If it ain't one thing it is another (boating is sure fun)

[Numbknots]

Well as posted earlier, first it was the outboard, and after getting that fixed we ended up in Quartermaster Harbor (Vashon Island) I have not done much anchoring so I figured that was a good place to practice.

I had the Admiral at the Flybridge helm and I dropped the anchor in about 22ft of water, and after it hit the bottom I added about 20ft, and had her back down on it she set good so I added another 100ft and shut the engines off. Just for grins I decided I was going to pull it and do another set for practice.

Port engine fired right up, Starboard engine not a sound. (two hours later) discovered that corrosion had set in around the fuse that protects the "alarm buzzer and powers the Fuel shut-down solenoid. cleaned fuses (after finding the dang thing). One look at the admiral I suggested that she pour us a glass of wine and enjoy the sunshine! Well we still wanted to do another set so I turned on the depth sounder (nothing) another 30 minutes of Trouble shooting determed that the whole fuse bus under the fly bridge had more corrosion and I must have twisted that fuse too.

Darn I am getting a lot of practice trouble shooting and fixing! Good thing I have half my shop aboard and nothing better to do.

As a guy it felt good when the Admiral said "I am sure glad you know how to work on this stuff! (Whew I thought she was going to ask me to take her to the nearest bus station!!

Well got to go and start the Barbeque and burn a steak and cook some corn! Life is good and I am loving it!

See ya all on the Water

Tim (MV Numb Knots)



PS: I am getting 100% EVDO Broadband coverage with my Verizon Aircard in the Back of the Cove

[mkronmal]

If it makes you feel better I just bought all new cooling hoses for both engines, $700. :shock: Add another $100 for AWAB 316 hose clamps.

I'm replacing all exhaust manifolds and elbows, oil pressure senders, fuel filters, fuel filler hoses and deck fills, zincs, and spark plugs. Did I mention I have two of my windows out that I need to strip and refinish? Or that I need to get to the ahul out for bottom paint and shaft packing? And we are leaving on the 3rd for 10 days. Oh yeah, no stress...

[heymagic]

Ok, I got this customer with the worlds worst boat luck. 2 years ago his starter failed, Coasties towed him in to Westport. Fixed starter. Next his coupler fails, Coasties tow him in to Westport. Then the carb float sticks open and floods motor...yup, coasties tow him in. This month the battery terminal melts, someone else tows him in, new battery ( out of town). Goes right back out fishing and the port manifold plugs , hoses catch fire. He pours water on engine, thinks it is still battery problem. Someone tows him in. Tows boat to shop, I see burnt hoses and burnt paint on manifold...easy one. Yeah right...302 OMC. Only OMC makes manifolds, been on back order for 2 years or so. Just got in to Seattle. $1000 in manifolds and connectors. One rusted manifold bolt, one frozen broken spark plug, never ends. All back together, lower drive, hear hissing noise. Drive trim hoses are too long, Reinell stuffs them behind exhaust 'Y" and one is melted. Can't remove hose from transom shield with out pulling motor. Hose is long enough to cut out bad part and clamp. Keep eye on hose for leaking I sez. He replies that at least he finally got a kicker, been our joke for a couple years now. He pats his 15 hp Evinrude hanging on a bracket. I look and see bracket is loose at transom. Look inside, the shop that installed bracket 3 years ago never used washers on the inside. 5/16 bolts , no washers, backing plate or nuthin. Nuts are pulling into transom. He never used bracket until this month. Another trip and motor would have pulled through transom. I put in 2 aluminum plates....pat him on back, "no charge" good luck fishing this weekend (Port Townsend). He replies " I don't care if I get a bite, I'm just hoping I don't break down"

This is totally true , no embellishment. BTW boat is a "92 with a 302 OMC, 790 hour, always salted, sometimes flushed and just lost the original manifolds.

[Numbknots]

Ok,

I feel better now! Well we survived our first anchoring out overnight. I never would have guessed that I (the tough one) would be so uneasy sleeping??? I had the Foruno GPS map on all night on the flybridge so I could get up (pitch dark) and check for drift. and also my Garmin Handheld scaled all the way in and sitting on the window ledge in the aft stateroom. (Finally got to sleep about 2am) The admiral says she only got 2hours sleep (bummer) Well at 7:30am both GPS tracks looked like a lot of scribbling (in a small area) on an ectasketch.

