the only “hard chine” or corner on the hull which is a bit trickier as the weld needs to be ground down flush to each plate and then have a nice radius for the turn of the corner. It is difficult to capture in photos, especially at this early stage but this will give you an idea.
The surface on the far Right here is part of our experimenting with different kinds of final swirl patterns for the final finish to see which one we like the best. This shot will help you see how the process of finishing this corner seam goes. The corner on the far Left is close to what the finished chine or corner will look like and as you move to the Right towards Uğur you can see the progression “backwards” through the process with the raw untouched weld on the far Right. This longer view will help you understand the “daunting” part of Ugur’s job! 24 meters / 78 feet down each side suddenly becomes a VERY real and very big number when you are taking it on one centimeter or inch at a time and then three of those lengths (one for each weld seam, on each side. I’ll let you do the math! The maximum sheet size for aluminium plates is 6m/19ft so there is also a vertical seam where each end of the plates butt together that also needs to be ground flush. And up at the Bow there are a lot of transitions where the different hull plate thicknesses, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 25mm thick all come together where they meet up wtih the 25mm thick Keel Bar and that nice round transition up at the top where it wraps around our big solid AL “nose” cone for the snubber line when at anchor. By quitting time on Friday though Uğur and Nihat has already done their first passes of their welds on the Stbd/Right side so that was a LOT of progress in just a few days. Lots more to come next week so stay tuned as I show you the continued evolution of finishing the hull.
ELECTRICAL DETAILS:
The newest member of our growing family of Victron equipment finally arrived and got installed this week. It is the newest Victron Blue box that you can see in the bottom Right corner of this AL panel in the Forward Port corner of the Basement.
If you click and zoom in on this or the photo below, you can see that this tiny Cerbo GX box provides us with communication ports for USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a MicroSD slot as well as the Victron VE.Can nd VE.bus connections.
We have had Victron equipment on our previous boats for many years with great success but one area that has been lacking is their integration in communicating with each other and the whole GX line is helping to resolve that. The Cerbo GX is also the newest bit of kit from Victron and makes a huge leap forward in getting all our Victron equipment onto our N2K network as well as bringing all our Victron into a much more integrated system. Just around that front Port corner is our “Solar City” wall where all 14 of our Victron SmartSolar 100/20 MPPT controllers which connect to each of our 14 320Wp Light Tech solar panels. The Gray box is the junction box for all the wiring and the 14 circuit breakers for the DC outputs of each MPPT controller.
PLUBMING:
Diagonally opposite on the Stbd Aft corner, we managed to steal our Plumbing Wizard Cihan back for one day and he finished installing the last 2 Whale Gray Water Tank pumps. This pump extracts Gray water out of the integral AL tank below and pushes it out the Sea Chest that you can just barely see on the far Left here.
Given that we are rarely in marinas and on anchor, the vast majority of the time our Gray Water (sinks & showers) goes directly to an exiting Sea Chest but when that’s not allowed, the Grey Water is stored in one of our three Gray Water tanks and hence the need for this Whale pump to empty those tanks when we are out at sea.
The big Clear/White tank on the Right is our Potable Water tank which ensures that we always have at least 150 litres of pure water to use even if we should somehow loose all access to the 7100L/1875USG of fresh water in our six integral AL tanks in the bottom of the hull.
Some of that fresh water goes into this HazMat Locker on the Port side of the Swim Platform for our Aft Shower. As you can see here we have hidden the shower mixing valve and head inside this locker to keep it out of the way and protected from daily UV and salt water. Cihan has mounted a holder for the shower spray head inside here as well so it is easy to just open the locker and grab the shower head to rinse off after a snorkel exploration or for a nightly shower. There will be another showerhead mount up on the Aft railing so you can have a hands free shower as well for shampooing your hair or whatever. Inside on the front Stbd/Right side of the Workshop by the Day Tank, Cihan was also able to install these two Black hockey puck shaped Maretron FFM100 Fuel Flow Meters. The upper Left Fuel Flow Meter is on the Fuel Supply line going into the dual FleetGuard 2-stage fuel filters and the one on the lower Right.is on the Return Fuel line from Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB engine. Having these high precision flow meters allows us to know the exact amount of fuel being consumed at any time and helps us run Mr. Gee at his maximum efficiency at all times. And if you were to bend down and take a peek underneath the Day Tank you would see this latest addition Cihan has made out the bottom of the Sump on the Day Tank. The Black threaded nipple you see here is where the WIF or Water In Fuel sensor will be installed. Being heavier than Diesel fuel, water always sinks to the bottom so if we ever get any water in our fuel is will quickly find its way down to the bottom most point and send us a WIF signal and sound an alarm.
