Short update to Sara B FOSBA's July 29 Sara B after a short trip to Sodus Bay in mid July has been laid up at her dock. Sometime ago we were warned that the adjustment for the transmission's forward clutch was 'bottomed out' and we would need to reline the clutch band that clamps down on the shaft drum. We are now at that point.
In order to reline the band the transmission has to be removed. In order to remove the transmission, the engine has to be moved. This is not a small task ( the engine weighs about 800 lbs). Then the transmission will have to go to a machine shop where it can be disassembled and the new band lining installed.
The good news is a friend of old iron in Britain forwarded a manual in the form of a pdf file for our JD2 Industrial engine with marine unit ( the transmission). Thank goodness for the Internet and for kindly Brits! This with its drawings of the tranny and directions for disassembly will be helpful. At least we are not totally blind now heading into this project. The manual also gives clearance info which might be useful to the machine shop. We also have identified two possible machine shops. One Drake Engine in Rochester does old marine motor work. Another antique-engine.com comes recommended by a Sea scout ship Lotus volunteer. I emailed the man in charge and got a very encouraging response. So IF we can extract the transmission, I am hopeful that we will get the clutch band re-lined.
Chris spent all of last Saturday disconnecting electrical wiring, gauges, coolent lines, shaft coupling etc to get ready for the lift. The motor he figures needs to be moved about six or 8 inches so the tranny can be taken out of the rear of the case. He then attempted to remove a hold down bolt that fastens old Thorny to the oak engine beds. The acid oak and ferrous bolt have done their thing. No go. Finally after breaking one ratchet handle he broke a bolt off. The next attempt broke another ratchet handle and got one bolt out intact. So far this has taken about 8 hours. We borrowed Toby's portable air compressor and tried an impact wrench. The other two hold down bolts moved a little. One is very inaccessible and the breaker bar option won't work unless we make some sort of home grown extension three feet long to give us room to swing the breaker bar over the top of the motor. We put penetrating oil on the top of the bolts in the probably futile hope of loosening the seized steel and went away. So progress, but slow going.