Gen set started right up (fixed that a couple of weeks ago)
Outboard started right up (waterpump working fine) took dog for pee break and land walk)

Saltwater washdown pump worked great (replaced that a month ago)
Today we are going to stay put and relax! Tommorow we venture north toward Port Ludlow and Port Townsend and points in between.

You would think that Used boat buyers would get a good deal when they buy a boat that the PO had just replaced "nearly everything", well as we all no it is endless what needs repair or replacement.

Guess the real reason for a bigger boat is to have more room for a Shop aboard and storage of spare parts. (Makes one really look hard at what it will take to make ready for a trip to "Alaska"???

Tim

[linedog]

When we got our 32 home I spent two days tracing "bad" bulbs and things, only to find the upper helm fuse block all corroded. So like you I took out all the fuses and cleaned everything then put them all back and now everything works! Spent a half a day putting all the other stuff back together that I had taken apart to fix the "bad" bulbs. :evil:

[Numbknots]

Does anyone have any experience using the 'spray corrosion inhibitor' on fuse blocks??? or any other products?

Tim

[SomeSailor]

I've sprayed gallons of the stuff in the military... :)

But you don't want corrosiojn preventative compund on switches, contacts or fuses. The material will seep into the connection and eventually cause issues. Just keeping them dry and cleaned from time to time would be my advice.

[mkronmal]

You can always use some dielectric grease on the contacts to prevent (really postpone) corrosion. I'd go with that over something like T9 or WD40. Besides the fire risk, it would last basically forever until disturbed.

[Numbknots]

SS,

Any experience with using dielectric grease on fuse blocks?

Tim

[heymagic]

A touch of silglide (silicon grease) or die-electric grease is helpful. Really a guy ought to change fuses yearly. They don't wear out so to speak, but you would then keep then terminals clean and maybe spot a problem early. Problem being a very dark fuse terminal indicating heat for resistance. We routinely see dark terminals that loose tension from being too hot. Brass gets hot and softens, connection goes to hell and voila..no VHF or depth or even worse...vibrating mattress... ;)

[Numbknots]

Dang Gene, you never told me you had one of those vibrating mattresses on the ol Chriscraft?

OK, next project: I don't like the amount of capacity that I am getting from my 2 8d house bank. I know that 4 6volt golf cart batteries 2ea in series would nearly double the AH capacity. What brand of Batteries and Who would you recommend getting to make up the cabling if I got the lengths figured out? I will make up new epoxy reinforced boxes and plan to R and R.

Tim

relaxing at anchor in Poulsbo Harbor, Dreaming of how to best spend the Kids inheritance.

[mkronmal]

Blue Sea Systems makes some prefab boxes for the cart batteries. Cabling is real easy to do yourself. There is a hammer actuated crimper that runs about $15 last I checked. Real easy job to do the battery cables if you are the least handy. I may even have an article somewhere that talks to it.

[heymagic]

I'd get batteries at WM, they are usually close by when needed. We used to get cables at NAPA or an eletcrical rebuild shop in Hoquiam. The above mentioned cable crimper works well just remember to heat shrink the terminals.

[SomeSailor]

Never thought about it like that Gene... but that's great advice. Even if you had to drive a little ways to get them initially... when they crap out... you're likely gonna be in some port away from home and West Marine isn't gonna be too far away.

[Go Aweigh2452]

yeah but... if you have two batteries, it would be rare to lose both at the same time. Most battery problems are found at the dock most times anyway. Periodically check the battery levels and output during your boating season should make you aware of a potential failure too. Then you could have a spare at the ready or at least one of those battery boosters with cables to get underway?

[heymagic]

With 6v batts, if you lose 1 you lose 2....hard to keep a single spare 6v charged for backup. Most experts ( I'm not one ) say it's best to keep co-joined batts the same brand and size. So I recommend WM only for most likely nearness when replacement is needed. Nothing ever fails when it's convenient.... money wise probably Costco would be best or somepace similar, but no where around most marine ports. Batteries fail way more often than most people think. We replace several every year that are less than 6 mos old. All brands. Sears, Interstate, AC/Delco, Schwabs doesn't seem to matter. Generally they just all of a sudden go dead overnite, recharge and a couple days later dead again. Kind of ridiculous considering how much they cost nowadays....

