So having arrived safely at Fantasy Island we had to find out what exactly had happened to our gearbox? If it had done 40 hours I would be surprised, we have sailed to most of our destinations since its installation and last year we spent a lot of time in the one place. Lots of theories were put forward, perhaps the prop hit something causing the splines on the the gearbox shaft to shear? We dove down the prop was in tact not a problem there......so John took out the gearbox and we discovered what the problem was.... sad to say, our error. When we changed the gearbox we did not change the damper plate, two reasons really we had difficulty sourcing one in Colombia and the old one 'looked' OK. Clearly it wasn't and it had sheared the splines on the gearbox shaft.. damn !
So we were back to sourcing parts initially we thought it might be a new gearbox and damper plate and John ordered one but as luck would have it the guy we bought it from contacted us to say that the box he had to send out to us had been part of a recall by ZF so he did not have one! He did however put us onto a really good guy in Seattle who rebuilds gearboxes, John spoke to him on the net and on the phone and it was agreed he would build a new shaft for us complete with bearings and John would fit it. John gave him a blow by blow of how he intended to split the gearbox and fit the new shaft and Mike in Seattle said sounds good to me and shipped us a box of goodies with everything we would need to get the job sorted. Shipping to Roatan is not easy and not cheap, the safest way is to ship to Rasxpress in Florida and with the right wording on the label it finds itself at Rasxpress in Roatan a few days later! There you get stung for 30% duty!
We did have one piece of luck though, whilst searching for our gearbox, John stumbled upon someone selling the exact heat exchanger we needed, brand new and for a mere £400! This might sound a lot but it was a steal, we had been expecting to pay over £2000 for it. Perkins do not support the 4154 engine anymore so I guess this part was just lying collecting dust and the guy on eBay just wanted shot of it. We hummed and ahhed but we both figured it was too good an opportunity to miss even with shipping(£50) it was a steal.....so we bit the bullet and bought it. This meant of course that once all the parts arrived John was faced with the prospect of many days down in the engine room fitting all these parts, not one he was looking forward to! I could tell he wasn't as in the days waiting for the parts to arrive I would be woken up in the middle of the night to John dreaming and screwing bolts in my arm and muttering about pipes, jubilee clips and o rings! The sooner this job was done the better.....
Finally with all the parts here John set about the task in hand. It took him about five days of blood sweat and tears but we now have a working engine, a gear box that works and a propellor that turns. Hurray!
We have hired a car whilst here in Roatan, it is a very pretty Island with many reefs and stunning views. Here at Fantasy Island there are three monkeys that share the Island with us and they cause havoc on many occasions. The answer is leave nothing in the cockpit and lock up at night. Since we have been here they have thrown one yachties barbecue grill in the water, emptied the water tank of another, as well as helping themselves to bananas and any food and drink that they can get their hands on. We have only lost a tub of nuts which we foolishly left in the cockpit, that was before we knew better! They are naughty but they are not nasty and they certainly seem to like John.
So we were back to sourcing parts initially we thought it might be a new gearbox and damper plate and John ordered one but as luck would have it the guy we bought it from contacted us to say that the box he had to send out to us had been part of a recall by ZF so he did not have one! He did however put us onto a really good guy in Seattle who rebuilds gearboxes, John spoke to him on the net and on the phone and it was agreed he would build a new shaft for us complete with bearings and John would fit it. John gave him a blow by blow of how he intended to split the gearbox and fit the new shaft and Mike in Seattle said sounds good to me and shipped us a box of goodies with everything we would need to get the job sorted. Shipping to Roatan is not easy and not cheap, the safest way is to ship to Rasxpress in Florida and with the right wording on the label it finds itself at Rasxpress in Roatan a few days later! There you get stung for 30% duty!
We did have one piece of luck though, whilst searching for our gearbox, John stumbled upon someone selling the exact heat exchanger we needed, brand new and for a mere £400! This might sound a lot but it was a steal, we had been expecting to pay over £2000 for it. Perkins do not support the 4154 engine anymore so I guess this part was just lying collecting dust and the guy on eBay just wanted shot of it. We hummed and ahhed but we both figured it was too good an opportunity to miss even with shipping(£50) it was a steal.....so we bit the bullet and bought it. This meant of course that once all the parts arrived John was faced with the prospect of many days down in the engine room fitting all these parts, not one he was looking forward to! I could tell he wasn't as in the days waiting for the parts to arrive I would be woken up in the middle of the night to John dreaming and screwing bolts in my arm and muttering about pipes, jubilee clips and o rings! The sooner this job was done the better.....
Finally with all the parts here John set about the task in hand. It took him about five days of blood sweat and tears but we now have a working engine, a gear box that works and a propellor that turns. Hurray!
We have hired a car whilst here in Roatan, it is a very pretty Island with many reefs and stunning views. Here at Fantasy Island there are three monkeys that share the Island with us and they cause havoc on many occasions. The answer is leave nothing in the cockpit and lock up at night. Since we have been here they have thrown one yachties barbecue grill in the water, emptied the water tank of another, as well as helping themselves to bananas and any food and drink that they can get their hands on. We have only lost a tub of nuts which we foolishly left in the cockpit, that was before we knew better! They are naughty but they are not nasty and they certainly seem to like John.
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