Its Alive!!!

At long last (and with the help of Tony Corcoran fellow Centaur owner) the engine finally fired into life, took a bit of coaxing but on the third attempt she came alive. The only things that bother me after today is the loom which is drum-tight around the engine and the alternator which doesn't have a clearly defined negative post or rather the one thats identified on the manufacturers website is clearly missing on mine so we stuck the negative on one of the mounting studs which HMI identified. When i fired the engine up tonight the battery light on the panel constantly flickered and the engine was hunting a bit so need to look at this before placing in the boat.

Still, one persons incompetence at building and wiring an engine can only be a great opportunity to learn a thing or two, so tomorrow i'll start photographing and identifying every cable with the cable tidies removed then start the grand re-route. As previously mentioned so much is buried behind ancillaries, squeezed and pinched between filters and dipsticks and some wires even bent almost 180 degrees back on themselves and wrapped so tightly in cable tidy material its just a problem waiting to happen.

Seeing as the long and rather lumpy strapline to this project is "i'm never coming this way again - ever" i'd rather sort it now then have it haunt me in a couple of seasons time. I must give a ton of thanks to Tony, a bloke who's level-headedness and methodical approach to trouble-shooting got the engine running and at one stage, making a dash for the door hence in the first film you see me drop everything and stand with my feet between the crate as the engine makes a bid for freedom.

We both concluded the wiring diagram would have made more sense in another language (preferably english)as it was down to good old-fashioned detective work finding what each wire did based on the hieroglyphs supplied by HMI, abit of common sense and of course 'the bible.'  No not that one; it didn't get that bad, we weren't in the garden around the dustbin asking for a sign or anything, i mean the boatowners bible; Mr Calder's excellent treatise on electrical & mechanical systems.

By mid afternoon it was time to push buttons, which reminds me i'm pretty sure i paid for the intermediate panel which comes with gauges but had to console my disappointment  with the comedy-sized 'stop' button on my basic one instead, might change the button which is black to red and make it even bigger. The purpose of today was to get the engine running which we did for after a masterclass from Tony regarding cooling circuits, electrical systems and a few pointers on what to look out for on my engine  i feel a lot less wary about all things oily and metallic.