| Author | Message | ||
     Captpete |
Excerpt from recent letter concerning progress on da boat: I’m still plugging away on the boat, but things are starting to happen now. Or at least what I’m working on is more visible. I just finished up the hydraulic system, and that was pretty major. I think I worked five weeks on that project. Maybe six, with all the little piddley stuff to make it really complete, like wrapping all the fittings with protective gooey tape and then duct tape to keep them from rusting, and replacing the section of hose that runs across the boarding gate with stainless pipe so that when we drag the sharks aboard they won’t chafe that section of hose, etc. Here’s an example of how it works, how what looks like a two-hour job turns out to be a weeklong event. The boat came equipped with a 1-inch Jabsco wash down pump. It’s a great piece of equipment. Not quite the man that those 1 ¼-inch Jabscos are that we used on the draggers, but still nearly a $450 pump, complete with its electric clutch. Naturally, when I got the boat, the pump was on its last legs, but still rebuildable. So, I ordered the parts necessary to rebuild it. Actually, I found a John Deere bearing on the island that was the same as the one in the clutch, so I got that right off. But the rest of the parts: They were shipped from California – hell, that part of the saga is too long to bother with. I’ll sum it up by saying it lacked four days of taking three whole months to get all the parts. But wasn’t I smart to order them in plenty of time?  I finally had all the parts and stacked everything up together on a shelf in my container-workshop, and mentally labeled the pile ‘rainy day project’. That was difficult to do because, compared to the other projects I was working on that required good weather, pump rebuilding was going to be fun. And I didn’t have long to wait, either. I awoke one morning a couple of days later and could hear the water pouring out of the drain hole of the flat roof above me and splashing on the ground outside my bedroom window. Oh, boy. Today was going to be fun. It was a ‘build a new pump’ day. No welding, cutting, grinding, needle gunning or chipping-hammer swinging in the hot sun today. Nope. Today was going to be a nice clean job standing at the workbench under the tent, listening to the tropical raindrops pinging off the canvas above me. I got everything ready. All the parts were laid out neatly on the workbench along with the tools that I would need. I had the exploded diagram and assembly instructions, which I had downloaded from Jabsco’s web site and printed, also laid out on the workbench and held in place with a couple of scrap pieces of angle iron. The pump doctor was ready to inject new life into the patient. Everything went well until it came time to seat the second half of the two-piece water seal into the pump body. There was just no way. I took it all apart again, and according to my measuring equipment, the seal diameter was .128” bigger than the bore in the pump body. I still haven’t figured that one out. Was my pump so old that…? But it had a currant number on it. Why was my pump bore .128” smaller that all those other half-million one-inch Jabscos that have been manufactured during the past gazillion years? No sense whining about it. The good news was I could always bore it bigger to fit the seals I had. Were it the other way around, I would have just spent three months and $180 buying two rebuild kits for a pump that nothing would fit, and would have to spend another $450 for a new pump that I would have two rebuild kits and one spare used electric clutch for. Or, knowing me, I would have spent $600 for a new 1 ¼” Jabsco, would have all those spare parts that fit nothing, but by Jayzuss I would have some water on my back deck the way I’m used to! Of course, I have neither the $450, nor the $600 to spend, so that whole scenario would have pulled a partial vacuum on a big one. But as it was, I had to give up on the rainy-day-pump-building and instead, drive the pump up to the north end to a machine shop where they would, for a mere $30, bore the pump body to fit the seal. Like I said, it coulda been worse. The next day was really rainy and I had to nearly drive through a river to get to the machine shop, but the little Filipino guy who owns the place was as good as his word and had my pump ready to go. And I paddled back to the boat. I should mention that it’s probably a 50-mile round trip to