Re: [OMC-Boats] Shadedown voyage

Love those shakedown cruises.I did the same thing last year, restored a 1964 Sweet 16. After getting things running after 20+ years of storage, ripping down the stern drive to install a new water pump, checking all the fluids, time for that shakedown cruise. The boat ran great so my wife and I swung by a friends boat to take him for a ride, it was just about dark. Off we went across the harbor, wide open on that classic Evinrude boat plane, all of us smiling ear to ear. Suddenly there was this sound like someone dropping a dozen forks in a blender. Before I was able to reach for the throttle, the engine just stopped bringint the boat to an instant halt. What the @...#$!$^&%#!)(!!!?? oF

--- On Mon, 5/18/09, BLDFW <bldfw@...> wrote:

From: BLDFW <bldfw@...>
Subject: [OMC-Boats] Shadedown voyage
To: "OMC Boats" <omc-boats@...>
Date: Monday, May 18, 2009, 12:26 AM

Well, I completed the restoration on my Explorer and took it up to the lake today for it's first shakedown run.  I had my boating buddy Jon, the guy who went with me when I bouthg it along for moral support.  The plan was to back the boat in and while still on the trailer, run it to insure water was properly circulating before launching her all the way in.  No water, no launch.  Anyway, we ran into one minor problem that thwarted the much anticipated launch and one that may affect the whole status moving forward.

When I bought the boat, we ran it and ran the outdrive in forward and reverse briefly with no unusual noises.  Later after I got it home, in looking at the outdrive, it had the look of someone having serviced it so I made a mental note to double check the fluids before actually putting it in the water. 

This morning before heading up to the lake I checked the oil levels but couldn't make any determinations on how much oil was present and since this was my first OMC I stopped at West Marine and picked up a quart of Type C gear lube to top it off.  In the parking lot, I removed the lower unit drain plug to check the condition of the oil.  It drained a little bit of clear water and nothing else.  Hmmmmm....gee....something not right about that!  It should have more than a couple of black drops in there.  So I immediately undid the drain plug for the upper unit and found no oil there too.  Hmmmmmm......  It doesn't leave one with good feeling. 

I had run it briefly a couple of weeks ago on muffs and had the outdrive in gear (sans the prop) and could not detect any usual noises that one might associated with toasted gears.  Jon and I talked it over and came to a preliminary conclusion that I hope is the case.  The boat has not been registered since 1992 but had the look as if someone had started a restoration job on it before me and never finished it.  The outdrive has the appearance of having been dismantled and put back together again.  Overall it was very clean with some minor finger smudges.  We're thinking (or is that hoping!?) that when it was put back together, the work stopped before the oil was could be added (he says tongue in cheek and fingers crossed).  Between the upper and lower unit, I put in nearly two quarts of fresh lube oil.

We continued up to the lake and backed the boat down into the water with myself in the boat leaning over the engine compartment to check for leaking.  I immediately heard the gurgling of water and discovered that while the port side exhaust hose was hooked up, it wasn't tightened fully.  I tighted it down and we backed it into the water a second time.  I didn't hear water gurgling (a good sign) but as soon as I started the motor it was obvious there was an exhaust leak.  Turns out the hose was not seated properly and when I finally was able to get it seated, it would no longer meet up with the manifold.  While the hose didn't look all that old it was not plyable enough to get it to reconnect so I bailed on the effort until I could get a new hose 1.5" longer.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for round two sometime this week!  Oui Vei!!

-Bill
Dallas, TX
1970 Evinrude Explorer - 155 Buick V6 OMC Sterndrive
http://www.photobucket.com/evinrude_explorer

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Received on Monday, 18 May 2009