This week was very similar to last week in the sense that lots of time was spent cleaning the bilge on the starboard side and being able to have the final coat of paint on by Friday. The bilges took longer time to clean than anticipated because they were a lot worse than we thought. We spent hours using degreaser, pressure washing the oil off the bottom, pumping the oily water into a waste barrel and repeating. Once the water levels were low enough the bilge pumps would not pick anything up, the shop vac was used to pick up the remaining water and gunk at the lowest part of the bilge. Finally, after the bilge was all clean and painted, it looked like a new space. By the middle of the week, we were able to get down in the port engine room and place the engine on the mounts and start dressing it back up. I was helping with dressing the right side of the engine while Kyle was on the left side. Ron and I were able to put on the turbocharger, alternator, exhaust manifold, air crossover pipe, and more.
By Friday Kyle and I were off on one of the side quests of trying to remove old cable through a “Roxbox,” a multi cable sealing, watertight module that is placed through a bulkhead to keep the compartment watertight. These are supposed to be easy to maintain modules, but where the one we were working on has not been touched in at least 10 years, we tried our best to be able to disassemble it and nothing was happening. As much as we tried to pry pieces apart or move them by using a wedge and hammer nothing happened except little clouds of dust appearing. In the end, it stayed as it was when we began. What made this job even more difficult was the Roxbox was placed in the Tween Deck. I wasn’t able to sit up straight to work on it, nor was I able to sit comfortably, but in the end we tried our best. It will be a new day to try and tackle it again.
