Aboard Astraea

Invest in experiences

September 27, 2011
by Nate

When the power went out in San Diego

Since we’ve lived in San Diego the power at our marina has gone out 3 times. The latest was while I had the coolant pump removed for an overhaul so I wasn’t able to run the engine to recharge the batteries if they got too low. The only problem we could have had was a dead battery on the boat and not being able to start the engine. If I’d have needed to charge the batteries real bad I could have rereouted the water hoses from the saltwater lines to the engine block and used that to cool the engine, then flushed out all the saltwater after the pump was reinstalled.

Luckily the power came back on the next day and we were back in business. The only thing we had to worry about was our new 115VAC fridge we bought at Wal-Mart. Soon we’ll have a new boat and we won’t have to worry about that because there will be enough battery bank and power to run onboard refrigeration.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Massive-Power-Outage-Hits-San-Diego-OC-129498468.html

September 27, 2011
by Nate

Coolant loop Oberdorfer water pump rebuild pain in the butt

The Oberdorfer 202M Pump that dripped and leaked

It took an entire weekend, but I got the Oberdorfer 202M coolant water pump rebuild completed. The pump had been slowly leaking coolant out in to the bilge for a few months and I needed to refill the heat exchanger with coolant after about 5-6 hours of engine runtime to keep the engine from overheating.

The rebuild went well on Friday, until I went to remove the 2nd seal in the bottom of the pump. I was unable to get that sucker out with my limited tools: screwdriver and hammer. I said “Hi” to Charlie on Plover on the dock across from me and explained my plight. He directed me over to Jeremy a few boats down. He’s a really helpful guy, former U. S. Navy Hull Technician. He has a shop at his house and recently rebuilt the same pump for his Atomic 4. Excellent. I gave him my rebuild kit and water pump and he finished the rebuild for me for $20. Excellent. I reinstalled the pump on Sunday and it didn’t leak a drip!

Moyer Marine Oberdorfer 202M water pump rebuild parts