Up to 20 Real Journey employees, deck crew and contractors have been hard at work since May 30 sprucing up the historic steamship as part of its annual maintenance survey.
The 95-year-old ship is out of the water on a slipway at Kelvin Heights for an overhaul of the engines, two boilers and the ship-side valves and for painting of the hull.
John Caukwell, chief engineer since 1982, said the survey was progressing well; it was on time and the end was in sight.
All machinery, valves and pipes sent for repair were due back today.
"We've reached the stage where everything that is going to be opened is opened and we're a quarter of the way getting it back together again.
By this time next week, there won't be much left to do."
One of the most challenging aspects of the survey has been repairing the air pump crankshaft.
It was removed for the first time in 20 years and sent to Gough Bros, in Invercargill.
Plumbers, builders, electricians and marine engineers were on board and working on their assigned tasks.
Mr Caukwell said everything was unique to the ship and hand-fitted, right down to the nuts and bolts.
If a component wore out, it was removed and measured and a replacement was custom made.
"A lot of the parts have been built from scratch.
They made and installed a new main engine crankshaft a few years ago."
Maintenance costs depended each year on what needed to be done, but ran into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Future surveys were planned ahead while present maintenance was conducted.
TSS Earnslaw slips back into Lake Wakatipu this Friday and will be operational on July 3.
"It's moving [along] every day.
We've got people working on it all the time," Mr Caukwell said.
"It's starting to look nice and shiny in all sorts of places.
We're working on keeping it going another 50 years and there's no reason why it can't."
