Recent content by u079721

Well I tried not to think of it that way...but it did seem as if we had more than our share of issues on a boat that was only five years old when we bought her. I have to say though that every August when we spent four weeks aboard cruising the North Channel of Lake Huron all of the issues went...

We loved our 1989 E-38, but we did have our share of problems. As mentioned above, the non-removal of the mold release caused our keel/hull joint to leak terribly, so we had to pay to have the keel dropped and rebedded. Ours also suffered from terrible boat pox, that even recurred after having...

And speaking of radius bends...here is my thread from some years ago in which the gear shift cable on my 38 snapped from being in way too tight a bend. So don't assume the factory installation was correct! Also, one of my original cables was at least two feet longer than it needed to be, so do...

Well it's not on the prop, and you don't have to wait till haul out - but don't forget the pencil zinc anode inside the heat exchanger. On our boat I seemed to always have to shorten a new pencil zinc to get it to fit in the allotted space.

On my Universal there was an in-line fuse (20 amp?) in the wiring, all by itself on port. The couple of times I had trouble starting my engine it was fixed by replacing or manipulating that fuse. Finally replaced the holder and all was well after that.

Many of you will remember that I wrote an article for Good Old Boat magazine years ago on mast climbing techniques. Pick whatever works for you, but please, do have a back up of some type! https://goodoldboat.com/up-the-mast/

A stiff shift cable was the symptom we had aboard Rag Doll years ago just before the gear shift cable snapped. I would for sure recommend you get right on that - now. You can read about my experience here: https://ericsonyachts.org/ie/threads/broken-clutch-cable.495/...

I don't think I ever described it on this board, but here is a link to an article in Good Old Boat that I wrote on using anchor sails, including this particular design with a center boom (no battens). As I mention in the article, this design is amazingly effective at keeping the boat bow to...

A light down low is MUCH easier for folks to see when motoring or rowing around a typical small-boat anchorage. If you look closely in this photo you will see my Davis LED anchor light hung forward (the same one Bolo showed). I installed a 12V outlet in the anchor locker pan just to power the...

Saw this flooded out West Marine store today in Stillwater, Minnesota. And while I'm sure it's not fun for the owner, it IS kind of ironic to see a West Marine store closed due to too much water. At the very least it ought to be a basis for a great photo caption contest! Haven't shopped much...

Yup - that's the product that I was thinking of. It's mostly just a blend of acetone and xylene if you already have those lying around.

As most folks know you can not dissolve cured epoxy. But certain solvents such as acetone can swell the material and make it much easier to scrap away. I haven't checked lately but there have been solvents sold just for this purpose.

This should get sorted out when you rip all that out....but right now the lead from the pulleys to the quadrant is terrible! I can't believe someone didn't look at that and realize that lowering the pulley's mounting plate would put them out of line with the quadrant. Give the cables a good...

I would recommend to anyone getting a pair of McMaster-Carr "Tight-Clearance Open-End Wrenches". They have narrow heads to fit in tight spaces. In my case I had to cut about 2" off to get enough clearance to use them, but they were very nice to use...

Hydrochloric acid will work for sure, but it also dissolves aluminum. I would try some Naval Jelly (phosphoric acid) and see if I could get it down the cracks without coating the whole part with it.