A Day in the Life of.....

[DRYHEAT]

"Frankencarbs" are for friends and emergency...I have a couple Rubbermaid totes with misc carb pieces and loose kits. Every once in awhile, the homeboy hotline rings, or the a flag goes up on the good ol'boy network...someone needs a screw, bracket or linkage.

I may be a hoarder, but if the world goes the way Road Warrior, I'm set

That’s kind of how I roll.

 

[Shlbyntro]

a bunch of you know about my broken foot debacle that pretty much knocked me out of commission for 6 weeks, and although I was able to get a couple small jobs done here and there, and start the build on my flatty engine, I was for the most part laid up not able to do hardly anything.

this week is my first official week back to work. yesterday I was able to do a break in service on an engine I replaced earlier this season. today Im working on this beast again. guy is busting rear hubs like they are going out of style! I had to go rescue it off the beach this time and found the wheel about 200ft in front of the truck. I was able to get it patched together enough on site to get it back to the shop under its own power

tomorrow. I am on 3 houseboats with a pretty important meeting in between, some major stuff might be changing on the lake very very soon and my meeting is to determine whether that is a bad thing or a very good thing and it could go either way at this point.

anyway, welcome back to "A day in the life of..."

 

[farmo83]

a bunch of you know about my broken foot debacle that pretty much knocked me out of commission for 6 weeks, and although I was able to get a couple small jobs done here and there, and start the build on my flatty engine, I was for the most part laid up not able to do hardly anything.

this week is my first official week back to work. yesterday I was able to do a break in service on an engine I replaced earlier this season. today Im working on this beast again. guy is busting rear hubs like they are going out of style! I had to go rescue it off the beach this time and found the wheel about 200ft in front of the truck. I was able to get it patched together enough on site to get it back to the shop under its own power View attachment 1156803 View attachment 1156804 View attachment 1156805


tomorrow. I am on 3 houseboats with a pretty important meeting in between, some major stuff might be changing on the lake very very soon and my meeting is to determine whether that is a bad thing or a very good thing and it could go either way at this point.

anyway, welcome back to "A day in the life of..."

Due tell !!!!

 

[chvynhra]

a bunch of you know about my broken foot debacle that pretty much knocked me out of commission for 6 weeks, and although I was able to get a couple small jobs done here and there, and start the build on my flatty engine, I was for the most part laid up not able to do hardly anything.

this week is my first official week back to work. yesterday I was able to do a break in service on an engine I replaced earlier this season. today Im working on this beast again. guy is busting rear hubs like they are going out of style! I had to go rescue it off the beach this time and found the wheel about 200ft in front of the truck. I was able to get it patched together enough on site to get it back to the shop under its own power View attachment 1156803 View attachment 1156804 View attachment 1156805


tomorrow. I am on 3 houseboats with a pretty important meeting in between, some major stuff might be changing on the lake very very soon and my meeting is to determine whether that is a bad thing or a very good thing and it could go either way at this point.

anyway, welcome back to "A day in the life of..."

Does it still have 5x4.5 bolt pattern?

 

[Shlbyntro]

Does it still have 5x4.5 bolt pattern?

not for long. im changing every thing out to the 5x5.5

 

[monkeyswrench]

Is that a full floater? What portion is failing on the hub, same corner or both sides?

 

[Shlbyntro]

yes, spooled full floater. its sheering the wheel studs and then everything comes flying off

its happened to both sides of the rear end. im stepping him up from a 5x4.5 to a 5x5.5 to try and relieve some of the forces on the studs/wheels.

@lbhsbz suggested having hubcentric rings machined which is also an idea im considering

 

[HNL2LHC]

Good to hear that you are getting back into your grove After the break.

 

[Shlbyntro]

Good to hear that you are getting back into your grove After the break.

nice pun

 

[monkeyswrench]

yes, spooled full floater. its sheering the wheel studs and then everything comes flying off

its happened to both sides of the rear end. im stepping him up from a 5x4.5 to a 5x5.5 to try and relieve some of the forces on the studs/wheels.

@lbhsbz suggested having hubcentric rings machined which is also an idea im considering

Many years ago...98 maybe?...Ivan's Toyota ran 5 lug rims. Wheels were 10 hole. Hubs had a register, hubs had 5 tappered dowels that were longer than the 5 threaded studs...that thing lost tires, but never a hub

I never had anything as stout as the truck you're working on. The only time I repeatedly broke studs was a tough one. Thought it was over tight from impact wrench. Found the wheels were beat up around lug nuts. Work loose, beat up the studs until they let loose. Made for some "fun" rides.

 

[chvynhra]

Good call, 4.5's never last.

 

[coolchange]

yes, spooled full floater. its sheering the wheel studs and then everything comes flying off

its happened to both sides of the rear end. im stepping him up from a 5x4.5 to a 5x5.5 to try and relieve some of the forces on the studs/wheels.

