Craftsman Marine Diesel Commissioned

Hi everyone,
Yesterday we fired up our new CM3.27 engine for the first time.  Alan the dealer and Frank from Kokomo were on hand to witness the event.  The engine started immediately and ran well.  It took a while for water to appear at the transom but that was due to the 10 litre muffler/waterlock taking a while to partially fill before throwing out water.

The only issue found was that I had assumed the gear lever moving forward on the ZF10M gearbox was "forward" gear.  It isn't.  We ignored that minor issue and gave the engine a workout in gear in forward and astern, and briefly up to max RPM in neutral.

Running!

This morning I topped up the engine oil and coolant, and configured the engine morse controller to select the correct gears.  I then took the ferry in to Langkawi and bought a Dremel power tool.  Back at the boat I used it to cut out a mounting plate for the engine control panel.  The tool made the job far, far easier than using a saw, particularly given the surround was made from 3mm laminex only 40mm wide.    It would almost certainly have split if I had used a saw.  The panel is now mounted in the cockpit and looks good.

The panel has voltage, coolant temperature and oil pressure gauges, as well as RPM and engine hours.  The temperature gauge isn't working yet since it is necessary to remove the thermostat housing to fit the optional temperature sensor.  I didn't want to do that before initial trials of the engine.

Engine Control Panel mounted in the cockpit

This afternoon I ran the engine for an hour at various revs in both forward and astern.  The correct gear is now selected.  The engine certainly pushed a lot of water around the marina.  The engine mounts appear to be working well.  To check alignment I rested a pencil on the propellor shaft both horizontally and vertically and there's no sign of vibration.  So all seems good.

Trying to push Rebak to Thailand!

So that's Zen Again's engine replacement done.  The only work remaining is the replacement of the exhaust system which will take a day or so when we have all the necessary parts and return to Rebak.