As you know, Darryl has been working on a problem with the boat that has to do with a clattering noise that the engine makes. After several failed$$$ attempts by the yard mechanic to solve the problem, Darryl has been working on it himself with the help of a couple of friends. Last week after the new motor mounts had been put in place the shaft couldn't be aligned because of an extra 1/8th of an inch taken up by the exhaust hose. He then discovered the motor mounts were on upside down, so he took them off. But alas, when he put them right side up, nothing fit. He finally figured out the mounts could be ground down to compensate for the extra 1/8th inch. So everything came off again, got ground down and then put back in place. That took 5 days. Then came the triumphant shaft alignment. Recommendation was to align it to at least 8/10,000 of an inch and Darryl got it to 3/10,000 of an inch!! Victory!! Friends came down for dinner on Sunday night and a good time was had by all. Just a few more tweaks to the mounts on Monday (took ALL day) - then came the test drive yesterday... AND??
Nothing. Nothing had changed with the clattering noise. Nothing at all. After I talked him out of sinking the boat right at the dock Darryl went back to talk to the mechanic, who at this point seems genuinely sympathetic to the situation, and got the name of another mechanic in Tampa. As we speak, Darryl is attempting to remove the transmission from the boat so we can drive it over to Tampa and have the guy look at it. The man is a trouper!
On a side note, with all the work going on over the past few weeks the last of the frogs who had taken up residence on our boat have vacated. There were enough of them that I believe they had their own small village complete with zip code. It must have been a very wet summer here.
Today I am heading to the "boat parts"store. Not too exciting, but something to do on a rainy day. Fortunately it is also near a great grocery store, so off I go! Until next time...
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