Engine removal - Finding out I'm not quite as 'man' as I previously thought!

It was finally time to do the big job that we had been putting off until we got some nice weather. Strange that we chose to do it on a rainy day then, but at least I had a 37% effective cover to keep putting on the boat during the spells of downpour.

We collected the boat from my Nanna's drive in the morning, and towed it back to my Dad's drive and garage. We thought this would be a good opportunity to finally see the engine running and pumping water, so we connected the hose up to it, connected the battery, turned the key, and...Nothing. I figured the best way to approach this would be to go and make a pot of tea, and let Dad have a look for the problem! Eventually he found a frayed wire going into the solenoid, and upon replacing this, the engine started.

However, it seemed to run extremely lumpy, and coughed and spluttered quite a lot. This wasn't how it ran a few weeks ago! After making another pot of tea, Dad discovered a bad connection into one of the spark plugs - the engine had been misfiring. All this really needed was a trim at the end and a bit of a clean up.

We then broke some kind of seal/o-ring on the hydraulic cylinder using for titling the engine (turning a screw in it allows the fluid to flow so the engine can be moved by hand). This then proceeded to leak hydraulic fluid all over us. It looked nice though, sort of like red wine.

The prop was then removed as it had began making a slightly uneasy noise as it span. This turned out to be grainy grease and dirt around the rim of the prop. Probably due to the fact that it is also the engine's exhaust. We cleaned it up, but I'm guessing it's just going to get the same again until it's had some decent usage and a good blast out.

Right, 2 hours work done, and the boat was at the stage I assumed it was at when I picked it up in the morning, minus one gasket and some hydraulic fluid. Time for lunch!

Now to remove the engine. As expected, this was bolted on with lovely steel nuts and bolts which, whilst probably all looked nice and shiny a couple of years ago, were now rusted firmly in place. Six of them altogether. However, rather surprisingly, the top 4 weren't too difficult to remove. The bottom two posed more of a problem. Especially as the bolts used were about 6 inches long, and the only thing small enough to get at them with was a pathetic little spanner. Still, with a little gentle persuasion, they came off. Obviously, in keeping with the spirit of the boat, there was a piece of rotted, non-water-resistant wood also held on by these bolts, which came off too.

The engine was now just held on by two brackets at the top, and bonded (with another piece of rotted wood) to the outside of the boat with a white resin stuff.

Dad said that two people could lift his old Mercury 50hp engine. So we figured we could lift this...My god! How this is ridiculously heavy!!!!!!! After 10 minutes of struggling, we managed to lift it off the boat (rotted wood attached), and lay it on the floor. I've got a funny feeling it might be staying there forever!



It didn't take long to sort out the problem with the trim/tilt system - from removing the engine it was now clear that a wire going into the motor was a bit dead. This was fixed, and the trim/tilt mechanism worked fine. Well, as fine as it could with half of it's hydraulic fluid missing. Fantastic.

So all in all we achieved what we had set out to do today, which was remove the engine and fix the trim/tilt. We just had a bit more fun along the way!

One more thing worth mentioning is that, upon removal of the engine, the transom had quite a few cracks along the top. It feels solid enough inside, but it is slightly worrying. Maybe this engine is slightly over sized for this boat? We're currently weighing up our options with this. Is it worth putting some extra work in to further strengthen it? Hmmm...

Win or rust!

Today I decided to have a go at removing the side panels on the inside of the boat. However, a try it was as they didn't feel like coming off. I'm starting to notice a pattern with everything on this boat - it all seems to be held together with steel bolts which are now rusted firmly in place! Since I didn't have the tools to hand or the Dad with me to assist, I figured this should be a job for another day.







I then had a go at t-cutting the windscreen, trying to remove some of the small scratches on the surface. This didn't go too well either, as it could do with a lot more hard work, and frankly, it was too cold and I wanted to go home.



My least productive day so far? Most probably.

Named and shamed

In the neverending quest to find out what boat I have, my Dad has found one exactly the same on Ebay. Not much information is known about this either, but apparently it is a Fletcher.

My knowledge of Fletchers is quite good from the late 70s onwards, so it must be a bit older than that. I must say, she's aged very well.

Seat removal and carpet clean

It's been a couple of weeks since I'd so much as seen the boat, but with some nice sunny weather, and no bloody dog show to go to like last weekend, today I set about a doing a few tasks.

The main priority is still generally giving the boat a good clean, and today I wanted to set about the carpet. Especially the area in between the two rear seats. As you can see in the below pic, it's quite grubby!



The easiest way to do this was by using a scrubbing bush with hot water and washing up powder, and then blasting it with the pressure washer. At least that was the plan - first the front seats would have to come out to make space...

I'd sort of wanted to remove these seats anyway, as the wood they were mounted on didn't look too healthy. In truth it was a bit of a bodge job. Removing these seats was fairly painless however, just six screws underneath the base cushion holding them onto the wood.



The aim was to get the wood base plates off today as well, but they were so rotted in place I decided to wait a while. I may have to get a saw to them anyway, and creating saw dust when I'm about to get everywhere wet probably wasn't a good idea! So they would have to stay for now...



After this I gave the boat a big clean with the pressure washer. It now looks a lot better.

I've also made the decision this week to go with the two seat seats at the rear, rather than the planned bench seat. The areas that support the seats could be structual, so it's probably not a good idea to remove them to make a seat! Plus they make nice storage compartments for my sandwiches.

I've also given the seats a decent clean with soapy water now they are out. The wood in the seats is rotting in a few places, so it may have to be replaced. Hopefully the clean I've just given them won't speed along the rotting process!

And since I never posted the picture on the last update, here is the boat looking proud without it's crap name.