@lbhsbz suggested having hubcentric rings machined which is also an idea im considering

Hub centric

 

[HubbaHubbaLife]

a bunch of you know about my broken foot debacle that pretty much knocked me out of commission for 6 weeks, and although I was able to get a couple small jobs done here and there, and start the build on my flatty engine, I was for the most part laid up not able to do hardly anything.

this week is my first official week back to work. yesterday I was able to do a break in service on an engine I replaced earlier this season. today Im working on this beast again. guy is busting rear hubs like they are going out of style! I had to go rescue it off the beach this time and found the wheel about 200ft in front of the truck. I was able to get it patched together enough on site to get it back to the shop under its own power View attachment 1156803 View attachment 1156804 View attachment 1156805


tomorrow. I am on 3 houseboats with a pretty important meeting in between, some major stuff might be changing on the lake very very soon and my meeting is to determine whether that is a bad thing or a very good thing and it could go either way at this point.

anyway, welcome back to "A day in the life of..."

Hope its a "Very good thing"

 

[Shlbyntro]

I found this in a customers boat. what should I do with it

 

[Activated]

I found this in a customers boat. what should I do with it View attachment 1158234

Head to Havasu immediately.

 

[Shlbyntro]

I made several trips up and down trams yesterday. With the lake levels where they are currently at, the rides are starting to get longer with steep hills still at the bottom. All in all a seccessful day.

 

[mjc]

yes, spooled full floater. its sheering the wheel studs and then everything comes flying off

its happened to both sides of the rear end. im stepping him up from a 5x4.5 to a 5x5.5 to try and relieve some of the forces on the studs/wheels.

@lbhsbz suggested having hubcentric rings machined which is also an idea im considering

Wilwood brakes has a good size listing of hubcentric ring, might see what they have ready to go. I have a part listing of theirs somewhere.

 

[Shlbyntro]

 

[Shlbyntro]

a couple updates from the last couple days.

I had a generator diag late last week. was picking up where somebody else left off which is always fun. "Somebody" had changed the circuit boards on the generator but did not bother to find the cause of the failure. Anyway, a disconnected ground cable and several other loose main battery cables killed the new one. my customer is still coming to terms that he has to spend another $1500 for parts he just replaced. I feel for him but margins on computerized parts for boats are sh*t. theres not a whole lot I could do to help him out.

Today, I rebuilt a couple carburetors for one of my houseboats while Im waiting on the rest of the parts for it. Im Currently up to 7 houseboat customers that provide me with regular work. They are starting to turn into my niche. Im not sure whether that is a good or a bad thing but Ill take it.

 

[Shlbyntro]

back on houseboats again yesterday.

but today and I know it aint shit I got a new shop tool. cheap chinesium shit, but it still feels like xmas. the creeper is new too. my 15yr old creeper that my grandfather bought me finally bought the dust after a long life of good service.

 

[MK1MOD0]

Sure would be nice if the center section between those hatches were removable. Always wondered why they don’t bolt them in place.

 

[DRYHEAT]

Sure would be nice if the center section between those hatches were removable. Always wondered why they don’t bolt them in place.

Somewhere, there’s a boat designer/engineer that said, “fuck the mechanics”

 

[Shlbyntro]

Actually aluminum houseboats are very nice to work on. It is beyond the shadow of a doubt the roomiest engine room you will find up until you get into deisel sport fishers.

They do seam to attract snakes tho....

 

[Shlbyntro]

I snapped this on the way up the hill from, you guessed it. Another houseboat. The lake is aweful pretty right now tho

 

[Shlbyntro]

4 boats today including a housebout, a sedan bridge, an aft cabin and a nautiqie. The houseboat is service work, the aft cabin is losing coolant out the exhaust but not in the oil, the sedan possibly has a dead hole and the Nautique is a stall/would not restart. Im hoping to complet the service work and get the pther 3 diag'ed today.

 

[SBMech]

Glad to see you are back in the saddle dude!

Make sure you are still stretching and exercising that ankle, some pain now will keep you from having mobility problems later.

I was relentless because I still wanted to surf, skate and snowboard. Much less work on it for 10-16 hours a day.

< been there done that, glad I was not sparing it for the 2 years till full recovery. I can still tell when the weather changes, it aches.

Don't fuck around~!

 

[clarence]

Almost nippy on the water today.