the north end of the island and back. But that’s where everything is, so every time you go, you try to also get any pending chores up there accomplished as well. As a consequence, it rarely takes less than a half-day. Maybe this will give you a better idea: in the six months I’ve been here, I’ve put more than 10,000 miles on my truck. I’ve spent $1369.80 on gas during that period. And gas prices are still going up. $2.44/gal for regular right now. So I get back to the boat, and the pump goes together smoothly. Next, I must reinstall it. It had a very nicely-fabricated bracket that was rusting so badly that I didn’t see much life left in it if I didn’t do something to save it, so while I was waiting for all those parts I sand-blasted it, gave it a coat of epoxy zinc primer and then a protective base coat of epoxy on top of that. It’s fun putting stuff together when it’s all nice and new like. But once I had it in place, I got to looking at the installation and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. First, somebody (They! They are always screwing things up.) had screwed 1 x ¾-inch reducing bushings into both pump ports. Then they screwed ¾-inch hose fittings into those so that they could clamp some ¾-inch ID hose to them and go where they needed. Those damn ¾-inch hose fittings are ¾- inch OD so they can fit into the ¾- inch hose. Their ID is 5/8- inch. So now they’ve turned a 1-inch pump into a 5/8-inch pump. I guess all they were going to do with that deck hose was brush their teeth in the morning. (I told ya. They ain’t worth a dead bathynomous.) I started following those rubber hoses, both suction and pressure, and saw that they went straight to the bottom of the bilge and then aft under the engine in all that bilge oil (It’s a GM diesel, ya know.). The suction hose went to the raw water manifold. This boat was properly built. She has a raw water manifold with a primary ball valve, probably 2 ½-inch, supplying it. Then off the manifold are some feeder ball valves. This hose went to a 1-inch SS ball valve, but with the same setup as the pump, reducing bushing and hose fitting. Next, I followed the pressure hose. It came up out of the bilge, and tied into a vertical ¾-inch pipe that went through the engine room ceiling. As soon as I saw that, I knew where it ended up. Or rather, where it used to end up. A couple months ago, there were four holes in the back of the house where ¾-inch nipples used to protrude. But they were gone; they were rusted-gone, with not enough to weld anything onto, so I just welded a ¼x2-inch disk over each of the four holes and said the hell with it. I’d just deal with the other ends later. OK, so now it’s later already. The bottom line was that I had to 100% re-plumb the wash down pump. First, I had to un-plumb all that bushing crap. The pump, bolted to its like new mount, was easy. But that ball valve on the raw water manifold – whew! What a pain-in-the-patootie that was. It was totally inaccessible, underneath the reduction gear (transmission) at the rear of the engine. I could get wrenches on the bushing, but there was no room to move them. I finally came up with a socket from my ¾-inch set that fit it, and that big-assed ratchet would just get one click. But that was enough. Click – click – click – click – click. I ended up cutting a hole in the deck with the torch and welding a 1-inch SS nipple in place for the discharge. After that, it was just a three-day matter of screwing adapters into the pump, ball valve, and nipple, and then plumbing the whole thing with schedule 80 PVC. Three days? I got my bill of materials together and charged off to Ace hardware, which is only halfway to the north end of the island. I shopped, paid for all the fittings, glue, one length of tubing, etc. and headed back to the boat. And just as I started through the gate to the Harbor of Refuse, I realized that I had forgotten to take my Ace receipt to the adjacent warehouse and pick up the tubing. ADD, ADD, one more round-trip to Ace. One stick of schedule 80 PVC tubing. The bottom of the deck nipple ended up right above a fuel tank vent line that was ½-inch schedule 80 black iron pipe, (I had no choice of location), so I had to Sawzall a section of that out to make room for the PVC, and then re-plumb around the PVC with flexible tubing. All this in places that I could barely see let alone reach. I got the pressure side done and started looking at the suction side. I was going to run out of