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I have a leak at my companionway.  When it rains, water pools at the base of where the two boards slide in.  The water finds its way somehow to the inside of the cabin and lands on the cover over the engine.  That cover is rotted on the two back corners.

Have any of you had this problem?  Any ideas how to fix it?

Does anybody know how to access the nuts on the deck to hull bolts that are mid ship between the v berth and the galley?  There appears to be wood covering them up.  The only way I see to get to them is to remove the entire shelving.  Has anybody had to deal with this?

I found what looks like a leak in my hull to deck joint.  Please see the attached pictures.  That bolt in the pictures is in the port side in the V berth.

Does anybody have any ideas on what would cause this and/or how to fix it?  Thanks.

I found that one of my stanchions was probably leaking.  This is the starboard gate stanchion with two posts that attach to the deck.  I have a '93 MKIi.  I removed it and discovered that the deck underneath was quite wet. I dug out a bunch of mushy wood material (is that balsa?) and attempted to dry out the area with heat lamps, acetone, etc.,  for about six weeks. That didn't work.  My intention was to fill the void with epoxy.

From what I've read, it's really hard to dry out a wet deck core, and that the proper fix is to just replace the deck.  But I am not going to do that now.  The deck is still in good condition. There is no delamination, and two surveyors checked out my boat and said the decks are fine.

My question is, does it make sense to fill the void in the deck with epoxy?  I understand that it may not cure well or adhere to the wood with it being wet.  But is it better than nothing?  I mean, there isn't a whole lot of thickness between where the void is and where the washers are down beneath.

I was running my engine at the dock today and started smelling and seeing smoke.  I cut the engine off and went down to take a look and noticed that the plastic around the alternator excite wire was melted.  It was also melted up to the key switch.  I am hoping that one of you guys might have a clue as to what is going on.

Let me tell you what happened.  I was testing my engine today because it overheated yesterday at the dock before I was about to take it out for a sail.  I did just recently install a new heat exchanger.  However, I ran the engine for hours a week before with no problems.  Right now I am not worried about the engine overheating, but I thought I should just mention that.

So I add coolant to the reservoir because the coolant all came out after overheating, and then I started the engine.  Everything seems OK.  Engine temperature is normal.  Runs for about 15 minutes.  But, I noticed the alternator was not working.  And the tachometer was not working.  The voltmeter on the instrument panel read 12 V.  I checked at the batteries and was reading about 12.6 volts.  The tach was at zero.

I gave it the thought that maybe I inadvertently turned the battery switch to off when the engine was running, but that did not seem likely to me.  I noticed the vbelt was too loose, so I stopped the engine, tightened the belt, and restarted the engine.  Alternator and tach still not working.  But then about five minutes later the alternator and tach kick in.  I keep running it for about five minutes and decide to increase the throttle a bit.  Just a little bit from idle, which I had been running it at until then.  I had my eye on the instrument panel while doing this.  The tach jumped very high, over 2500 rpm, which it obviously was not doing, then dropped back down to about 1400 rpm, which is probably correct.  The voltmeter went to zero.

It was very shortly after that that I saw the smoke coming from behind instrument panel.  I will add that after the alternator kicked in, the voltmeter looked like it was running too high, but it has always done this.  It was somewhere above 15 V, almost 16V.  Maybe the voltage regulator is to blame?

Anyway, it looks like I am going to have to pull that purple alt excite wire and replace it.  One other thing that I must mention is that there isn't a fuse between battery and key switch.  I know, it's something I've been putting off but will do so very soon.

Thanks

I noticed when flushing the head that the motor was louder and a higher pitch.  It was like this a couple of days before it stopped working. I should have paid more attention to it at first.  After it stopped working I took out the fuse and saw that it was blown.  To my surprise, it was a 20 amp fuse.  I put a slow-burning 30 amp fuse in there and did a short test of the current.  Max amps was about 55, and sustained was about 24 amps.  I checked the voltage and it was normal for a 12V circuit.  The pump is a Jabsco 74001-2460.

Should I replace it?.  I found a replacement online for about $200.  I figured I should run this by you all before I enter my credit card info.

Thanks in advance.

I have my mast in the yard and want to do some work at the mast cap.  As you can see from the picture there is a really bad and strange hole in it.  The wire cable going through it is a coax to the VHF antenna.  It is almost completely severed.  I installed an anchor light there on a bracket that you cannot see.  The PO had no anchor light.  I bought new coax for the antenna and new cable for the anchor light that I want to run through the existing PVC conduit. 

I have a few questions:

1.  How  would you recommend I cover up or fill in that ugly hole?  I thought about finding some aluminum to either weld or fifty-two-hundred over it.  But I don't know how to weld and I don't know where I'd find a thick piece of aluminum the right size.

2. Should I use that better looking hole to run both the coax and cable for the light, and install a grommet in it?  And if I do that should I put any kind of sealant around the wires?  Or should each cable have its own hole?

3.  Would it be better to drill a new hole(s) for the two cables that is actually on the side of the mast that the conduit is on?  What exists now is a hole through in inside of the mast cap allowing the wires to go from the starboard side to the port side of the mast (the exit holes are on the port side).  I have no idea why they didn't just drill the hole through the starboard where the conduit is attached.

Thanks

I need to replace a hose in the fuel line of my Universal M-25XP.  The hose I am replacing is in the fuel return line right where it is connected to the injectors. It's a small hose about 3 1/2 inches long. From the manual, it looks like the connector between this small hose and the larger one should be mounted in a bracket.  Mine is not mounted in that bracket and I am not exactly sure how it is supposed to be mounted. Is there anything that I should be aware of before I start?

I figure I should close the valve to the fuel line at the tank. I thought it might also be a good idea to run the engine afterwards until it stops to reduce the amount of fuel in the line.  Is that a good idea?  And is it necessary to do before removing the old fuel line hose?  I ask that because I don't have the starter hooked up right now.

Also, I understand that I will need to bleed the fuel system afterwards.  From the instructions in the manual there are two places that I need to bleed. I located the one on the injector pump, but am unsure about the one on the fuel filter.  When they mention the fuel filter, does that refer to the Racor filter that is seperate from the engine?  Because I do not see anything that looks like a bleed valve where the engine diagram indicates the fuel filter should be.

The engine gauges on the cockpit instrument panel work only about half the time. My thought is there is some corrosion somewhere, but I have not been able to find it.

The gauges either all work or none work (tachometer, fuel gauge, engine temperature).  However, when they aren't working, if the engine is running and I turn the key to heat the glow plugs, the gauges will work as long as I hold the key in that position.  When I release they key they stop working.

Does anybody have an idea what's going on or where I should look to fix the problem?