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Tropical islands, sunny beaches, coconut palms,
and a machine shop that will fix anything, now that's paradise.
A few of the parts in this tran are press fit and require a hydraulic press to disassemble and reassemble. Another bit of luck is that in the town of Lambasa (Labasa, about a 3 hour bus ride to the other side of the island) there is a machine shop, Latu Engineering, that has a press, as well as lathes, welders, and machine shop tools. It is located in an industrial area near town that is oriented to repairing all sorts of even older equipment. The economy here cannot support buying new equipment whenever needed, so they have become quite skilled at repairing their existing well used equipment. They even offered to make my gears for me, from scratch, at a very reasonable price. I figured I would use that option if my state-side supplier did not come through. By late November the job was done and transmission reinstalled. I took it out for a test run and all is working fine with it.
It was those two little gears in the foreground of this picture that were the culprits.
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I had one more bit of bad news, unrelated to the tran, as I discovered that the seal in the pump for cooling the engine was leaking water. I contacted my US parts supplier and yes the part was available as a re-manufactured Westerbeke pump for only about US$ 468.oo and there are no individual replacement parts or rebuild kit. This is almost double the cost of a new fuel injector which is far more complex than a simple impeller type water pump. Even my parts supplier was surprised at the cost. Shipping the pump to Fiji would have cost another $ 150.oo so I decided to give the machine shop in Lambasa a visit. They were quite familiar with these types of pumps and had it apart in a few minutes, requiring the hydraulic press again. The bearings showed no sign of wear, and the metal impeller and pump body had only a thin dusting of rust, so only the seal needed replacing. He said he did not have any Westerbeke replacement parts, but the seal looked familiar. He went into his back room and returned in a few minutes with a new seal of the same type. A bit of good luck, as it turns out that my pump uses the same seal as used on the local tractors here. He reassembled it and I was back in Savusavu the same day with a working pump. Total cost? US$ 22.oo including bus fare. Sure beats the US cost of over $ 600.oo with shipping. Guess where they get their seals? They ship them out here from the US :-|
Lesson learned? If it seems unreasonable check it out for yourself.
Selena was now operational again, but the tropical cyclone (hurricane) season was about to begin here. I would have to leave for Australia immediately and miss cruising in Fiji and the other island groups I wished to see. Savusavu and Nakama Creek Harbor are considered a "hurricane hole" and I had spoken with a couple other skippers who had stayed here through the past season. They had no trouble so Selena and I decided to stay. So far the weather has been easy and no tropical cyclones have come here. The only winds we have had above 15 knots are in an afternoon squall and they usually blow over in less than an hour.
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