Sunday, February 8, 2015

Boat Maintenance

I was thinking about boat maintenance today.  I think about boat maintenance every day! All day! 

There is a little bit of oil in the engine pan.  I think the rear seal is leaking.  Just wondering if I can replace that without taking the whole engine out of the boat.

The mechanic who replaced the exhaust manifold thinks I need a new mixing elbow.  Those things aren’t cheap!

Bad mixing elbow?

Also wondering if I should be adding a new solar panel to increase energy into the boat… or putting more insulation in the fridge to reduce our power consumption.

Another one somewhere?
We’ve taken ownership of the varnish on the teak… but we haven’t got it quite right yet.  Looks good from 20 feet.
Nice and shiny - from a distance!

We’ve seen all kinds of cracks in the gelcoat.  What should we be doing?  We’ve ordered a patch kit but not sure that we don’t need something more.

Little chips... not dirt
The anti syphon on the engine seemed to get stuck the other day and water was burbling out into the engine pan.  Took it apart, cleaned it, blew through it and it seems OK now.  Should I replace it?  Should at least move the voltage regulator... it is right below the leak.

Shop Vac is handy to get the water out of the engine pan
While I was looking in the engine room the flashlights both gave up so I took them apart to try to undo the corrosion damage.  Got one working.  Still hopeful on the other.  Took a while to test the batteries because one of the leads from the multimeter broke. 

Top one works now... not giving up on the other... yet
I decided to change the mooring line but it was coming unravelled so I cut the end off, taped it and took it to the stove to melt the end.  Noticed that one burner of the stove is all full of soot.  Have to figure that out.  How to get the burner burning properly?  And speaking of the stove… this morning Pam smelled propane… and it wasn’t me.  I went to make breakfast and the gas was all gone so I had to switch tanks.  Now, we knew that tank was almost empty… but why did it run out just then and why did Pam smell propane?  I did the soapy water test and couldn’t find any leaks.

Leaks?

Unravelling mooring line

Not burning properly

This one's better

Got some rust coming from some of the screws holding the stainless steel strip to the rub rail.  Need to replace them soon.

And those issues are just the ones that come to mind.  There are so many more things to think about… sometimes it feels overwhelming.

Should get at the rust on the stainless... and there's a bit of slime building up at the water line.  Jump in and rub it off with a scotch pad.  Always something to do.

So I was trying to decide which task to undertake when Pam called.  She was defrosting the freezer and when she opened the hatch to get a breeze, the hinge broke.  So I had to drill out a couple of rivets and replace them to fix the hinge.

New rivets
When I was finished I was exhausted.  Time for a beer.

3 comments:

  1. Time to sell ... or just make sure you never run out of beer. Read your blog with my coffee this morning. The ensuing chuckles were just what I needed to ameliorate the effects of last night's concert at the Bococho Beach Club.

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  2. This morning I dropped a turnbuckle part from the lifelines into 50 feet of water. Another gift to Neptune. Also noticed that the wind direction indicator has stopped working.

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  3. Nice to be reminded it's not all cocktails and sunbathing down there as we're freezing up her in the northeast! Have a sundowner for us!!!

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