53' Feadship

Looks like the Jones Act actually have a 37 year rule, over 37 years and foreign built is acceptable.

Work on Brigand has been very slow, I fractured two vertebrae and have had to slow my pace or start restoring wheelchairs. I have managed to tear down both Detroit Diesel 671's in the boat and do all the required work to begin reassembly next week, amazing engine the 671, built from 1938 to 2008 with few changes, can be bolted together to form a 12-71 or even used in groups of four engines! The block can be flipped end for end and becomes a counter rotating engine, a brilliant piece of design in many ways.

Mine smoked excessively and were very difficult to start when cold, I replaced the injectors and ran the racks but the issue persisted so it seemed prudent to open them up and see what I was dealing with. What I found was really old engines that likely predated the Brigand as the liners were of a style that has not been produced since the late 40's. The engines themselves are in excellent condition, the cylinder bores had simply lost their ability to seat the rings as years of salt air had blown in thru the exhaust and worn out the liners thru lack of use. Since I am there I am replacing not only the pistons, liners and rings but the bearings and other wearing parts, fortunately I have been able to locate all the parts locally with the exception of cast rings which seem to be as rare as an honest shipyard.

It seems that at some point quite a bit of ether had been used starting these engines and had caused faults in the head gasket on both engines, in the case of the port engine the gasket had failed between several adjacent cylinders causing loss of compression, the Stbd. Engine suffered the same issue as well as passing oil into the cooling water. Fortunately both engines are rebuildable.

I have thought about using Marelon but have read so many stories of handles and valves breaking that it frightens me. How did you come to your decision?

Still going on the restoration, ups and downs. Finished rebuilding both 1948 vintage 6-71 Detroit’s in-hull, completely stripped the engine room of all wiring and prepped and painted everything, fired up both new engines, both fired instantly with no smoke! Finding some of the parts was difficult but most of the parts from the last 1998 6-71’s will bolt right onto the 1948’s. The originals had bypass oil filters which filtered only a small percentage of the oil with each pass, I elected to design and build full flow oil filters and modify the original castings to accept fittings and lines.

Once I finished the motors and aligned the trans with the shafts, connected everything, lashed every cleat to the headwall at the marina and waited for a Sunday when few people would be around. Everyone I have spoken to suggested running under load at varying RPM’s in segments of around 500 for an hour or until all visible smoke is gone. This may be difficult as even at idle and cold there is no smoke.

Well everything was ready and I fired up the port motor, warmed it up and began looking for leaks when I noticed the bilge filling with water. Inspection revealed that the water was coming from above the fresh water tank mounted outboard of the port motor, where the exhaust is located… I removed the built in settee, wall paneling, etc and behind I located the muffler. It had clearly been custom made long ago, a mild steel tube 12” in diameter and 22” long with 4.5” inlet and outlets and a baffle in the center composed of a plate with 3/8” holes every 3/8”, just before the muffler is a mixing elbow where the raw water is sprayed into the muffler along with the exhaust gases.

At some point the muffler had rusted out at the bottom and a ¼” steel plate had been welded over it, later the ends had begun to rust and had been repaired and just before the PO sold me the vessel both end caps had failed dumping water into the bilge and exhaust into the area behind the settee. I had noticed the exhaust soot along the seems around the settee but had thought it was much older, upon removal and inspection of the muffler I found that all the bolts had been replaced with stainless and the holes in the ends of the muffler repaired with fiberglass cloth, resin and epoxy. He knew that the entire muffler can was rotted from the inside out and chose to patch the holes with fiberglass and sell the boat.

Further inspection revealed that the outlet flange which passes aft through the bulkhead is also rotted through, just aft of the bulkhead the pipe bends and is connected to the pipe which passes aft through the head, stateroom, lazerette and out through the transom. This section of pipe had been recently replaced with fiberglass pipe, a section of which was found in the forecastle. Knowing that the STBD muffler was as old as the port I removed the back of the cabinet and looked under the side deck and discovered that the STBD muffler had recently been replaced, the new one having been made from a 9” CO2 cylinder and was still marked with “top”, “in” and “out” in chalk. At least he had replaced one muffler and done his best to conceal the damage to the other.

