Saturday, July 26, 2008

Success on the water.

I believe when I last posted, I still needed a trim solenoid, to change the lower unit oil, and to mount the control box. Well, as the title suggests, that has all be done now and the boat has seen water. Of course, it wasn't all smooth sailing...

First of all the solenoid. I found one at Oreilly's Auto Parts for $17, unfortunately I had lost one of the post nuts along the way and couldn't find a proper replacement. I found some machine screw nuts, and decided to try just jamming it in place. After all, I didn't need to actually ever get it back off. It was a spliced wire after all, I could just cut it again if needed. I experimented on the old solenoid first, and it work without any real issues after the initial cross threading. But after only a couple turns on the new solenoid...CRACK!!!...there goes the new casing. $17 worth of stupid right there.

So at this point, I decide to do what I should have done int he first place. The old Mariner also had a 3 wire system, just with two separate solenoids. It wasn't that hard to figure out the wiring, so after about 30 minutes I had a working trim system. Wish I would have just done that to begin...oh well better a $17 mistake than $70...

Next came the lower unit fluid. I was a little concerned about this because I didn't quite remember the condition of the lower unit after all this time. I knew my Dad had the seals replaced 10 or so years ago, but wasn't sure of anything else. I guess technically, I should have started worrying about 7 winters ago, but anyway.... Fortunately, I unscrewed the plug and nice black oil came out...no water...no milk... So it full of fresh oil now...

Lastly, the control box. A couple of screw later and it was done. Still need to be moved up a little as the lever hits the bimini track going into reverse. Don't need much throttle in reverse most of the time, but I don't want to not have it there if I ever do need it to get out of trouble...

So, now that the three remaining tasks were done, I could hit the water. Finally got around to registering it and took it to the lake Friday at lunch. Only made one quick loop around the lake, but was pleasantly surprised by the performance... It cranked up fairly nicely. I checked it was watering out the exhaust relief ports as I idled through the No Wake zone. It came up on plane fairly quickly...just a touch of prop ventilation as it's planing. That and the fact I'm getting no bow rise makes me think I should try to lower the motor a hole, but I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble or not. It went 35mph(gps) at 5200 rpm. So it's close enough to call good... I have a couple of kinks to work out...little hard turning one direction at speed and gets hung on something turned all the way one direction...but other than that, it's in good shape.

At this point, it time to rub and polish and replace carpet and seats. Then, after getting a couple of trolling motor batts, I'll be ready to actually fish out of the thing...or sell it.

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Sunday, June 1, 2008

It's alive!!!

Well, as mentioned, after getting the trim running it was time to start putting things back together. So I put in the new impeller and reattached the lower unit. At first I though Murphy was out to get me again, but he just made a quick visit and then left, I'm happy to say. The first issue was I was missing the impeller key...it wasn't in my parts bowl. After rechecking a few times I decided to take a quick look around where the old Bayliner was parked when I removed the LU. I wasn't expecting to find anything, but after 30 seconds or so, there it was. Then the only other issue was that the impeller didn't want to fit on the shaft at first. Hit the shaft with little 320 grit and then it slid right on.

After that, it went smoothly...too smootly. The only thing that was even somewhat difficult was getting the shift linkage reconnected. And even that wasn't that bad. I was fully expecting some sort of failure or problem... Put the muffs back on and cranked it up. No water from the exhaust relief ports. Motor not getting hot though, so water must be getting through...finally ran it at a fast idle for a bit and apparently the thermostat finally opened and it started spitting out the ports. No pee hole in 1977, so that's the only indication I've got. Still have to do a final check in the water...but thus far it looks good.

And you might have noticed I mentioned that I cranked it up. That is without the aid of a squirt of fuel down the carbs. I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that it wouldn't crank up without help... Well before starting on the lower unit and trim, I pulled some Sea-Foam into the carbs and it sat for like 3 weeks. I also fixed a badly dry-rotted fuel line that went to from the fuel pump to the crank case. I think this is the fix that actually made a difference. Before, when I choked the motor, I didn't really notice any change in the cranking process. Now, while choking, I can tell a definite slowdown in cranking as the vacuum pulled make it harder to turn the motor over. Anyway, I gave it a squirt of gas to get it running the first time after sitting with the Sea-Foam and then ran the gas out of the carbs. Took a little cranking, but it finally fired up on it's own. So I'm going to try it running for awhile and see how it goes...

