Northern Lights… not the pretty ones…. Part 3

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel... I hope it is as satisfying as these lights

If you read the previous posts, Part 1 and Part 2, you know I am at the mental stage of replacing the exhaust elbow on our Northern Lights generator.  I made it past the denial stage. With the new stainless elbow on the way, I figured I should start pulling off the old exhaust elbow so it is all ready to put back together when the new part comes.  I only had to remove 3 bolts that go into the exhaust manifold and remove a nut on a stud coming out of the manifold. 

Northern Lights… not the pretty ones…. Part 2

Not sure the generator company should have been allowed to use the name of something so wonderful!

 

Half happy to find the solution (see Part 1) and half upset I did hours of work before checking the easy item first (water pump belt tension), I spent the next few hours putting it all back together and filling the engine with nice clean new antifreeze.  Excited to show Julie we checked off one more item from the loooooong list of projects, I started up the Northern Lights generator

Northern Lights… not the pretty ones…. Part 1

I wish I was writing about sailing adventures under the Northern Lights!

We knew during the purchase survey there was an issue.  The previous owner created a small list of known issues which included the Northern Lights M643 5kW diesel generator.  Although it only has 1200 hours, he mentioned the generator had an overheating problem and was most likely due to a lack of significant use.