And sadly the answer to that question is yes, however I’m fixing a new problem, so that’s progress I believe.
But first, in the last blog the fridge had just been repaired and I filled it full of lovely new fresh and frozen food, it worked well, so well I had to turn it down a bit, that was a mistake, the ice box melted, and the little hole I suspect I have in the evaporator released all the gas, which shot straight out to help destroy the ozone layer along with my frozen goods. I have to say though, I can see how climate scepticism can arise, these fridge gasses , R134a in my case, are 6 times heavier than air, and you should be careful on a boat as when they escape they fall into the bilge, and being flammable are a fire/explosive risk, just like the propane. So how it finds its way up to the ozone layer is beyond me, does it just hang around a bit to scare me then ascend to the heavens? Anyway, I’m sure these scientists wouldn’t make it up. This fridge man has form, so I requested his return, but not expecting much, and after waiting on the boat all day for him, and him not showing up I bought a big bag of Ice and settled into the daily ritual of changing the bag of water for a fresh bag of ice.
Talking with Dois, he told me his fridge leaked all the time and he just popped some new coolant in, so I borrowed his tub of refrigerant and a hose and a little of his wisdom, and hooked it up to my fridge. Voila, cold again. In fact too cold and the pipes around the compressor were covered in ice, I sent a little more gas to the ozone layer from the compressor, and all was good. It’s stayed that way, all I need now is a way to defrost next time around. In the meantime I have bought my own bits to allow me to refill when needed.
So now that the new exhaust/cooler was here I decided I should get stuck in and fit it. First off the heat exchanger end cap had to come off so I could fit the oil cooler, I didnt expect any problems, but as usual, the first 3 of the four nuts came off, with not too much of a fight, but the fourth just snapped. Not my fault, honest guv, I was really careful. This new manifold, although looking great actually has more rust on the bolts than the old one. So now I had a broken bolt problem, all over again.
The thing with all the holes is the actual heat exchanger rack, cold (ish) salt water flows through these tubes while the engine coolant flows around the outside. This keeps the engine cool. it’s made of a copper zinc alloy I believe and can be somewhat delicate. The rack slides out, and I hadn’t decided to remove it, as it didn’t look too bad, but I knew I should take it out and clean it, but that meant removing the cap at the other end and possibly snapping more bolts. Also there’s a lot of o-rings involved here and I only had 4 new ones. I took the plunge, the other cap came off ok, but the rack refused to slide out. Being fragile, i couldn’t use much force, so a combination of soaking in vinegar, mild phosphoric acid solution, rinsing in baking soda and then ultimately some serious brute force got it to pop out.
I had practiced on the old heat exchanger and soon found out what is too much force.
As you can see there was a lot of gunk involved, and this is on the fresh water engine side. Not a great sign really
I cleaned my old and new racks with the same chemicals mentioned above.
With the rack removed I tried again to release the broken bolt but it wasn’t budging. So off the Mai Naval, the workshop that welded my cranse iron back together a few weeks back, for $20 the welded a nut to the broken bit, brought out the flame thrower and quickly took the broken bolt out. They rather scorched the paint, but that was to be expected.
Now I could properly get down to putting it all back together. The diagram below nicely shows where I starting from. Except it misses out the oil cooler.
Re-assembly was a doddle, the second attempt was even better, as that time I knew the correct order and manged to get all of the bits on 🙁
Next came the job of attaching this huge lump of Iron to the engine in a somewhat cramped area. It was now weighing about 30kg or 66lb if you’re still on the pre 18th century system. I rigged up some ropes to suspend it and carefully manoeuvred it into position.
At this point I had 8 bolts and 2 studs to get in, and can you believe, 9 went in and one just would find the thread. The bulkhead made life very difficult but after 15 minutes of jiggling it went on. 22 Newton metres of force is a number I doubt I will ever forget, This is the correct torque I believe for the bolts.
After bolting it on, I called it a day.
