August 7th, 2005
Took Friday and Monday off from work and have been working hard. In addition to doing some patch work on the deck in the backyard, I got some work done on the Jumbo. Got a coat of yellow on the cuddy cabin roof, and got some caulking done under the splashwell. Just not enough room to be filleting with epoxy, so 3M 5200 had to do. Beware of 5200, the stuff is permanent, and it is sticky, messy, migrates to all sorts of interesting places and is a bear to get off the places you don't want it to be.
Ripped down my last chunk of UHMW for rubrails that run around the gunnel. And silly me instead of running single row of screws, I ran a double row since the 1 1/2 inch UHMW seemed too wide for single screws... Well, at last count I have over 200 screws to drill for and then drive. I'm using the Renn specified #10 x 2" screws and I'm beginning to wonder if they're over kill. Reckon I'll find out the first time I bounce into the dock. Starboard side is cut and fitted, and holes drilled. Next is to glue it up, with my favorite glue. eeerrrrrgh.
Finished rigging the fuel tank. Had to run a new 5/16" fuel line and cut and fit the fuel filler and vent hose. Then I finished rigging the fuel/water separator and Navman fuel meter hose and sensor doohicky. Still have the run the wiring for the sensor.
Readjusted the cables for the control box to the clutch/shift mechanism and the accelerator. I was off just a few millimeters, but that made all the difference in the world. Now I can put in to forward or reverse and don't get the grinding noise I was gettng (in reverse). The setup included disconnecting a cable and checking for continuity while in neutral, in forward and reverse, but no throttle, etc. It's all set up correctly as far as I can tell.
Today I went to the tool rental place and rented an engine hoist. Bob came over and helped me pull the motor and rehang it on the 5" setback. It was a total bear getting the motor off. I think the 3M 4000UV glue was a major mistake. After removng all the bolts it took an awful lot of pushing, pulling, levering and cussing (me) to get the motor off. I think we could have removed the bolts and just used glue to hold the motor on for the next twenty years. I'll not use such a thing to seal up engine mounts again. Anyway, it's remounted and I now have all the clearance I need at the front of the engine cowling and the splashwell.