M-25XP What are these things?

[britinusa]

During routine engine inspection, I noticed these two things but have no clue what they are and cannot find them in the Universal Manuals.

Paul

[patrice]

Hi,
It looks like the decompression lever.
Pull on the arm when starting will make the engin run without compression, once the engin has some speed let go.
This good when your batteries are low on amps.  Or if you feel in shape and want to start with the handle on fly wheel.

[KWKloeber]

Paul,

That's the compression release lever assembly. (#27, et al.)  For clearing a hydrolock, or spinning the engine up to start speed with a low battery.
NOT to be used when the engine is running!



The nuts simply hold the rocker arm cover onto the head. (#3)

[Stu Jackson]

Paul,

A bit of history here: 

Back in the olden days, when folks didn't have any electricity on their boats and the Catalina/Universal/Seaward wiring harness with ammeters in the cockpit  ( - some of us old geezers remember those days!!!) were "A OK", some folks needed that decompression lever to get their engine started like patrice humorously said.  Indeed, because the Catalina 30 guys were so clueless about electricity in their Mainsheet articles (even up 'til altogether too recently  ), many C30 Tech Notes articles in Mainsheet, The Magazine, repeatedly discussed the use of the decompression lever as a FALLBACK for a POOR Electrical system.  I have read ALL of them. 

Somehow, they got away with doing this for many, many years, instead of learning, as we did here with our boats, about how to actually design, install and maintain HIGH QUALITY electrical systems that actually worked!     [Apologies to the always helpful Ken Kloeber and Craig Illman with their Catalina 30s, and all the rest of the C30 skippers I've sent here to learn about electrical systems.  ]

Years ago a friend of mine was standing on his dock as I was preparing to continue my cruise after a wonderful day and night visiting him and his nice wife.  I put the key in, hit the glow plug button (with the solenoid I'd installed, so only for 12 seconds), pushed the start button and ZOOM!  He actually said to me:  "Wow, your engine started right up!"  He was so surprised!  I said, "George, if yours doesn't you might wanna find out why." [He had a Cal 34, same engine, same bad symptoms...]

Of course, that bit of hubris bit me on the a$$ less than a week later when the engine wouldn't even tick at all, and we were anchored in a backwater, and this was before cell phones.  But I remembered reading ALL of those Tech Notes.  My PO had given me all of them since 1987, nice fella.  I found that pesky little fuse holder cleverly hidden underneath the alternator, pulled out my electrical gear box and fixed it in less than 30 minutes.

Those readings of the entire bunch of Tech Notes led me to develop the Tech Notes Index posted years ago on this forum.  Then our late Commodore Jon Schneider worked on the "categories" of the Tech wiki with me, and a handful of great volunteers migrated the information into the wiki  from the old "list" email material that came from the now-archived Projects and FAQs [still available on the main Tech wiki page].  The C34IA Officers were instrumental in making PDF copies of the Mainsheet articles which became the Tech Notes Online.  And one of our members suggested that we start the Critical Upgrades topic, which has been pretty successful.  We sincerely thank all of our members who have contributed new wiki articles and Tech Notes over the years.

Point being [and this is a looong intro - but what else did you expect of me?  ], the decompression lever should be LEFT ALONE.  It isn't needed, ever, since a robust and healthy electrical system precludes ever having to deal with it.

It's nice to know about, but you should never have to use it.

[Jack Hutteball]

For what it's worth, our 27' sailboat had a Petter Diesel engine installed.  I could (and had to a couple of times) start the engine by holding down the decompression lever and spinning the flywheel with a crank on the front of the engine, releasing the lever and bang it would fire right up!  Saved me when I ran the Battery down.  Happy to have a robust electrical system now!
Jack

[Noah]

Sails are always a good back-up too!

[britinusa]

T h a n k   y o u   S t u and Others.

(my long winded reply)




Paul