Always a sad day....

[harbormaster]

We always see these. The customer said he was idling through the channel. What do you think?

[chappy]

Define idling please.

[Carl C]

Musta had the stereo cranked up...............

[Just Say N20]

I can tell you that I was idling (I can say this, because I was there, driving) down the Rock River at 800 rpms in my X-18 and the engine IMMEDIATELY stopped. I wasn't slowing down, or speeding up. I was idling, and had been for about 5 minutes.

It was strange because I didn't feel the boat hit anything. Trying the starter did NOTHING. I thought maybe somehow I had hydraulic locked the engine, so when it was cool enough, I took out some plugs and they were fine, no water, and it still wouldn't spin.

When I got the heads off, I found the engine had dropped a valve. It had broken off just beyond the taper, dropped down into the cylinder, and on the up stroke the piston drove it into the cylinder wall.

I was astounded. I was at 800 rpms. If someone had told me this had happened, I wouldn't have believed them. But it did. Go figure.

[Just Say N20]

Idling: descriptive noun; The speed my boat uncontrollably dropped down to immediately after I heard a loud banging noise while cruising @ 6300 RPM's.. Usually used in a sentence with other descriptive words like warranty, frequent oil changes, driven to church on Sunday's.

This is classic.

[harbormaster]

Yeah you have to be careful what you make fun of..

When I fried all the main bearings and spun 4 rod bearings I was really only running 45mph. I have Jefe and Farmer Tx as a witness.

When I went back to work with it, and we tore it down, everyone looked at me like I had run the dog crap out of it.