tubing, and needed four more elbows. Back up to Ace. This time I didn’t even remember to pay for the tubing. ADD, ADD, one more round-trip to Ace. One stick of schedule 80 PVC tubing. What? Glue a 90 to that 1-inch ball valve under the gear? I could hardly reach it with a ¾-inch ratchet that’s two feet long. I gotta get my hand down there with that little gooey brush in it and paint the inside of what? And do that before that glue dries? Oh, yeah, after I slither across those steel ribs in the bilge without scraping my back on the base mount for the genset? I’m 63 ½ years old. I can’t bend like that anymore. And even if I could, how in the hell am I going to get back out of there? Oh, and I’ve gotta put that little brush back in the can, and bring that back out with me? You’ve got to be kidding! Rebuild a Jabsco? Hell, I can knock that out in a half hour, any day of the week. Seven days a week for six months now, Hughes. I’ve just about had a belly-full. I need to get out there and kill something! And yes, it’s going to be sharks. I’ve not only got to make the money for the time I fish, but I’ve got to make the money to pay for all this work I’ve done, and all the stuff I’ve bought to make this a fishing boat again. I’m fixin’ to $$$$ up some sharks, Cap! | ||
| Newfie_buell |
I like you stories Capt Pete!!! OH yeah, Make sure you check your clamps on the water cooled exhaust system (if yours has one), a client of mine last summer went to find his boat sitting low in the water after a 5 dollar clamp failed. It ended up costing his insurance company to replace the Cat Diesel and Transmission. | ||
| Captpete |
Dry stack, Newfie. All hoses get double-clamped with all-stainless clamps. Then a second bilge alarm system gets added for full redundancy there. It's water what sinks 'em, ya know. | ||
| Henrik |
Great story Captain. - thank you! I can sorta follow your pain, having spent 6 months renovating a house ... and still not being done. It's amazing the type of crap people will do, just to make something work - temporarily. I used to like Home Depot trips ... not anymore  Henrik | ||
| Court |
Captain: As a fellow who set out to fix a shower leak a month ago and has since . . .
Yes, we your friends, FEEL YOUR PAIN! Great tale! Court | ||
| Blake |
Captain, They say that adversity builds character. I've met you and feel very safe in saying the following: You don't need any more character. Thanks for sharing. Doing your own laundry out there? | ||
| Firemanjim |
House and motorcycle projects bear an amazing similarity--most 5 minute projects metamorph into weeks long feats of engineering.Especially if you are now suddenly faced with someone elses feeble attempts to repair the last time. I an constantly amazed that I have not been electrocuted by the last owner's wiring abortions in my house. Pete,you constantly amaze me with your many skills,writing included. | ||
| Paulinoz |
Gooday Mate, good to see you are still heading in the right direction all be it with a lot of zig zags along the way. Keep up the good work and keep reporting in makes for a good read. | ||
| Captpete |
FYI, Nobody bit on the dead bathynomous. Here's a picture of three doing lunch. If they ain't dead yet in this picture, they will be soon, because all the one's I've ever caught came up from bottom that was 1200+ feet deep. They're also known as sea lice.  | ||
| Captpete |
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| Newfie_buell |
Holy Crap Pete, Those suckers are big. The biggest we get up this way are about the size of the tip of a sharpened pencil. HOLY CRAP | ||
| Captpete |
The biggest we get up this way are about the size of the tip of a sharpened pencil. Newfie, you know how you stand in the sand, right at the edge of the surf, and kind of let the water start burying your feet as it sloshes in and out? Just keep doing that until you're down to about 250 fathoms (1500 ft.). You'll git ya some big ones. Doing your own laundry out there? That's right, Blake. It's just me and ole Dewey, the first, and since his most recent trip to the Vet, the last of the breed: Dewey, the Mariana Decimal Pointer.  All right, Blake. You asked for something in the Tails section. Little play on words, there... I'll tell y'all a little bit about Dewey and the Guam Boonie Dogs. These will be a couple of those mass-mailings I send out to a few friends when the urge to write hits me. (I'll probably be ok on this one; every group has a few dog-lovers in it.) |
