MUMM36 ZAMBONI Engine & Lithium

I got down to National a little after 3pm to avoid the traffic.

While waiting for Tony the Mechanic for 5pm, I installed our new Lithium Ion house battery.

Took out the Group 31 AGM house battery (69 lbs):

...and replaced it with a Group 24 LiFePo4 battery (26 lbs):

Direct replacement.

We ordered this battery from a company called Alberta Lithium.
Their batteries are about half the price of other brands like Dakota or Battle Born.
The price of 100Ah battery was $450 (plus shipping).

https://www.ablithium.ca/products#!/12-V-100ah-Deep-Cycle-LiFePo4

We ordered this battery in April, and just got it now.

I will have a separate post about our battery and charging system on ZAMBONI.

We also had a problem with the tachometer not working.  I traced the wire from the tach sensor to the engine panel and discovered a loose wire at the panel.

Tony the Mechanic called just before 5pm saying he is running late on a job and can't make it.

So I tackled the engine myself.  

I opened the first bleed point on the fuel system.  No amount of engine cranking or fuel pump lever pumping would get fuel flowing past the primary filter.  I took the fuel hose off the fuel tank (you can see it in the above picture) and blew in the tank thinking if there was any crud in the tank blocking the fuel pickup, this would clear it.  Same issue.  So I now started tracing fuel lines.  I discovered that the hose clamp on the fuel line between primary filter and the fuel pump was not tightened at all!  This air leak would explain the shifts in RPM as the fuel pump started loosing prime with an air bubble.

As soon as I tightened this clamp, I was able to bleed the entire fuel system in a couple of minutes.

I ran the engine for a 20 minutes @1500 RPM without issue. 
However, there was a LOT of white smoke coming out of the exhaust.

So now I could test the alternator charging system.

Using the Victron Connect APP, I could see that the charger was dumping current into the new Lithium battery:

I figured this new battery was maybe 80% charged out of the box, so the alternator was dumping ~30 amps of current to the battery in bulk charge mode.

The charger profile for LiFePO4 battery chemistry is to do a bulk charge at highest amperage until the absorption voltage of 14.2V is reached.  This took about an hour (two beers).  Once we got close to 14.2 volts, the charging amperage started going down:

Then the charger switched from bulk to absorption charge:

Absorption charge keep a constant voltage (14.2v) and decreases the amperage until the battery won't take any more charge.

I figured this would go on for a couple of hours.  Unfortunately I didn't have a AC Charger to leave on the battery overnight.

I did notice that the alternator ran somewhat warm to the touch, but the DC-DC Charge Controller ran VERY hot.  I THINK and HOPE this is normal.

Problem solved.
Saved some money.
Learned a bunch!