The next day, full of optimism I reconnected all of the water hoses, the oil pipes to the cooler, the air filter, overflow pipe, that sump pressure hose thing that just puts oily gassy stuff everywhere and it was almost ready to test. I had the exhaust hose to cut to size and fit, and this operation proved very difficult, the pipe refused to go onto the exhaust elbow. I got a heat gun out and used that on the hose with some success. It was while pulling on the hose with all my might, my chest compressed against the opening hatch that I heard a crack and felt a pain across my chest, I emitted one of those extreme pain kind of shrieks, and recoiled knowing something bad had just happened. Fortunately the pain was brief. The hose was on enough as far as I was concerned. and time to start the engine.
I added a lot of coolant, the propper stuff, the engine didn’t start instantly, but when I gave it a little throttle it burst into life, checking outside the water was soon gushing out.
I recorded the water flow for future reference as this will be about as good as it will ever get with a new clean pathway through the system. Often when you have cooling problems, you might look at the dribble of water coming out the boat, and rather than not leave for your next exciting destination, you will convince yourself that that’s plenty of water. It rarely is. So I have a record now of exactly how much it should be at tick-over.
I stopped the engine, restarted, it started instantly, I check for water leaks and everything was fine. I really need to get new hoses though, they are old and won’t last much longer. It’s just they don’t make them anymore and they’re a very odd shape.
My chest wasn’t hurting much, but based on past experiences, I was pretty sure I had cracked a rib. As far as I know, there’s sod all can be done about that and if I was right I could expect the pain to arrive in a few days time.
The next morning I woke with a bruised feeling in my chest but no big deal, I pulled the engine covers off, checked the oil, all was good, checked the coolant, and there wasn’t any. I checked under the engine in the drip tray, and there was my coolant, if it could do expressions, I expect it would have either been laughing at me, or possible feeling sorry for me. Whatever, jubilation had turned to disappointment and pragmatism. We weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. To be honest I had expected a leak from the aforementioned hoses. I had probably not tightened one up fully, or it wasn’t seated properly, it had to be that, as the other two options were quite ghastly, a head gasket (unlikely) or the fresh water pump, very difficult to fix/change.
I had hired a car for a week around this period of reconstructing the engine. It meant should I need any specialist bits, I could pop out to a motor shop, or hardware store and purchase whatever might work. I took this opertunity to put the covers on the engine and do some shopping downtown Tapachula.
Now this railway may not look much, but it will cross the road near the marina. Right now it stops either side of the road, and the road has been mutilated such that if you don’t slow down to a walking pace in your car, you will have one heck of a shock. Anyway this is going to replace the Panama Canal, seriously, it’s part of the new train network that spans Mexico from the pacific to the Atlantic here in Chiapas on the Pacific side and Veracruz over on the Atlantic side. The somewhat socialist leaning government here is building this as part of a great project to bring trade to the south of the country.
Above is what the water pump looks like in the parts manual. And I need to be familiar with it, as that’s the problem. I can’t be sure as access to the pump is next to impossible. But I have spent a few days now searching for the leak, and I can see it dripping out from the bottom front of the engine, roughly underneath where the pump lives, and no sign of moisture anywhere near the hoses and pipes I have worked on.
Below is a picture of the front of an MD22 just like mine, the cover has been removed and the pump is the thing in the middle. To get to it I have to remove the belt, then the three pulleys, crank, cam and fuel pump. The tensioner also has to come off, then the backing plate can be removed to give me access to the pump itself.
I have ordered a new pump from the UK, If customs play nice I will have it on Tuesday 15th July, I expect a day to remove the old one, and a day to fit the new one. This all depends on nothing else going wrong.
So a bit of a setback, but no big deal.
While I waited for the parts, I used the last day of my car rental to head up into the hills and explore
From the marina you can see a volcano in the distance, this was were I was heading, or just to the right of it. It’s very close to the border with Guatemala.
But on the way just outside of Tapachula are the ruins of an ancient civilisation dating back way before the ancient Greeks and even the Egyptians. Some say this was one of the most advanced cities in the world in its day, however it was closed when I went. As is typical in Mexico, these sort of places, while respected are not elevated to the status of places like Stonehenge, and they pop up all over Mexico.
I took some pictures from over the fence and I plan to go back sometime and get a guided tour by someone who knows more of the history
Izapa
https://maps.app.goo.gl/sGdAf5A5N8wVpaiX7
A neighbour came out and with my rubbish Spanish I understood that he was happy to phone the warden for me to get him to come out and open up! I declined because I wanted to head on up to the mountains.
