Having done some work on the RIB in-between sailing trips over the Summer, am glad to have it back on the water.
I started by stripping the Bravo III outdrive down to do a full bellows replacement, shift cable, trim senders, gear oil, anodes and a repaint of the leg. I wanted to eliminate some sideways play in the drive, so used a JRMarine kit to create access to the gimbal pin, and replaced with all stainless parts I had brought over from the US (although actually, once I started pulling stuff apart, could see much of the play was in a dodgy bell housing, and once we pulled the engine, found some in the steering). I got a new bell housing (cheap off Ebay) instead of getting the knackered threads in my old one helicoiled - the lack of threads meant the housing was shifting around and causing some slop in the drive. Finally went to put the leg back on, and discovered the driveshaft wouldn't go into the engine coupler - the rear engine mounts had dropped slightly.
So ended up getting Graham ("yam man" on here) to come and pull the engine (Yanmar 6lp), which turned out to be a fairly quick job if you know how! Whilst in the workshop, we changed the timing belt, reset the valve clearances, renewed the front and rear engine mounts, replaced the power steering cylinder and put in some new bilge pump pipework. Two new batteries later, and everything works perfectly! Attached a photo of the empty (and cleaned) engine bay - many thanks Graham for all your work!
And while all that was going on, Giovanni at Rodella Ribs put on the new grey Treadmaster M-Tec wear patches, which are brilliant!
A short vid from my first test last weekend in brilliant weather:
RIB "El-Mono" test January 2014 - YouTube . Now looking forward to getting out in future weekends - let's hope for more weather like that!
Regards,
Paul