Looks like before I can break the motor in I need to make a new muffler, replace the pipe going aft through the bulkhead, check the condition of the pipe traveling aft on the other side, replace all the damaged parts I find and repair the walls that will have to be removed to get at the pipes. So much for using her this season.

Been updating the page here

The wheelhouse on Brigand was messed about at some point, the beautiful open sides and sweeping lines were boxed in aft leaving her looking as though a teak phone booth had been left on deck. The ceiling of the wheelhouse was painted white and the spaces between the teak cross members filled with peg board. The entire wheelhouse was festooned with redundant electronics, it was as if every time the PO found a piece of marine electronics at a yard sale, he bought it and installed it. There were several VHF radios, Loran, 2 GPS units, a CRT chart plotter, a 42 mile radar (open array mounted just 12' above the water) 2 digital compass', etc, etc.


Here you can see the boxed aft portion of the wheelhouse.



And here and here are the original lines of Brigand

Obviously one of the PO’s had decided that he wanted to close the bridge in and did so by mounting two nearly 4x4 teak posts at the back of the wheelhouse and cutting the window openings aftward allowing sliding windows to be installed. With the back squared a canvas curtain could be snapped in place and the cabin was enclosed. It was a mystery to me why he did not utilize a curtain which came around the sides and could have had clear sections in the sides as well as the back. This would have retained the lines of the boat and allowed the wheelhouse to be enclosed.

Rear of the Wheelhouse
Port windowSTBD wheelhouse interior
And the side of the wheelhouse and window agfter restoration


Have a look at that fully rebuilt engine, all the bronze has been clear coated with an epoxy.

Too bad this forum will nto allow hot linking of images, it would make it possible to embed images in the text where they are relevant..

Well here are the before after images of the restoration of the wheelhouse of Brigans to the original lines. I had to hand make the teak trim holding the glass in place and spent about 2 weeks searching for teak the right color to match what was there.

I love the 6-71 so much that I would rebuild another one for fun! Brilliant engine, the block can be flipped end for end to produce a CR engine. They can be bolted in a cross pattern where 4 seperate 6-71's all drive a single transmission, this is the set-up used in the Chief Seattle Fire Boat to drive the water pumps for the water cannon.

It was originally designed by Charles Kettering based on a design by Winton. Kettering is the da Vinci of the automotive world, starter motors, founder of AC Delco, over 100 patents, head of research for GM and an avid yachtsman.

The rebuild was beautiful, unbolt the exhaust and coolant tanks on the front of the motor, pull the injectors and valve rockers, pull the head, slide out the pistons, rods and liners as a unit. Replace bearings, put in new pistons rods and liners as a unit, bolt the head back on, bolt on the gingerbread and fire her up! I did the second engine in less than a day.

Here are the piston/rod/liner assemblies being assembled in a little shop they let me use at the marina where Brigand is moored.

The 6-71 is an inline motor, two can be bolted end to end to make an in-line 12 but the 12v71 is a completely different animal, different in every way as the V configuration has a different block, crank, intake configuration, etc. Imagine the 6-71 as a straight 6 dodge motor and the V series motors as a Chevy 350. The Chief Seattle Fire Boat has four 6-71's in a cross pattern all driving a single pump!

I have a 6V 92 TA in a 40' Mercedes/Neoplan bus, nice engine for a two stroke but no where near as simple to work on as the 6-71

K1W1,

Nothing in my reply was condescending in the least, you "made a mistake" and I responded to what you had written, I responded in an attempt to be informative by giving examples to someone who, as reflected in what they had written, clearly had no idea at all about the confiuguration of the motors in question.

The "quad" arrangement was very common and used in pumps and in landing craft where 4 6-71's drove the saem drive shaft.

Here the 6th entry shows the 6-71 and 12-71 4 valve head showing that the same casting was used for both, so you can see that it is a straight motor, using two 6-71 heads.

On this site the 13th post makes refference to the 12-71 giving its blower output and later posts refer to it again.

Here again it is refferenced "The 2, 6-71's bolt end to end and use a coupler in between them to drive the second blower similar to a 12-71 Detroit diesel." in this instance it was used in a tank.

"The 92 Series in your bus is no doubt more complicated than the 6-71 in your boat."

Yes that was my point exactly.