If you go back and look two photos above at the FleetGuard Fuel Filters you will see that each of the Fs19596 Fuel Filter/Separators has their own WIF sensor in the bottom so we are sure to know if water ever shows up in the fuel at any time and we can promptly get rid of it before it has any chance to get near Mr. Gee.
Mr. Gee
Speaking of Mr. Gee, I was able to spend more time working on him this past week focusing on timing and plumbing so let’s head over to the Engine Room to take a look.
This was an exciting new milestone for Mr. Gee and me as I finally got to mount this Fuel Injection Pump and Cam Box assembly taking up most of the Port/Left side of Mr. Gee. If you look at the far front end you can see the PTO (Power Take Off) shaft coming out of Mr. Gee which turns the fuel injection camshaft that in turn created the high pressure that goes up to each injector sprayer at just the right time. At the aft or flywheel end of the Gardner it is Grand Central Station for all these Copper & Brass lubrication oil pipework’s. They all come together here where the cast iron Oil Filter acts as the traffic cop for all the oil coming and going to the rest of the engine. Many hours of “pipe wrangling” later, this is how the pipework’s look when all connected to the Oil Filter on the top Right here and then going heading on to their connections on the other end to the crankcase, oil cooler which has its own dedicated oil pump which is the Burgundy painted unit extending out of the AL Cam Box in the rear Left here. I won’t bore you with all the details, but Gardner engines have multiple “timing” settings that are critical to get absolutely spot on for the engine to run properly. The timing of when each intake and exhaust valve needs to open and close is one example that I tackled this week. The requirement is that the Intake Valve opens at 16.25 degrees Before Top Dead Center and the Exhaust closes at 11.75 degrees Aft TDC. But how do you measure and set to such accuracy? The method I came up with was to put a piece of masking tape on the outer circumference of the flywheel covering the distance between the two precise lines punched on at the Gardner Factory to mark TDC and 25.8 degrees BTDC which is for timing the fuel injectors. Then I peeled off the masking tape and laid it out on a flat AL surface where I could accurately measure the distance between “zero” at TDC and the 25.8 degree line with my digital Vernier calipers which gave me the numbers I needed to figure out how many mm one degree of rotation is. Pretty simple math that even I could figure out. It was 127.7mm from the TDC line to 25.8 degrees so 127.8 / 25.8 = 4.872mm = 1 degree. Easy to then mark off the distances for the 16.25 degree and 11.75 degree marks. Now all I had to do was put put the masking tape strip back on with the TDC mark on the tape matched up with the TDC mark on the flywheel and then mark the flywheel at the 16.25 BTDC and 11.75 ATDC lines and then put a center punch mark at each one and scribe a line through them. Lining these marks up with the reference line you can see scribed into the top and bottom of this opening in the flywheel housing and I can turn the flywheel to align these marks and precisely adjust the valve timing at each point.
That will be where I start tomorrow (Monday) morning so I’ll let you know how that works out in next week’s Progress Update.
So this is the parting shot of Mr. Gee when I left him last and where I will start tomorrow morning. And my first order of business will be to find the slob that dribbled that bit of Wellseal gasket sealer on the top of the cam box! Oh wait, never mind, I just caught my reflection in the monitor and I found him! Thanks for joining me here on this week’s Show & Tell for the week of September 27 to October 3rd, 2020. Really appreciate you taking the time to follow along and I sure hope you will add your comments, questions and concerns in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
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