{"id":3429,"date":"2025-09-19T16:12:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T16:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/?p=3429"},"modified":"2025-09-19T16:12:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T16:12:23","slug":"overheating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/overheating\/","title":{"rendered":"Overheating"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was half an hour before the boat was due to be hauled out. The new engine was due to arrive tomorrow. It was all going to be very expensive.<\/p>\n

And then a woman I had never met before knocked on the coachroof: \u201cI\u2019ve been reading your blog. Your overheating trouble: Have you looked at your exhaust elbow? That\u2019s what it was for us – just thought I\u2019d mention it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I wish I knew her name. I\u2019d like to thank her.<\/p>\n

As readers who have been paying attention will know, Samsara\u2019s venerable Nanni 21hp has been running hotter and hotter over the past several years. By the time I arrived in the Isle of Man, I had to sail into the harbour and then get a tow into the marina.<\/p>\n

A succession of engineers pored over it at various times. All of them sucked their teeth and shook their heads. They examined the impeller; they suspected the heat exchanger. Nothing they did made the slightest difference.<\/p>\n

I tried muriatic acid. I tried citric acid. I kidded myself there was a slight improvement.<\/p>\n

I waited six days for the charmingly encouraging Pat Ryan to get one of his lads to have a look. In the end, I phoned Rab McCluskey in Douglas, who had been so keen on the heat exchanger. We came to the mutual conclusion that it was a 20-year-old engine. Maybe the time had come\u2026 it had given good service\u2026 every machine has a finite life\u2026<\/p>\n

The new one was going to cost just over \u00a35,000.<\/p>\n

I winced, but what could I do? I emptied the savings account.<\/p>\n

Nobody had mentioned the exhaust elbow. Actually, I had never heard of the exhaust elbow.<\/p>\n

And yet I heard about it a second time half an hour later. Scott Nelson, the Boatworks yard manager, hadn\u2019t even got Samsara<\/em> onto the slip when he said: \u201cBefore you go to all the trouble and expense of a new engine, I just wondered: Have you looked at your exhaust elbow?\u201d<\/p>\n

So we did. Bob the engineer took it off. It really is an elbow – a little right-angled piece of rubber hose, except it seemed to have lost its flexibility – hardly surprising when you considered that it was completely choked with carbon.<\/p>\n

Honestly, you couldn\u2019t see daylight through it. The tiny hole in the picture is only there because Scott poked it with a pencil.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you cancel the new engine?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Actually, that was remarkably easy. It wasn\u2019t about to arrive tomorrow. It was still in Holland.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m in Torquay, looking at YouTube videos about how to change your alternator and with a new mantra to remember: Diesel engines need to be run hard from time to time…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
The exhaust elbow (or if it has another name, I don’t know it). The little hole wasn’t there when we first took it off.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was half an hour before the boat was due to be hauled out. The new engine was due to arrive tomorrow. It was all going to be very expensive. And then a woman I had never met before knocked on the coachroof: \u201cI\u2019ve been reading your blog. Your overheating trouble: Have you looked at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3431,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429\/revisions\/3431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}