I needed to recoup from all my mechanicing this last weekend as I was pretty worn out. At 69 years of age, this kind of stuff takes it’s toll on me and I needed to rest up a bit, so I headed out to Jenner to kayak for the day.
Which way to go
I put my boat in the water and paddled across to Penny Island where I sat around here for a spell deciding which way to go for the day.
Just right out
The river’s mouth area won out, so I headed on down that way along the edge of Penny Island which is on my left. It was overcast but nice out, not too hot, not too cool, just right.
On the bottom end of Penny Island I went past these birds resting on the gravel. Terns and seagulls.
High tide and open
I paddled across the river headed for the river’s open mouth. It was high tide so there was plenty of ocean water coming into the river form the ocean.
I sat around and enjoyed the mouth area for a bit. A good place to sit in a kayak is right in front of the open river’s mouth.
Heading up the river
Eventually, I headed on up the river going up the island’s back channel and paddling along here.
I could see these birds across the river near Paddy’s rock as I paddled along.
Up to here
I paddled up to this spot where I sat for a good long time just enjoying the day and doing a bit of napping too.
Eventually I moved down river to this spot at the Indian Rock trailhead and sat here for a good spell just taking it easy.
When I left that spot, I went past these two little baby ducks feeding along the shoreline.
I paddled by this great blue heron resting on this old tree branch as I paddled by Penny Island’s upper end.
Get out of my way
I waited for these geese to get out of my way as I paddled across the river headed for the boat ramp at the Jenner visitor center.
Home for a nap
I loaded my boat on the car and went on home for a nap.
How do things line up
After a good nap, I finally got out and worked on the van. I needed to install the radiator and the fan to see how things were going to line up.
I had plenty of space to install them which is much better than not having enough space.
First I installed the alternator in it’s bracket as it was down under the fan area on the driver’s side, out of sight.
Once that was done I installed the radiator, the fan blades and the old fan shroud to see how things lined up with the new engine installed, using the old stuff that was used on the inline six engine I took out.
Things mostly lined up pretty good. The fan blades are a bit short as they should be under the shroud to work properly.
I contemplated adding a fan clutch, but after doing some research on them, decided not to, as these old van’s need as much cooling as they can get and the fan running all the time might just be a good idea. The heck with the slight better fuel economy.
So my other options are a longer spacer block on he end of the water pump. I already have an inch and a half one and don’t know yet, if I can get a longer one or not.
I could just extend the shroud out over the fan blades which I might do, if I can’t find a longer extension block. I have some more pieces of the plastic barrel I made the fan shroud from so that would be fairly easy to do.
Get under that shroud
The fan blades need to get under that shroud to work properly.
I need more parts to hook it all up
One of the other reasons I wanted to get this all mounted up is to figure out and measure the rubber water hoses that run to the engine as I will need new ones to match things up. I will also order up two new fan belts, a matched set if I can get them.
I still need the rubber grommets for the pcv valve and pcv air inlet, to seal in the valve covers. I will use the old engines pcv valve as it is good.
And I need an oil stick unit to put on the passengers side of the engine as that’s most accessible in this set up. The drivers side oil unit is too hard to get to from the driver’s seat and besides it would come out under one of my cabinets on that side. I accidentally bought the driver’s side unit by mistake and tried it out just to see and no way will that one work. I had to pound it in to install it as it was a real tight fit, which means I’ll have to destroy it to remove it.
I also need to hook up my heater hoses into the system so I’m looking at getting the right fitting for that. It looks like two, ninety degree street ells with 5 eights inch hose ends will work best for that. I’m not sure if the old hoses are long enough or not and might have to get new longer ones to fit properly.
Things are moving along and looking pretty good as far as the V8 engine conversion. Still plenty to do, but it all looks doable at this point.
There are over a hundred pictures that are served up randomly every time you visit or change pages. They are of earlier pictures of interest and also some just to remind me of things.
A Sony AX33 4K, a video camera that takes stills too. What am I doing with that? I take pictures from my Kayak a lot. I found I was missing interesting shots, because my pic was being processed in my camera, before it would let me take another pic. Since I like to take what I call action stills, I bought this camera to take videos, that I could make stills out of, but, as a bonus, this camera also came with buttons to just take stills and that's what I mostly do, unless something is real interesting or too far away for my still zooms. My digilat zoom setting for video goes to two hundred x, and sometimes I need that, but usually, I only use the 10x lens zoom. Because this camera is HD and 4K, the quality has to be real good and it has a lot of stabilizers on it which really helps out a lot for taking pics on the water.
The other thing it has that is a must is a view finder and I had to buy Sony's top of the line cam to get it. This is a must for taking pics on the water, as you must hold the camera as still as posible and putting that eye piece to the eye forms a tripod with your arms that helps a lot. The eye piece is also a must as it works way better than a LED screen to see what you are taking a picture of in the daylight as the LED screens wash out easily in sunlight.
I also have another video camera, a Canon VIXIA G30. I use them both to mostly take stills. The Sony takes higher resolution stills than the G30. That was a bit of a disappointment as I bought the G30 to replace an older camera I dunked in the river, but then had to buy the Sony to get higher still picture resolution that the G30 was lacking.