However, there has to be some type of setback doesn't there. I had to unhook some wires from the trim solinoid to run them to the control box and whilst doing that the side of the solinoid busted and one of the posts broke clean off. I'm going to try and solder the post back on and silicon it all up first. Hopefully that will work...it not like it's a critical system or anything. If not I guess I just need to buy a new solinoid. The OMC part is $40. I figure I can find a different replacement if I look...

The final thing I've done in this update is break out the epoxy. Time to work on the bottom gouges. I finally took some pictures of them in various states of repair. One of them was fairly deep, but even it seemed to fill fairly well. I just sanded a bit with some 120 grit, cleaned with denature alcholhol and slapped on some fairly thick epoxy. I just put a glaze over the scrapped up keel. I still need to sand the final result once it cures fully. We'll have to see how it goes, but I think it will be okay...

So we should be ready for a water test pretty soon. Then time to move on to the interior...

From Project Fisher


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Monday, May 26, 2008

Here's you sign...

Well, here's my sign at least. If a power trim unit is acting like the manual release valve is loosened and won't trim properly, it's entirely possible that the manual release valve is loosened and thus the motor won't trim properly. :)

Back to the beginning of the day. The kids and I went out early today, around 9:30. Boy do they get whiney quick. "I'm hot.", "I'm sweaty", "When can we go in.". I don't know what they're going to do when it really get's hot... Anyway, got the motor back off and replace the leaky o-ring. The operation seemed to be a success. So I bolted the motor back on the boat...but no trim.

I spend the better part of two hours trying to figure out why it wouldn't fully trim. It would move on the lower trim cylinders, but the main center cylinder acted like it wasn't doing anything...it wasn't pressurized at all. I thought it might be a hydaulic line that was crushed a bit when the motor when through the Bayliner transom, but taking that off revealed it to be allow flow still...

So I struggled with it. I pulled the motor on more time to check that the trim motor was engaging the pump correctly. I tried adding fluid...but it really didn't seem low. It just wasn't working...

Finally tonight, I had a revelation. There is an manual release. I was treating the fill screw on the fluid resoviour a bleed screw and had forgotten about the actual manual release/bleed screw that I apparently loosened about 5 years ago. Went out with a flashlight and had it trimming up and down within 30 seconds.

So I can finally move on from the trim. Lower unit time...

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Sunday, May 18, 2008

Frustration

And now frustration starts to set in...

Nothing serious, just very slow progress...and when it seems like I will start to make some decent progress, little thing stall it out again.

Things I've done since the last post...


  • Removed mercury control box/cables
  • Loosened Challengar steering
  • Removed omc contros from Bayliner
  • Removed Johnson from Bayliner
  • Replace trim motor on Johnson
  • Temporarily mounted Johnson to Challengar
  • It seems like I'm hardly getting anything done...either it's raining or Elizabeth or I have some other obligation. PTO meeting, planting a garden, etc.



Anyway, I got a couple of days to work on it and got the above list accomplished. Unfortunatly after working a few more hours today, it's still only temporatily hung. The reason being, the trim motor is leaking like a sieve past the oring on the bottom. So I order a new oring in the hopes that will fix the problem. If it doesn't, I'll try to build an "oring helper" out of gasket maker on the bottom of the trim motor. But I really don't think that will help either since we're dealing with a pressurized system... We'll see I guess....

Here are a few pics...got kind of dark on me, but you get the idea...





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Saturday, May 3, 2008

Catapults and Come-alongs

First a quick comment on the title. The previous post was "Tower of Power"...and as this post is about removing the inline 6 Mariner, I thought of laying seige on a tower of a castle. Thus the catapult reference. Yes, my brain really does work that strangly.

Anyway, from the remainder of the title, you can guess how the motor was removed. And not just a come-along, but in in true redneck fashion, it was attached to a chain on a tree limb. Details after the pics...

From Project FisherFrom Project Fisher


Unfortunately, I didn't really get any work in progress pictures. I was too busy trying to work somewhat safely while making sure 3 kids didn't kill themselves or each other while they were playing in the driveway... But as you can see, in the end I did manage to remove the motor from it's host.

