Progress

This is the starting point

I have found that when I have a job to do on a boat, it usually includes a string of "... before I can start this, I have to do that ..." connections. After going through one of these exercises, I was down to the top two things that I needed to do to be able to move on. Today's winner was to remove the air conditioning unit from the boat. The other job was to put new stuffing in the propeller shaft stuffing block but, today being Saturday, there were a string of interesting radio programs on KQED and I figured I would miss the smallest segments by doing the air conditioning job.

Why would I want to remove the air conditioning? The biggest is that I will probably never use it. To use it, I would have to be in a slip with shore power available. I hope that my future life aboard will include very little of that once I am clear of SF Bay. The other is that it is heavy and it sits well to starboard in the boat. Ayala has a more or less permanent two degree list (tilt) to starboard that I would like to eliminate. Most of it is due to the 60 gallon fuel tank that lives under the starboard settee. That's a little over 400 lbs. of off-center weight that is not balanced by anything on the other side of the boat. Someday I will remove that tank.


Got all the big pieces out. Lots of room!

But I digress. The final reason for removing the air conditioning unit is that it takes up over half of the space in a large storage locker. Storage space is too dear on a sailboat to give it away to something as useless as an air conditioner that I won't use.

With all that in mind, I plunged into the fray. As you can see from the top photo, the beast is tightly crammed into its enclosure. It was a matter of starting at the edges and working toward the center. First the control panel, then some of the connections inside the cabinet. Finally, I had it down to no more than the compressor and the big squirrel cage blower. With everything bolted together, the unit was to wide to make it out the door. I finally figured out that the hole you can see just below the blue/gray hose that is hanging off the left side of the cabinet was the way to access the blower motor and get it loose from the rest of the unit. Still, it took another hour and a half of wrestling with everything to get the unit out of the cabinet.



Compressor and blower sitting on deck

As you can see, there is still a lot of clean up to do - dirt and mold abound in the area that used be buried by the machinery.

I now have the biggest parts sitting out on deck. I have advertised on Craig's list for someone to come pick it up for free. It might even be operational.

So - after some clean up tomorrow, on to the next project. Stuffing the stuffing gland. More later...