2014 / 2015 – Disassembly & new ENGINE Support (by Frank)
In 2014 Marc and I had finished some major repairs. It was already too late in the season for a bigger trip, so I just planned a short channel tour with my family. This engine test tour ended after only 200 metres, when the transmission broke. The drive train had always been a weakness of the Rolling Stone as long as we owned her. We were totally fed up with the engine and decided to replace it. Unfortunately there were no fitting engine-gearbox combinations available that provided the same rotating direction as our old Westerbeke. The alignment of the propeller shaft would have been wrong. To realign the propeller shaft would have been beyond our capabilities. The only option left was to purchase an engine with saildrive!
Getting out the old Engine
The first task was to disassemble the gearbox, the starter, the fuel injection pump the generator and everything dismountable in order to lighten the „Eisenschwein“ (as I called the old engine these days). The next thing was to build a wooden rig that would carry the engine.
An iron rod was hung under deck carried by the rig so that the engine could slide towards the entrance of the boat hanging under the rod. At the entrance the enginge was lifted up using some „special“ pulleys. Once through the entrance the engine was moved into the cockpit area.
Building a new Engine Bed
I proceeded with cutting out the old engine bed. One bulkhead was in the way of the desired space for the oil sump of the new engine. It had to be partly cut away. Instead of the bulkhead part that was cut away I built an engine support out of 316L stainless steel (V4A-Grade). First I built a model out of pressboard. Then I made the CAD drawings. Cutting out the steel sheets, bending, welding and surface preparation (electro polishing) were done by local companies in Braunschweig.
The wood under the old engine had suffered from intrusion of engine oil and the heat radiated from the engine. It had to be sanded thoroughly and be degreased with acetone. The engine bed that was delivered with the engine was cut in two peaces because we could only use the part where the saildrive would be screwed to („saildrive support“). That part was adapted to the boat geometry and aligned with a wooden positioning device.
NEXT STEP – Assembly of the SOLE MINI 33