[Numbknots]

Thanks guys!

I am fortunate to have seperate bank for "Starting" and seperate battery for starting the Generator. I also carry a 400amp boost starter battery. As for the cables, Thanks Gene I forgot about the hammer crimper. I also have a Nicropress crimper that makes awful good crimps. I am assumming copper braided welding cable is still the best way to go for cable?

The prefab boxes sound like a great Idea and much quicker cleaner to deal with. Like I have nothing else to do but do fibreglass.

Tim

[bradvo]

I always use dielectric on my shore power cables and will begin using it on my my misc sending units on motors after I clean them all up.
Brad

[mkronmal]

I wouldn't go with welding wire in the marine environment. I'd use some Ancor 2/0 or so (not sure how long a run you are looking at) fully tinned, UL1426 wire. Its expensive, but it will not fail you. I'd not use any wire not fully tinned on a boat for even non-essential usage. You think your fuse corrosion is an issue? Try untinned wire in bilge areas.

BTW- They do sell some prefab ones, but as I said before, its easy to makeup cables yourself.

Cheers!

[SomeSailor]

yeah but... Most battery problems are found at the dock most times anyway.

Yeah... when you turn the key and hear the dreaded "CLICK" "RATTLE" "GRIND"

And about the untinned wire... while I agree with the advice, I can tell ya how disappointed I was when I cut back the cables on my Bayliner and found that NONE of it was tinned wire. I also did some further investigation and discovered that the AC wiring was the same way.

While I don't argue that it's better to use marine cabling... Bayliner could learn that same lesson...

[mkronmal]

That's one of the small differences in making a "value" product for mass consumption. The cost of using tinned wire throughout a boat would add a couple of thousand dollars. Do you think a consumer would pay for that option?

[SomeSailor]

Yeah. That's all part of the deal though I suppose. If you were talking about a trailered boat, I'd say you could probably get away just fine with non-tinned wire, but I'd imagine if you're in the salt environment 24/7 ... you'd be much better off in the long run.

[Randygh]

OK guys, I've got to show some ignorance and ask what is "tinned" wire? Is it copper strands wrapped in tin sheathin then covered with the plastic coating? My Carver's old wiring was plain coated, copper strands and I replaced most of the wiring to the helm with new larger, gauge copper.

[SomeSailor]

The wire is just hot plated with solder essentially as it's manufactured. It keeps the corrosion from wicking up inside a wire. The ABYC recommends tinned wire on all marine applications.

It's pricey though. :)

[mkronmal]

Randy,

Not quite.

Proper wiring for a boat is made up up a high quantity of small wires bundled into a single insulator. This is known as "stranded" wire.The larger the number of wires, the greater the flexibility and resistance to breakage from vibration.

In a fully tinned situation each individual strand is "tinned", or coated with tin before it is bundled with the others and sheathed in an insulator. This is done to mitigate the oxidation of the copper conducters.

If you have ever soldered wires you probably first tinned the entire bundle of each wires first, then used solder to join the bundles together.

About the only game in town is Ancor. They essentially have a monopoly, but their quality is #1.

P.S. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use solid core (opposite of stranded, single wire) wiring in a boat.

[Randygh]

Thanks for the education.

I never had problems with oxidation of the copper wiring in my Tolly and the Carver's wiring is in great shape. Since the boat is stored on the trailer and not in a moist environment, corrosion is virtually nonexistant.

[Numbknots]

Megga dittos on the advantage of tinned wire! As for the Battery "box" cables, The routing is all on a shelf in a very clean/dry area and the flexibility of Braided welding lead wire would make a much more sanitary job out of Series/Parallel connections (heat shrunk, secured/ends) I will not be changing the other routing to/from the isolator/ inverter/charger/anchor winch etc.

Gene, You are definately correct about "keeping batteries equally charged when hooked in series. I am told that there are some Marine smart chargers out now that sample the individual batteries and insure that the 'weekest' cells get charge and brought up evenly and that you are even able to see the difference on the "remote readout"

Tim