One of the many winter refit tasks on Kahera, formerly Impact, was to replace the diesel hoses to & from the tank. While doing this, I decided to also fit a diesel supply & shut off valve in the aft cockpit locker. I don’t know what arrangements other Impalas have, but mine only had a cut off valve down below, near the prop shaft, only accessible by crawling into the quarter berth. Not good if you need to turn off the fuel supply in a hurry. Finding a suitable valve was the first task, it was easy to find a suitably sized ball valve…. But much more difficult to find one that could be bolted into place onto the aft locker bulkhead. I found a USA company, Groco, who manufactured such an item, and a UK company, Marinecomponents.co.uk, who were a distributor. Then it was another search to find the correct hose tails….. NPT thread rather than BSP, it being American.
The fitting was simple enough after all that, as I had removed the Fuel tank for cleaning. Drilling holes in the bulkhead and feeding through the new fuel hoses might not have been so simple otherwise.
Some of the other refit tasks have included replacement of headlining panels, properly sealing holes in the deck from long gone fittings (hence the need to replace the deck panels…rotten from water leaks), head rebuild on the Yanmar, including repair of corroded exhaust elbow, replacement of original Houdini hatch with Gebo unit, replacement of electrical panel & new bus bar to tidy up the negative wiring, fitting a chart-plotter, building a new engine box & steps, woodwork refurbishment, stern gland replacement…… after 6 months it is as if I bought a workshop. Looking forward to finding out if it sails as well as everyone says…..
Russell Camier
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