I kicked Vin Diesel's butt!

Ok, thats a bit of an exaggeration.
Our Dickinson Newport diesel heater, which we named Vinnie, has been acting up, not burning well at all. As I had installed it according to the manufacturer's instructions, I knew it was probably suffering from operator error.

The poor burning characteristics, for those who may run into this issue, had much of the appearance of the low fuel and air scenario described in the Dickinson manual. The flame was low in the burner pot, dirty orange and quickly built up soot on the walls of the burner pot. It was not vaporizing or getting above the burner ring at any valve or fan setting. As there was a full tank of diesel, I knew it wasn't the issue. When we fist installed it, the #2 setting was sufficient to get flames to be full bodied and vibrant yellow, filling most of the lower half of the viewing window. Since the poor performance persisted across varying weather conditions, we figured winds/pressure weren't the issue. The fuel had been coming from the same gas station, which has a very high turn over so fuel quality should be consistant if nothing else.

We knew we needed Newport 911... er.. to do something different in our approach.

The only thing we hadn't done in the course of regular use and maintenance was to check and clean the metering valve outlet-to-burner pot pipe. So today I did that.
It was messy, but apparently exactly what was needed.

Base of the burner pot inlet (from valve outlet)
The soot from the burner pot just settles into the inlet pipe and after a few months of constant use had created a fairly thick goopy mess that slowly restricted the fuel flow. Even with regular cleaning of the burner pot sides and bottom enough loose soot makes its way into the inlet despite covering it as per Dickinson's directions. There was actually about 2-3 teaspoons of this sludge- ewww!
The end.

Winterizing

Winter is here and we've been getting the boat ready for the cold. The engine is cooled with sea water and so we have to flush it out lest it freeze and crack the engine block, sad christmas! I picked up some antifreeze and noticed it was good down to -53F or something. If it gets down to -53 anything in NY there's gonna be more problems than just out little engine!

So, in order to prevent hell, or Satan from freezing over we put in 3 gallons of the purple stuff(tm) Conveniently the sea water strainer hose could be unshipped and plunked right into the jug of antifreeze. This was nice as I could fire up the engine and let it draw on its own. Otherwise it would be a 2 person job involving funnels, hoses, and some duct tape, I'm sure.

With the engine put to bed we are focusing now on adding insulation to keep the heat in and cold out. Heat is provided by a Dickinson Newport diesel heater. It pretty awesome, I tell you what! It burns the same diesel our engine does so luckily we won't have to mess about with separate tanks and multiple fuels onboard. The main fuel tank had a second supply fitting already so we just tapped into that. Otherwise, we would have had to add a tee and that could cause fuel starvation to the engine potentially. Not that we're planning on venturing out in this weather, but at least we followed directions.

The top of the heater gets nice and hot and here I am reheating a bowl of yummy lentil soup. Having a window in the front is nice and adds a touch of cozy atmosphere. We've been adding reflectix insulation around the boat- behind lockers and settees and in cabinets. The boat is not well insulated so any little bit we can do helps out alot.

Its been in the low 30's lately and the heater has been doing a pretty good job. We've had to figure out the best way to balance the fuel and air mix to get a good clean burn, and we're still learning how to cope with steady winds and downdrafts. Once in a while we'll turn on the oil filled radiator to add a little more heat. Hopefully more insulation will eliminate the need for it though as electricity is not cheap around here.