I was heading to a small pueblo called Union Juarez, right up in the hills. Sadly that was closed too, well it was a sleepy monday morning. It was a lovely spot and is a very popular destination for Chiapaneros looking to get away from the heat at the weekend.
They used to sell Chicken here!
If you’re wondering what all the dishes are for, this building supplies TV and probably internet to the residents via cable.
There must be great views from here when the cloud clears.
I headed higher up the hills to the famous local mirador (Viewing spot)
Is this the hand of God? bit tacky if so.
I was a little worried about walking out onto the hands, but gave it a go.
I believe the other side of the valley is Guatemala. The cloud lifted a little but it wasn’t the best day to be there, at least there weren’t many people there. The manager of the place joined me and wanted to chat, I tried my best Spanish, but I have a long way to go with that.
They seemed quite religious up here, but then they are a lot closer to the man than me down at sea level mostly.
Now while I was there the clouds came down and I decided to head back. The heavens opened and the winding mountain roads got a little more scary, especially with local colectivos screaming around the bends and overtaking in places I wouldn’t have recommended.
I will at this point mention that I had a bit of a nightmare renting the car at the airport. Normally Ralph in the office organises things, but he’s on holiday, so I went on line and found a nice car for £20/day, that included full cover insurance. I knew that I would have to put down a deposit of a thousand or so at the airport, but that’s normal. However arriving at the airport I was informed the deposit was $14,000. Crikes, I tried to cancel, but was told by the booking agency that the rental time had passed, even though I hadnt rented so would I like to check into their hell site, or did she say help site, either way I wasn’t going to risk losing my rental money that way, so I tried to put down the 14k deposit, but my credit card limit didn’t reach that far. I ended up getting a $1400 deposit and having to pay an extra $35/day insurance. It was also pointed out to me that if I didn’t take the $70/day insurance, I would be liable to a minimum of 7 days garage time for any damage to the car at $150/day. Have you guessed why I mention this yet?
BEFORE
AFTER
Yes, while descending the mountain slopes in the pouring rain there was a very loud bang and jolt to the car. I thought I’d hit something big and was expecting the side of the car to be smashed in, despite the fact I wasn’t near anything to hit. it took another mile of driving before there was somewhere safe on the windy rode to stop, and I was feeling quite sick at the idea I had just thrown away $1400, I was surprised to see just the wheel was damaged. However angry knowing they promised to charge me that much regardless. I had the other policy to cover things but I expected that to be an ordeal as well.
I calmed myself, continued the journey home and the next morning returned the car to the airport. A lovely young lady came to inspect the car and I showed her the damage, she looked shocked and told me it was bad, she took pictures, made calls, took more pictures, sent them off, made another call and announced it was going to cost me $41 for the damage. I could barely contain my excitement, but feigned a ‘well I guess you have to charge me’ expression, she didnt think I understood how bad it was so impressed on me again, are you sure, we have to charge you $41, I quickly signed and legged it back to the marina. Things are looking up.
A few days have passed and my ribs have kicked in, or feel like they have been kicked in. I’m restricted to light duties, but I can tell I’m on the mend. Hence I’m sitting here at the keyboard as I have been for a few days now.
I’m cleaning up and doing little jobs.
Today I made a very sad decision, I pulled the SSB radio from the chart table area. It will be stowed away until I can think of what to do with it. If I should cross an ocean again, it may come back to life, but it’s unlikely. Starlink has made it redundant, and I can use the space there better. I need to clean up all the wiring there soon.
I’m sad to lose it, but it hasn’t been turned on in a long time and the only person I ever spoke to on it was Neil, G4OAR who sadly is QRT now. On that note, Taff who was also a reader of the blog and a follower of Sister Midnight finally keeled over last week, but unlike my good friend Nick, Taff had a splendid innings of 93 years. I believe he was a lieutenant commander in the Royal Naval Reserve , twice given MBE’s and taught me a lot about seamanship, he got me many scholarships and training trips with the Royal Navy as a teenager. Without his guidance I doubt I would be out here doing this sailing nonsense at all.
So the new water pump is lurking around Heathrow airport, or even possibly en route to Mexico city as I write and in the meantime, I’ll just have to make the most of things 😉
Paul Collister
Sunday 13th July 2025