3.15.2015
Saturday, Mia and I drove up to Ojai Valley Inn to exchange cars with her mom and hang out at a pool there during this weekend heat wave. I love pools, I love sun, so Saturday was a good day. We got back to A Cenoura just before dark and saw about a 45 foot boat in a 30 foot slip, where this group of egg harbor loving beer drinking middle aged partiers stayed up all night. No worries, Mia and I had a movie to watch on loud volume and ear plugs for sleeping.
On Sunday we washed a car, picked up supplies for the day, and headed out to anchor along the breakwall. Just during the time of setting the anchor, the engine alarm was going off- but only in idle. This has happened before, and because I just replaced the heat exchanger I figured maybe there’s a problem but it’s not a big deal- more like the alarm was being fooled. Then I noticed the thermometer was upwards of 230 degrees (a happy engine is 165), so while having just tossed the stern anchor overboard I shut off the engine. Mia did some research and forum reading and we decided the first place to troubleshoot is the coolant level. When I drained the coolant two weeks ago, it filled a huge tank. When I replaced it by the directions, where it appeared full, I knew I hadn’t poured in that same amount. Not even close.
After letting the engine cool, folding some close, narrowing down our potential engine troubles, we started with checking the coolant level in the manifold- up high on the engine- it was low, much lower than when I topped it off a couple weeks ago. Wait, there’s no leaks anywhere, so this must mean that the coolant worked its way into more parts and hoses now from the engine use than when I had just tested it a couple weeks ago - so Mia fired it up and I continued to pour in the coolant. It took about another half of a bottle. Bubbles came up which means air locks(which is also what we thought the problem was) were being relieved. We revved the engine for awhile, more coolant was being sucked down, more added. I think everything is good now. The complete diagnosis was that the coolant level wasn’t high enough to make it out of the top of the manifold and into the thermostat- the piece that stars coolant the engine once it gets to its happy temperature, which would have caused the alarm to go off and the engine to just keep on getting hotter.
Fingers crossed that we solved that problem.
We hung out, played cards, had chicken fajitas all on the anchor, and came back to the dock at sunset.