Some projects just beat you down

 It has been project after project time, as our date to sell the car and move the boat draws near.

We expect a certain amount of delay for each project, waiting on parts - sometimes ordering wrong part and having to re-order, unexpected issues and so on.    

There are other projects, that just beat you down.

We have been working on installing our new VHF antenna, our new cell phone booster, our new Wifi antenna, and our new GPS antenna.  All these go on our big aluminum arch on the back of the boat, and then the wires are fed through the aluminum tubes, down into the boat, under the bed, behind the guest stateroom storage drawers, and then up into the cabinet behind the TV into the respective control units mounted with power.   It is a time consuming project, but has been going well.  A couple of wrong fittings, fed one wire wrong and had to re-do, but all in all going well.    

A little bit of contortionism to get things hooked up, but all in all, progressing nicely.

A couple of other projects have been a little more difficult.

Our hot water heater had a leak - a constant drip.    

 Wasn't surprising, as it was quite corroded. 

 Not bad when hooked up to dock water, but when you have limited water at anchor, - no drips allowed.     Our water heater has a special flow thru pressure relief valve - so that was a special order - no issues, but after that it went downhill quickly.   No mater how much teflon tape, plumbers putty, or locktite, it leaked around the new fitting.   

Finally a combination of Teflon tape, plumbers putty, and a couple of new fittings where we could use an O-ring to help seal, and it is finally back together and drip free.   It only took about 4 hours total up in the cramped area under the forward v-berth.   

The other project that has caused mental anguish is replacing the engine control panels.   

The previous owner had changed them as he wanted gauges at the helm for oil pressure, water temp, voltage and engine hours - unfortunately no RPM, which is what we really wanted at the helm.

The other unfortunate thing about the previous work was that it wasn't really properly done.   On a boat, subject to salt water, and high humidity, using DC voltage wire - you DON'T USE WIRE NUTS.   All of them were corroded.

This is one project, where we really did not fully understand how everything worked, so we took a leap of faith, and used the provided manual for the engines, and followed the wiring diagram to rewire the gauges.   Everything seemed to make sense, but it is always a nervous endeavor - especially for Kris, to start a project not feeling at least 75% confident that you understand it fully.

The wiring diagram was fairly easy to follow once you got over the mass of lines and figured out the codes.

Control panels as we wanted.

After it was all wired up, the moment of truth - try to start the engine.    First try - nothing.  So out came the multimeter, and a miriad of checking voltage and continuity.   Found that the hidden side of the lovely 16 pin connector had corroded so badly, that one pin was missing, and a couple halfway gone.  So back to Amazon, and ordered some new connectors.   Pause 4 days, and once they came in, we set about re-wiring and installing a new connector.     Once all was done, then 2nd try to start engine - Nothing.   So out came again the multimeter, accompanied by much hair pulling by Kris.   It was late, so Dean called a halt to the day.  Next morning with fresh eyes, Kris quickly found the issue with a loose connection (not one we had done) and fixed that.

3rd try, and the engine started to turn over, but slowly and no joy.  Sounded like dead battery.  So we checked the battery, looked good.   Then we thought - hey. lets use the battery from the other engine in parallel, while the other engine was running, so we know we have power.   No joy with that either, unless you count a burning smell joy.   

Back to more hair pulling, multimeter and checking.    

Finally Kris was 60% sure it wasn't the wiring, but was the engine starter. 

 We took the starter in, got it checked, and sure enough it is bad.    New starter comes later this week.  Will have to let you know how it goes -but if it doesn't go well - Kris may call it - and we might have to hire someone to help fix this one, as she is about at her limit of knowledge on how to fix the issues.