akriverrat
Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2002
- Messages
- 588
bought used inboard jet boat 7 years ago.had been repowered and jet upgraded to 2 stage year befor i got it. cool... engine and drive hardly broken in and will not have to worry about that for awhile. not... battery and cables were so undersized starting cold engine an adventure. replaced. blower housing broken. replaced same style and location. next time out blower housing broken same place. after much puzzling discovered shift cable core anchored to hull and cable sheath to shift arm and sheath moved instead of core and ripped blower loose when shifting to reverse. changed cable to more normal set up with tie bar to get right motion but had to relocate bilge blower anyway. got in a hurry one day and did not secure my bow line. sucked it into the intake,wrapped around shaft and tore out my seals.(lots more to that story and funny now.)not a problem, a kodiak pump takes an hour or so to disassemble/reassemble. wrong. no grease used when pump assembled by previous owner. any grease better than no grease i have read and firmly believe. 2 years down the road everything was stuck together. two weeks later i had done a one to two hour job. inlaws come to visit. launch boat. will not start. inline fuses on ignition. melted down holders. cut wires and did without because everybody waiting. worried whole time about by-passing fuses. wired in new holders when we got home.(this issue will be revisited.) first launch following spring no start. new battery,plugs,cap rotor,coil,module,and i rebuilt distributor...no help. blew fuse on blower,changing fuse,touched wire on ignition switch. loose.tightened screw. problem solved. 200$ later. now have spare everything and new battery in land cruiser. in june started going through a coil wire every 2 weeks. finally replaced with solid wire(more later.) and boat constantly stank of gas. thought it was a worn out fill hose so decided it could wait till winter. only fill that tank to half till then. october and 80 miles from anywhere started blowing inline fuses in ignition circuit. used up all spares and everything in block befor i got home. same trip shifter handle stripped its splines. did without reverse. no fun. shifter/throttle control a morse unit that uses a steering cable to shift. made in the netherlands. had to call morse and have them call west marine to tell wm that yes, it existed and for wm to order it and morse would have it shipped from europe. took out gas tank to change fill hose. galvanized steel tank with a little rust. wire brush and cold galvanize the whole tank. re-install tank with new hose and forget. spring,nice day,gas in 5 gal cans from fall trip. might as well pour some in refreshed tank. go back in house for thermos. why does it smell so gassy when i put coffee in boat? open engine cover and have bilge full of gas. mad rush removal of tank and find the pinhole in bottom that i wire brushed the plug of rust and dirt out of but had not seen in the dark, after work, in december. tempo saddle tank. new plastic tempo same measurements. order. time to put it in. old tank had round bottom new tank square. another weekend gone making them fit and with new popup handle filler caps to boot. and new ss vents. had to relocate vents and last person to do that(3 sets of vent holes in my deck now)had used carbon steel nuts.aluminum boat, zamak vents,iron nuts,saltwater. do the math. going to go out in boat to watch fireworks on july 4 so on july 2 decide to change plugs. snap one off in head. pull head to get bits of cermic out. all exhaust valves are tuliped. pull other head. same and one valve seat broken and ready to fall out. order rebuilt heads. put new heads on. put on rockers. nuts are NOT lock nuts. metric 8mm? nobody has ever heard of these and i am still looking for a set. in the interim(100+ hours so far)i am using the originals that i squeezed in the vice till the holes were oval. (1987 4.3l non vortec. anybody?) about the 24th back in. missed the fireworks. check the timing and for s&gs i throttle up to see it advance(never looked befor when checking timing)and it advanced 0 deg from idle to 3800 rpm. called kodiak. they sent me a copy of the delco voyager distributor installation instructions. cut the looped wire on the initial timing plug and i had spark advance. it had been wrong since the guy installed the engine. and i was only using half as much fuel as befor and gained 400rpm and the wiring diagram showed no fuses in the ignition circuit(leftover from the old motor)and i got rid of them. october 23th,nice crisp fall morning after a week of rain. trailer on down to my local gas seller and those neat flush popup fill cap handles are frozen in their neat little holes. used half my coffee getting the little buggers up so could fill the tank. last summer...well...not too bad...made a semi hardtop to replace rotted canvas.2 sides and back 2/3s roof aluminum,front 1/3 canvas so can open to stand up and drive. about 1/2 what custom canvas top would cost and will last near forever. cut out window opening in sides and took them to local glass guys. they talked me into new type mounting gaskets that actually ends up with inside of glass flush with outside of panel.less likely to crack window if cabin flexes. told me they were cut different size in relation to hole than normal way. 1/8"smaller all war round. they cut them 1/16 bigger than piece out of hole even after i had told them saw curf less than 1/8". sure made it hard to get them in. thought i had engine problem once but it was just throttle cable hold down bolt loose. yesterday,first time out,launch boat,fire engine,running on starboard tank because i overfilled it. engine coughs and dies. look down throat of carb and pump throttle. mostly water coming out of accelerator pump. empty seperator,switch tanks. runs ,coughs dies. runs longer on each attempt. then nothing. crank and crank and nothing. it dawns on me the electric fuel pump is not running. the ground wire plug had fallen off. never done that befor and had to wait untill i had a fuel problem. fired up,went out,warmed up on good tank. battery charged,lets try that other tank again. engine dies. drain filter. engine dies. drain filter but no water this time. engine dies. back to ramp on good tank and home. try to pump water out of bad tank with electric pump at home but nothing will come out.(used power from bilge pump for this as there is oil psi switch on fuel pump and discover when accidently short to ground that yahoo who put pump in did not fuse circuit. something else to fix.)pull hose at selector valve and cannot blow back through it. open up panel to tank and remove hose at tank and hose is clear. attempt to un-screw dip tube but it is permenantly installed. oh well. pulled what looked like silicon sealer worm of crap out of the end of the tube and tried disolving in gas line antifreeze, wd 40,pb blaster. nope, so blew remainder back into tank with compressed air. will not run on that tank when my life depends on it till i run the gas out and clean it. oh yeh, went to my local nap... nameless store for cap and rotor last time. when i changed cap and rotor this spring discovered they had given me a 3.0L rotor last time. same except 3/16" shorter tip. explains why those coil wires were burning up. picked up another 100 rpm...all done... left out a lot. mostly the stupid human tricks. would you believe the bank required a marine surveyers report befor they loaned on this and he said it was in excellent condition. sure saved me some $ paying for that survey. gotta love em.
I guess thats why they say the second <br />best day in a boaters life is when he sells it.