"It is turbocharged for a start and is stuck under a bus body not in a space where you can walk all around it. If you got it out and pulled it to bits you would find that below all the bolt on bits it isn't that much different to the one you have had to bits"

Actually it is turbo charged and aftercooled, it is not under a bus but iun the rear with access to all sides unlike my boat engines where I had to crawl around the intake side. I have pulled it apart and rebuilt it so I am very familiar with it, it and the two 6-71's I rebuilt for Brigand, 3 others I helped rebuild for work boats from Alaska and more Mercedes, VW, Cummins and Yanmar diesels than I want to think about.

The 6V92TA is quite a bit more complicated and difficult to work on than the 6-71, the V configuration complicates the intake and exhaust, camshafts and the access to individual components, the turbo placement over the motor again complicates access and while in most bus applications you have access to the top bottom and three sides and have an engine bolted to a cradle that can easily be pulled from the bus with a forklift, even once in the shop the V configuration makes it a more difficult motor to work on compared to a 6-71 in the bilge of a boat - Having done both I can assure you that this is the case regardless of what you may "think" is the case.

Here is a 6v92TA



Here it is after the turbo, plumbing, exhaust, blower, pumps, and both heads have been removed to reveal the fire deck



To get to this point on a 6-71 you need only remove the exhaust log, the valve cover and lift the head free of the motor. 5 hours work vs 1 hour work.

So I would suggest before replying in such a defensive way that you try reading up a bit on the Series 71 engine, and use something other than Wikipedia as your source.

Where can I see some images of your vessel!

Found some here, beautiful boat, makes mine look quite small.

Since my last post a great deal of work has been completed on Brigand and after a haul this spring for new thru hulls she will be in use again. I have had a rather disappointing turn of events over the last year regarding the teak house. It seems that for some reason the teak in many areas has begun to shrink opening up seams.

I am unsure as to why after all these years she would suddenly begin to shrink like this but I assume it is in part due to the fac tthat she is heated inside and the outside is under cover drying out the teak. The seams which have opened are mostly around the windows but along the starboard side of the main cabin as well. The teak is 1" or better everywhere and the places where it has opened up are about large enough to insert the edge of a business card.

The doors on Brigand were not constructed as one woudl normally construct a door with the side stiles and horizontal rails assembled with mortise and tennon and a floating panel in the center. Instead the Stiles and rails are mortised and tennon but the center panel was nade with a kind of tounge and groove on all four sides. As such the wood expands and contracts faster across the grain than it does over the length of the grain and with a fixed panel results in cracking of the panel.

I believe that the issue is partly due to the relative humidity of the boat, since she is a very dry boat and the interior is heated in the winter I believe that the wood is simply drying out. My question here is that if Brigand spent summers in Montauk and winters in Bimini for most of her life, I would have thought that she would have been exposed to some serious heat from the sun and I know that she spent most of the past two decades in the Pacific Northwest, at least 10 years of it in uncovered moorage on Orcas Island. Why is she now shrinking?

The second question is what to do about it. I can clean the gaps and insert a spline with epoxy then refinish the teak, but if later she begins to expand, she will literally push herself apart at the seams. Filling the gaps with something like thickened varnish will not only be ugly but may in the end have the same result.

Really what I am looking for is some direction as to how to properly repair a teak house which has opened at some of the seams....

David,

My concern with splining the gaps is that were the teak to expand again, the pressure whould push other joints apart. If I use a flexible sealant not only will it look terrible, but it will contaminate the joint making later repair by splining nearly impossible without routing the gaps larger... Neither one seems like a good option, but I have to do something. Each gap which opened broke the varnish, now moisture is getting under the varnish and discoloring the teak, this will of course have to be sanded back, bleached and have new varnish applied to blend the reapir area. This is what worries me about the Linear Polyurethanes, patching in the event of a damaged area, is very difficult if not impossible without creating a hazy area in the finish.

Several people I know have applied a couple coats of Varnish then applied LP over the top and found it very difficult to repair, last season I toured two vessels being repaired by a friend and they had chosen to use Varnish to establish color and UV protection followed by a final coat of Awlcraft 2000 which is a high gloss acrylic urethane and is claimed to be easy to repair without hazing....