I am a little aprehensive about this weekend. Evidently the go fast boat that runs in my class is back. And I'm not going as fast as I had hoped... *holds tummy that is in turmoil* We shall see...
posted by Suicide at 10:27 PM

It is fairly early, but at least it is now light out. I am going to grab another wiring harness and hook up dual panels this morning, mainly because my new tach isnt reading anything and I am going to take the boat out in the calm of the morning to see what my speed is. Rumor has it that I am going to have to go up against some major competition, namely a boat with the same hull as me, but that went 41.7 mph or so.... BUT he smoked 5 out of 6 pistons to do it, we shall see what he will do in order to win this year, if he even shows up at all. That's racing for ya
posted by Suicide at 5:52 AM

I'll probably blog more later, not that anyone actually reads this dribble...
posted by Suicide at 8:49 PM

My nose is sunburnt. My forehead too. And my cheeks.... Basicly my face, which isn't all that wonderful. But the boats are in. The Egg Harbor, the second it hit the water it was leaking. This is after traveling down the road with the police escort, going slow so we could lift the wires over the fly bridge, but as it is the windshield got cracked on one half of it *those cables are heavy and the guy I was with wasn't paying attention* but it didn't shatter. So like all wooden boats it has to swell the planks up in order for it to stop leaking. But it was very disconcerning watching that water piss into the boat. A verible flood below decks. After quite a while on the trailer *so we didn't sink on the ramp* the boat was put into the water completely and dragged over to the float where it was tied up and the bilge pumps were running. So I went up to get my boat to put it in. As the trailer was sliding under the boat, I was aboard wireing up a makeshift panel so that I could start it up and drive it around some. When the truck left with the boat on the trailer, heading down the road, I was still aboard wireing - finishing hooking up the panel and putting the batteries in. A quick dry sweep with the scrub brush on the deck as we arrived at the dock and I was ready to go into the water. After making sure all the valves that should be open were, I cranked the engine over....and over...and over. I didn't want to break my paint & clear coat seal on the engine so I had to let the engine work all the air out of the lines on it's own. Finally it roared to life and I put it into gear and took it over to the dock. And so since it was really filthy *what with the dust and all* I proceeded to wash my boat. I just happened to have this neato scrub brush thingy that hooks up to a hose *since it was left on my other boat a few years ago, it suddenly became mine* and that worked pretty damn good, although it did leak, and I did get wet. After I got my boat all scrubbed up, they called me over to the Egg Harbor because the bilge pump stopped working. When I got aboard, the water was almost up to the lower deck level *which isn't good because it must hold at least 100 gal down there* and after a quick survey of the scene I noticed that some of the piddily assed wiring was broken, so a quick snip, tear and crimp and the bilge pumps were back online. I also tore the connections to the bilge pump that didn't work and I niggerrigged up something so that it came online *I think the float switch is crap*
posted by Suicide at 8:46 PM

So then I moved onto the batteries, all six of them. Since there are three banks of two, that makes six. Isn't math fun?:) Luckily for me I put tags on all the cables, so they all went back to their batteries, and it was good. I redid some wiring on the bilge pumps as well, but I think the cable between the fuse and the main cable is a little FUCKED UP! so I will probably be replacing that tomorrow. I exchanged some chains on my mooring today as well, took a shackle from there, put it over there, added some more top chain, put the ball and pennant on. I have to safety wire it tomorrow morning. Oh the joy... *is excited*
posted by Suicide at 10:15 PM

My feet are wet. Now one might wonder why that is, well let me tell you. I got up early today, had a lil breakfast and went to work. My boat is all nicely painted *it's a little fumey still to say the least* it's the nice brownish-reddish color of the paint, and no I am not going to burnish it just yet. When it gets burnished it will turn metallic silver. "What is burnishing"? you might say, well burnishing is a term for sanding the paint with a fine grit sand paper (which I will be using 400 grit when that time comes) for that ULTRA SMOOTH racing bottom finish, and no doubt if I get beat on Saturday, the bottom WILL be burnished. Maybe even twice. So since the boat is going in tomorrow, I am all gung-ho about it. Today was 16 hours of complete fun *insert rolling eye motion here* After I got done with my boat I went out the the Egg Harbor to get to work on its oddities and stuff. Mainly hook up the shower sump *since they didn't even know they had one, and the one that had, it had no cover, so when they took a shower the water would overflow the box and fill up the bilge. From there it sat around with all the filth and soap scum and whatnot and permiated into the wood *since it's a wooden boat*. It was really icky when I cleaned it out last fall.... So they didn't know that there was a switch that had to be pulled in order to have the sump work when they took a shower. So that old crappy box was replaced and I wired it up proper. From there it was off to the anchor windlass that didn't work. I tore out the old fuse it had, which was like an oversized AA battery that was in this ceramic holder. Quite the find, if you were looking for it. And I put in a new MAXI amp holder which is quite the modern update. After this the switch still didn't work. So I hooked the battery up *since it runs on a 12 Volt DC circuit, and there was no battery in the system* After adding some power, still the switch didn't work, so I grabbed my jumper and attacked the solonoids, and they worked good. So I focused on the switch. It no wurk. But the one on the fly bridge worked! So that was ok, we aren't going to worry about the switch down below. I have to go for a bit, I will add a little more in a bit
posted by Suicide at 9:30 PM

Well, the boat is finally sanded. Took all day with the help of another guy, but it is now done. I decided not to sand above the lifting rails since the boat basicly sits in the water above them anyways, so if they get another coat of paint tomorrow, that will be ok. Also today, I installed the airsep. "What's an airsep" you might ask, well an airsep is basicly an airfilter, conical in shape, that goes on the air intake of the turbo, it also has a filter that connects to the crank case vent on the valve cover, so all the blow by will be filtered and the oil in it gets colleted and drips down this hose with a check valve in it into a container *I modified a water bottle to use as my collecter, we will see how that works out* or I could have put a T into the return oil line of my turbo *which is the low pressure side* so the oil could drip back into the base, but this way I can see how much blow by I have. "What is blow by" you might ask, well blow by is the oil mist that comes flying off of the valves that go up and down when the engine is running, this builds up pressure and is squirted out the vent on top of the valve covers, and if there was no container to collect it, the mist would just cover the entire bilge region over time, which makes it all icky and slippery cause of the oilness of it all. Tomorrow I also have the pleasure of working on the Egg Harbor which is a 37' wooden boat, I think it's a '67 or so, I forget. It has dual 440's in it. So Tuesday is the day the boats go into the water, so I'm somewhat excited. The first race is that Saturday, so that means Friday I travel down the coast and hopefully the engine will hold together, maybe I'll be able to use my new toy with it too, but who knows.
posted by Suicide at 6:42 PM