Most Reliable Power

[MOP]

About a week ago fired the 16 on the hose purred like a kitten, got home from work last night decided it was time for my first splash of the season. Got my sweetie and off to the ramp, popped the boat in tied it up and fired it up as usual fired on a 1/4 turn parked the truck and took off. Had a great run up bay maybe 4 miles, sweetie says lets hit our favorite watering hole, Ok! A couple of Sapphires later its time to go, jump in boat and yup CLICK CLICK! No sweat one my buddies owns the marina next door, a short walk and some ribbing from him and two of his guys bring battery and cables. Still no good, borrow the owner of the watering holes truck run home get tools, battery, jumpers go back find loose connection at solenoid jump fires right up. I let it run a few minutes. I send my sweetie back to the ramp to light things up. I head for home, by now its pitch black I blast down the bay get maybe a 1000 from my creek and slow down to look for the marker, can't see a bloody thing. It is dead low tide so I creep toward shore, get a little worried about dusting the wheel so I hit the trim. You guessed it the engine dies, after a 30 minutes of failed attempts I am now a 1/4 mile from the creek. I drag the Most Dependable Power! My trusty long handle canoe paddle, about an hour later I made the dock. Sweeties in tears thought Moby Dick ate me, police cars there with another buddy and more ribbing.

Moral of the story if your nuts are loose bring a PADDLE!

[Rootsy]

Sounds kind of familiar Phil, i feel your pain... something similar happened to me a few weeks back but i had 5 qts of oil in my bilge and none in the crankcase... amazing what crankcase pressure will do eh.

ANYWAY.. i had no paddle (CAN YOU SAY DARWIN AWARD) with me it was really breezy, so there i sit, just drifting along and getting further and further from where i wanted to be (my dock) and the water was too friggin cold to go swimming! DID YOU know that you can actually sail a 16 :D took me an hour but i made her to shore thanks to mother nature :rolleyes:

now i always have a paddle for those "special" occasions, just ask ranman wink

[Ranman]

Saturday I was "on the beach without a paddle". It doesn't sound too bad, but it was. :D

[MOP]

I was some glad to get up the creek with the paddle, alot of me aches this morning :( :D :D

[Fish boy]

Been there, more time than care to talk about. Guess its part of boating. Glad it all worked out.

[AVickers]

So,

The term "twin screws" has more connotations than I thought...

(What is is about boats???? I have a car w/ 200,000 miles on it that has NEVER left me stranded and the last time I tuned it up was in 1988... Now, I've done periodic work on it -- some major -- but it has always gotten me home. When it comes to boats, I've been left paddling a couple of times within the last couple of years!)

Perhaps those Chevy and Ford engines aren't as reliable as we'd like to think...

[Ranman]

Take your car and drop it of a 3' cliff over and over on any given Saturday and let me know how long before it strands you. :D :D :D

[RickSE]

I had a similar event this Sunday. Prior to Sunday I started the boat up at the house, on the hose, and everything looked fine. Left Sunday morning for the 2-hour drive to Lake Powell with a potential buyer of the boat and his mother. Got to the lake and decide to drop the boat in the water and pull it off by hand then tie it up to the dock. I usually start it on the trailer to make sure everything is ok and then pull off the trailer. Anyway, I tie up the boat while the potential buyer goes and parks the truck & trailer. I jumped in the boat open the hatch and start the engine. Upon looking in the engine bay I notice water pouring into the boat on the port side. I reached down to discover that the plastic Mercruiser water plug on the bottom of the exhaust manifold is gone, it apparently broke off at the head and fell into the bilge. OK no big deal, I shut the engine off raise the drive and the water basically stops coming in, but my truck and trailer are now about 1-mile away. I decide this isn't bad and has not ruined the day or the sale and I can find another plug at the parts store. So after about an hour the boat is back in the water and running with new Merc. plugs. I then conclude that this hasn’t been a bad event and the day can only get better.

THIS WAS ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY A WRONG CONCLUSION

After about 20 minutes of driving I hand over the controls to the potential buyer. He then drives for about 15 minutes and as we’re coming back into the main bay he begins to slow down. I figure OK he's going to stop and talk for a while, but then I sense something is not right. I look over at his blank stare and notice the throttle is at 3/4 W.O.T. but were slowing down. The boat then shuts down completely and we're floating in the middle of the bay. My next response is "so anyone hungry for lunch". I now realize the day is wasted and the potential buyer will probably not be buying this boat. To make a long story short, my original 8-year old Merc. fuel pump blew it's diaphragm and after about 3-4 attempts to get the boat back in under power I decided it’s getting too dangerous, not knowing how much fuel made it into the crankcase, and call in for a tow. As I got off the radio with the tow company a guy in a little old black ski boat pulls up and offers a tow. But before he tows us in he has to rip me one and ask, "why the old Chevy boat has to tow in the Ferrari boat". He was a great guy and in the end turned down my offer for fuel or money, only asked that I tow in the next guy who needs help.

The pump is now off the motor; the hole in the diaphragm was large enough that some fuel did get into the crankcase but probably not enough to hurt the motor. The oil was brand new 40W and the run time was very minimal. So now the boat gets a new fuel pump, new oil and believe it or not the potential buyer is still interested and will probably buy the boat. Yea Ha here comes my new 22 Classic 496 MAG-HO.

[boldts]

Here's one for you guys to laugh at me about next time we meet up. We're on the the river at Lake St.Clair in Michigan. We pull up to Kraven's home to meet up with him and Ol-Red. I turn the key off and naturely, when we go to leave, nothing. :( I check the battery switch and cables with everything seeming to be in place and tight. Next thought is the kill switch. The lanyard is in place. I have power to the drive trim as we are now drifting toward shallow water so it doesn't appear to be a battery problem. One last check of all the wires including the key switch. I don't know why, but for some reason I moved the throttle lever. She wasn't in nuetral! eek! Turned the key and vrooom! :D I think I'm getting old or something, but one thing for sure, the 60 watt was only burning about 10 watts on Saturday! :cool:

[HyperDonzi]

Scott, I remember that happening last summer too. We will make a big plywood sign to remind you to make sure its in neutral.

[MOP]

Charged Batt over night, took boat to work with me after morning calls were done went out hit key and Click Click. New battery and decided to try NKG plugs, pulled plugs found them to be just a littler than I like so I went down one range with the NKG's all well now. Hope paddle stay dry for a long time!

[MOP]

Finally got to go for a ride last night after being the barn for over a month. Ran decent but down 200 RPM from last season but runs fine, still trying to find prop. Hope to find time to do a decent check out before 1000 Islands run. Bummer working 7 days, will be glad for break and meeting the gang that can make it.

[Bryan Tuvell 33ZX]

M.O.P.
You better take a day off before 1000 islands! Get that machine dialed in!
We look forward to meeting you, have fun and be safe.

See ya soon.
Bryan

[MOP]

Thanks I need a few days off, I took the boat to work thought I would steal time to fiddle with it. Ended up getting dusty and little to no fiddling, will just have to disappear for a day to get stuff done. I run both the brokerage and new boat sales with a very little help from paaaarrrt timers. Hard to get people to work these days.