Yesterday, I took the time to remove all the wiring and cables from the motor. Labeling them nicely in case someone plans to hook them back up again. Today everything went fairly uneventfully until it came time to remove the steering cable/bar. I knew the bar was bent since I couldn't turn the steering wheel fully left, and it did not want to come out. I "tapped" it about 3 inches with the chunch of 4x4 you see on the back of the boat and then couldn't budge it anymore. So out came the hammer, I figured it wasn't come out any other way... Tapped it flush with the motor mount with the hammer and then used a socket extension to tap it about 5 inches in. Still had a ways to go...and it still wasn't budging by hand. Searched all about for something else to use to get it the rest of the way and finally found a 12" piece of threaded rod, which got it the rest of the way.

So, now that's it was free, I layed it gently in a trailer and covered it with a tarp...to be dealt with later. I think my steering is going to need to be replaced though. Although I think that would have been the case anyway as it wasn't working freely to begin with. I may be able to use the steering from my old Bayliner, but I'm not terribly hopeful. It's a couple of feet longer and I don't know if I'll be able to route it in a non-binding manner. We'll have to see on that one...

One a side note, I've ordered my impeller for the 85 and also got some muffs and ran it for a bit with those. Still having with it not wanting to crank without a splash of gas down the carbs. I tried to draw up some Seafoam into the bowls, but am not sure on how effective that was. I think I'll probably go ahead and pull the carbs, so can clean them properly. Better to be safe than sorry...

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Tower of Power

You might notice all of these blog entries are from the same day. I'm actually doing some catch-up blogging. These are the events from the past week or so...

So, I've now purchased a 1986 Challenger 172 Fish & Ski. It has a 1987 Mariner in need of a lower unit and otherwise unknown condition, an almost new Motorguide Pro Series 70lb thrust trolling motor, hummingbird transducers, some oxidized gelcoat, and a couple of pretty decent fresh scars on the hull in need of patching. In dire need of interior work, but seeming solid overall in regards to floor and transom. So where to begin...


As stated earlier, the original plan was to pull the Mariner and put my old 85HP Johnson on there. Well, the pull of that tall inline 6 Mariner was too great. It cranked right up and seemed to idle okay...plus a prop-shaft rated 115 versus a powerhead rated 85 got me greedy. I started looking into lower units...and power trims as the motor was missing the trim. Ended up finding a guy local who would sell me a used lower unit for $300. And I won an ebay auction for the trim...$225 shipped. Wasn't wanting to spend the money, but decided to put my rc cars up for sale to offset the cost.

Well, I couldn't get the lower unit until next week, so I thought it would be prudent to check the compression before putting down the money. Should have done it before buying the power trim too... I think you see where this is going. Everything was going well until cylinder #6. It only had 30psi. There was still and slim chance that it could just be a stuck ring...but then I saw metal on the spark plug, #6 was toast. So now I've got to resell a trim unit, but I think I should be able to get my money back...maybe loose a bit on shipping... At least I didn't buy the lower unit yet...

So now I'm back to my original plan. I've got all wires and cables unhooked from the Mariner, ready to pull it. And I've been prepping my 85. I'm having a little trouble getting it to start without a shot of gas down the carb throat. Once started it idles fine, but just doesn't want to pull fuel to being with. I'm guessing a slightly clogged jet... I'm hoping to get away with not pulling the carbs...but we'll see...

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Project "I wanna go fishing"

One of the bad things about buying a ski boat at the beginning of spring is that while you're out on the water all you see is fishing boats and bass boats. This coupled with the fact that I was wanting something I could fish out of when I started looking at boats again anyway, leads to the following...


From Project Fisher


Whilst bringing the Glastron to the dealer to get a speaker and the hour meter fixed under warrenty, I seem to have accidently bought a bass boat. Well, technicaly it's a fish and ski, but you get the point. I mentioned to the service manager as he was helping unhook my boat that I was looking for a bass boat that needed a motor and he brought me to this 1986 Challenger...needed a lower unit on the 115 Mariner. Said $800 would get it off the lot. Later in the day, I wrote them a $700 check and dragged it home. So begins "Project Fisher".


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