SV Athena's Engine

Since October 7th, when the engine faulted out, getting her started again has been weighing on the mind...
Russell and Lynne stopped over on Sunday afternoon the 8th to see if we could get things going again, but we were unsuccessful.
She was left to rest as I travel back home to Massachusetts that following week and being away that next weekend, I didn't work on her again until October 22nd.
On October 22nd, I woke up first thing in the morning, got some tunes going, hooked up the charger to the batteries, and started pumped away at the manual fuel feed pump. I got fuel out of all the high points in the engine and decided to go for one more round of bleeding from the engine fuel filter... I was just about to try to start then engine, going for my final tightening on one of the bleeder bolts, I felt a snap.... and there would be no more tightening of that bolt. My work of rebleeding the engine for not :(
That was a difficult way to start the day, and it was hard to jump into the multitude of other tasks that need to be done. I gave up and got coffee.
Eventually I motivated enough to finish removing the letters from the stern, sanding with coarse than fine, and painting two prime coats.
The next day I was into Big Marco River Marina, the guys of which help me often and I've just realized I've failed to get their photos... hmmm... a new photo challenge...
I ordered a new fuel filter for the engine and a bunch of compression rings for the bolts used to bleed the engine.
The new fuel filter was in by that Friday, October 27th, but I ended up taking that weekend off from the boat and converting my land vehicle to run of veggie oil :)
But, time is a ticking if I want to make even an attempt at joining the upcoming Thanksgiving trip up the coast to Cabbage Key.
Saturday, November 4th, was a day of prep and celebration in the renaming of the sailboat to Athena, but Sunday, November 5th, it was time to get back to business !
Charging up the batteries, Russell helped change out the engine fuel filter and rebleed, yet again, the engine. We tried to start her up a couple times and killed the batteries, which we think were dead dead dead anyways. So, we changed the two out for one new and one pretty decent one previously donated by Captain John.
With new charge we charged forward with attempting to use the engine to further bleed herself and start her up... We thought we were once again down for the count. But, we didn't give up, changed a few things we were doing and sure enough, it was the sweet sound of her running again :) aaaahhhhhh....
thanks Russell :)