Sorry for the neglect

It has been way to long since I posted an update on here.  Things have been a bit crazy since November of last year.  I put the boat to sleep for the winter and life has been going non-stop out of the water since.  My wife and I sold our house in December.  Shortly after that, we found out that we were pregnant.  We have since found out we are having a girl.  We should be closing on our new house in the next week or two and then the work on it begins.  We are gutting it and installing all new electric.  This year will be a busy one with not much work getting done on the boat.  I have pushed my plans for the boat off until later this fall and into next spring.  I hope to really finish up on the boat next year.

Updates

Just an FYI.  I will post individual updates throughout the winter related to my progress but I will also keep checking off my list I posted before.  You can check there to see how far I am.

Finally doing engine work

Well, to get one thing off my list I decided that I was going to get the manifolds done last weekend.  Luckily I had the help of a friend that had done this a couple times before.  He started on the first engine and showed me the way.  I went ahead and started to work on the 2nd.  We were able to get both engines torn down prior to the rain coming in Saturday night.  Needless to say this was an interesting experience.  The Kings Craft company must have put the engine into the boats fully built.  There is a battery shelf on the outside of both engines that don't allow enough clearance to slide the exhaust manifolds off the bolts.  My helper took a grinder and cut 3 inches off the battery shelves so we could slide them out.  The outer manifold on both engines were the original manifolds from Chrysler and had a stamp of 10/15/1970 on them.  We originally planned to reuse all the end plates from the current setup.  Upon removing one of the original manifolds, we found that the end plate was completely split in two.  That had me needing to order an end plate.  Our current status is one engine is complete.  We have yet to fire that engine back up as we are waiting to finish the other one.  I will post some pictures of our ongoing progess in the next post.  I hope to have it all back together Thursday evening.  After that I am going to completely drain the oil out of the port engine and try to remove all the water from the oil.  I will have to change the oil a fw times to accomplish this.

The boating season is almost over.

Well, I haven't posted anything in a good while.  Things have just been crazy in my non-boating life.  We will be heading down this evening and for most of the weekend.  I want to fill up the boat so we are good to go for winterizing.  I will go ahead and get the fuel stabilizer put in so we don't have to worry about that.  I have a list of things that I want to get done for the spring season.  Here is my list of things I want to do.


Fall/Winter/Spring To Do
1. Winterize the boat
2. Change the oil (I will probably try and do this soon)
      -That will involved draining all the oil and also pulling the oil plug to get any moisture out of that engine.
3. Order new 12 Volt panel
4. Rewire all 12V devices
       -This will be a pretty significant task as the majority of the boat is 12V
5. Replace the old defective Spotlight
6. Install new horn
7. Remove old horn
8. Replace all windows  (Windows have been ordered)
9. Change stuffing for prop shafts
10. Replace struts (The port strut was pretty eaten away from Stray Current)
11. Get Props repaired (They got bent up this season)
12. Pull transmissions for rebuild (Postponed)
        -The easiest way is to pull the engines with the transmissions.  We are going to wait.
13. Replace Exhaust Manifolds (Complete)
14. Run all new water lines (The current lines are old plastic that love to crack)
15. Install Wash-down pump
16. Fix Flybridge throttle issues (The starboard throttle will not pull throttle back to idle)
17. Fix Flybridge gauges (Currently only a couple gauges work on the flybridge)
18. Run new wiring harnesses for the engines. (I believe I have a good idea to do this clean)
19. Bleed hydraulic steering system  (Complete)
20. Change the fuel filters and water separators.
21. Paint the Cabin and flybridge
22. Put Durabak on the decks
23. Touch up the blue lower paint
24. Put another coat of Coal Tar Epoxy on the bottom (I don't believe that I have the correct thickness.)
25. Replace the current Tan trim with wood stained (All cosmetic, but some pieces are rotted)
26. Replace all damaged paneling
27. Order new windows (Complete)
28. Install new windows.
        -We will pull the old windows prior to painting the cabin.  That way we don't have to fight with painting neatly around the new windows.  Once the painting is complete, we will install the new windows.


This list seems pretty long, however I think most of it are quick fixes.  The most time consuming project will be the rewire.  I will probably rewire the entire boat.  I short cutted the 120V install but that was due to being mid-season and lack of supplies.  I plan on buying all Marine-Grade cabling and doing it correctly.  Also, this will allow me to do some things the correct way.  There is way too much electrical cabling that is a mess under the salon.  I want to rip it out and do it neatly. 

The most worrying task that I am taking on is the transmission work.  I luckily have someone that can do the work for me, but I will have to take them out.  I hope they can give me a walk through on just what I will need to do for removal. 

I will keep posting to this blog as I progress.  Hopefully I can knock a few things off the list before we even pull the boat for the winter.



Keep on floating...  JA

Organizing and Cleaning

I haven't posted in awhile as we haven't had much to post about.  We have stayed overnight on the boat a few times now.  We have come to the conclusion we need to do something to have more of a sleeping area for the boat.  Currently it is setup for more of a day trip type of boat.  We plan on removing the crappy dinette set and replacing it with a nice futon.  Keeps some seating space but will also allow us to sleep comfortably. 

After we got back to the dock today I went ahead and decided to start doing something that I have been wanting to do for awhile.  I cleaned out the front compartment.  Now I just need to clean out the main salon compartment and the boat should be in a good state.

Two weeks ago I cleaned out the engine bay.  You can now actually see the aluminum bottom there now.  It was filled with way too much sludge.

I am buying someone a couple cases of beer!!

In my past posts you have noticed that I never really got my corrosion issues under control.  Well after giving Bob from boatzincs.com I was able to finally get this thing fixed.  It ended up being one of the smallest things that I wouldn't have thought of.  If it wasn't for my friend that made my new rudder for me, I would still be pissed and scratching my head.  I happened to be at his shop bullshitting one day and he happened to mention that he would only use a full plastic shore power connector as he was worried about how it would carry current from the hull to shore.  I didn't think much about it, but I purchased a plastic connector to install later.

After talking with Bob, from boatzincs.com, I wanted to test my boat to make sure I wasn't part of the problem.  Well, sure enough I was.  I went through all the test steps.

1.  Turn on your main AC circuit breaker but turn off all AC circuit breakers for appliances.
2.  Using an Ammeter to measure amps, take a reference reading
         -This reading should be zero.  The ammeter that I had wouldn't read below .04 even when not connected to anything so I took that as zero.
3.  Now turn on your circuit breakers 1 by 1 and see if your readings change
         -I turned on all the breakers and nothing changed.  The amps just kept going up without doing a thing.


After sitting there perplexed, I then remembered what my friend had told me.  I dug the plastic connector out of the box and started installing.  After getting the plastic connector on, I took a reading and it was PERFECT!!!!  I can finally sleep knowing my boat isn't just corroding away at the dock.  Now lets move onto the next thing!

In a tough spot

So as everyone who has read this blog knows, our houseboat has already had a bad run in with faulty electric. Since the beginning of the season, we have known that our friend's houseboat was dumping electric in the water and causing the entire marina issues. I went through the entire process of rewiring my boat correctly as to mitigate some of the issues. As you have seen, it was a long, expensive, and painful process. I would prefer it if I didn't have to have plate welded onto the bottom of my boat next year. After running some checks, we determined that we only have the 1 offending boat in the marin and I am friends with him. Now that most of my other work is done, I am on a mission to have him fix his boat. His wife and grandson are on board to fix it, however he seems to not want to. Hopefully this progresses well.