We got up and had breakfast. Today we are supposed to have a refrigeration guy down to repair our fridge and maybe our A/C in the aft stateroom. One of our sailing friends who asked us to get something for them from the states will be by to pick it up, and I am going to tackle the repair on the winch that is broken.
So, Steve and Denny were by. They will be back with chicken from town on Tuesday for games. Pancho was by to say no luck on the generator repair. It will wait until we get back to Puerto Vallarta. The refrigeration guy should be down by early afternoon to work on the fridge and the aft stateroom A/C.
Based on all of the above, while Reneé went to aqua-aerobics, I cleared out the interference to work on the fridge and the aft stateroom A/C. When I got everything out of the way for the A/C unit, I saw that the problem was the duct tape that held the duct to the outlet of the A/C had failed. I removed the old duct tape and used gorilla tape to reinstall. One less thing to fix!
I am still looking for Youtube videos of how to do what I need to do on the winch.
Ok, so no luck on video’s for the exact part of what I wanted to watch, but it was a bit helpful. So, I went after replacing the parts that were obviously damaged. First up, I had to take the top off of the winch, that was explained in many of the videos I watched. There are two points that you can use a screwdriver and a hammer to get it started, but it should only be hand tight. I wound up having to hammer it off almost the whole way (bad sign number 1). I got all the old parts off cleaned up the stuff that was staying, and after a couple of false starts got it put back together except for the top ring (the one I had to hammer off). I tried a wire brush on the threads, and more grease, finally about to give up, I pushed the button that causes the winch to turn (this is an electric winch), good news it runs, bad news the center shaft is bent and it wobbles, this bend is probably why the ring won’t go on. There are two center shafts, I don’t think the inner one is bent. The outer one is hollow and made of bronze. When I push the button to make it go around, neither of these shafts move, but the parts that do move wobble. If it is only the outer one, the price is $439, if the inner shaft also has to be replaced, I will have to find a price for it.
So, the refrigeration guy was down, and added freon to the fridge. Now that I know to watch for the “frost line” we just had to wait for the temp in the fridge to get low enough. It stopped several times we reset it and it slowly worked its way lower in temp. Finally I was able to see a frost line, but it was all the way at the compressor. This means that liquid refrigerant is getting into the compressor, which is a positive displacement. This is a bad thing. So, I vented some freon out, let the frost line go away, and then restarted the system, I repeated this process several times, end result the system is running just fine at 26 to 30 degrees on the cold plate (it is set to 26 which keeps the fridge at about 40 degrees or so.
At the end of the day, we have agreed on a payment and we are done with Pancho, (still not happy, but done). The aft stateroom A/C is working, the refrigerator is working, we know what is wrong with the winch ($$$). There is a possibility (very slim) that the diesel guy with an electrician will be down this week.