 

[Shlbyntro]

on a sea trial today after messing witha fuel delivery issue on the stbd engine of a 380 Carver. work is hard

 

[Shlbyntro]

not one Im working on but a friend of a friends rolling into town....

well see if they can launch it

 

[Shlbyntro]

just another evening down at the docks. Rum may be involved, after hours of course

 

[Shlbyntro]

not one Im working on but a friend of a friends rolling into town....

well see if they can launch it View attachment 1168996

as it turns out, this boat is now a customer of mine lol. heading over to check out the thrusters here in a minute

Update:
found it! after checking all the switches and all the components, I finally had to resort to running the wires by hand to figure out why power wasnt getting from the switches at the helm to the switching valves at the back. Thats running 100ft of wires in a crawl space. I eventually found the issue all the way at the back. In the crawl space, on the oposite side of all the holding tanks from the access, there was a hidden gfi that was tripped that fed power to the relay box. why was it tripped?? well there was a bilge heater plugged into it with the wires taped together.

the new boat owner was ecstatic!. he was fearing it was something under the water and the boat would need hauled out only 1 day after launching it

 

[Shlbyntro]

Ive been chasing a very strange fuel starvation issue under load on this beast for weeks and think Ive finally got it. Welcome aboard!

 

[Ace in the Hole]

Ive been chasing a very strange fuel starvation issue under load on this beast for weeks and think Ive finally got it. Welcome aboard!
View attachment 1169665

lake looks down?

 

[Shlbyntro]

lake looks down?

about 40ft. Lake Travis is closed!

 

[MK1MOD0]

Ive been chasing a very strange fuel starvation issue under load on this beast for weeks and think Ive finally got it. Welcome aboard!
View attachment 1169665

What did the problem end up being?

 

[Shlbyntro]

What did the problem end up being?

it wasnt just one thing, it was a whole mess of things.

To start off, this is the boat I went down to the coast to look at several months ago and my customer bought it knowing there was a fuel related issue with the stbd engine. The boat has a set of "brand new engines" in it that are 3 years old with less than 50hrs on them and they havent been run regularly in that 3 years. So stbd engine wouldnt get above 2k in gear without cutting out like it was starving for gas. My first go to was to go through the carburetor, holley 4bbl and its right about the time the vacuum 2ndaries should be opening up, I pulled it off initially expecting to find a jacked up bowl on the 2ndary side ans just needing a cleaning and rebuild, but found instead that the secondaries were nearly frozen shut. replaced the carburetor with like for like new.

Issue still persists, maybe gained 1-200 rpm before cut out. Next I go onto the electric fuel pump: carter accorn style and was getting unusually warm but always seamed to be operating when I cracked a line, changed it anyway, again like for like with new. Engine started firing right up and idling better than it ever had but under load was still cutting out at 2,200. no change on the big end.

Next I went for the antisyphon valve which I had been dreading. Both engines are fed by a single belly tank thats under the salon and to access the pickups, I had to remove 2 sofas from the salon, pull up all the fitted carpet, carpet padding, and then start exploring a plethora of removeable floor panels to find the one with the stbd engine fuel pickup under it. finally found it! pulled the antisyphon valve out and eureka! its clogged with rtv that somebody had put on the threads when they were putting it all together instead of using PTFE tape/paste like they should have. I replaced the anti syphon valve ran the engines in the slip and they were happy, the stbd engine was even "snappy" now. I put the interior back together so I could sea trial the boat and hell yeah! the engines are now both pulling 4k for close to half an hour. Me and the owner are high fiving and smiling and all is good in the world until we head back for the marina and start bringing her off plane. the engines get down to about 2k and the stbd engine stalls and this time it will not restart, definitely fuel starvation still. I put the boat back in the slip on one engine. I pull the fuel water separator and it is dry. I start thinking wtf. theres no fuel leaks anywhere, if it were a clogged line the fuel filter would still be charged, its not leaking gas anywhere because I cant smell or see gas at all from anywhere on the boat so I know theres not a leak. and Ive been through everything.

Well, I pulled up all the interior again to get to the fuel pickup again, this time I pull the entire pickup out of the tank, this pickup had been in this tank for 40 years and had no intentions of coming out. after about an hour of fighting with just the pickup by itself, I finally got it out of the tank damage free and I found it. the hard plastic tube that is pressed onto the 90 at the top of the tank is spinning loosely around the nipple that its pressed over allowing the fuel pump to draw air off the top of the tank. I pull it off, cut about 1/2" off the tube and pressed it back onto the pickup nice and tight. I put it all back together and go to the back of the boat to prime the stbd fuel system. I crack the line off at the carb and manually jump the fuel pump with my powerprobe. It takes a while but I finally get it primed. Its probably about 15-20ft of fuel line that goes up and down and passes through 3 bulk heads to get from the fuel tank at mid ship to the engine at the stern. while im there, I take the fuel filter off just for good measure and clean the gasket surface and oil the quadring.


another sea trial today, engine fires right up is running great, were being easy on it for the first 20 minutes or so to let everything warm up. as soon as we start opening her up, the engine stalls again but fires right back up, and does this a couple times. So now I have the owner driving his boat at just below the stall threshhold and Im manually paying the fuel line in as many places as I can reach trying to take all the rises and falls out of it to purge air pockets from the fuel line while were running.

SUCCESS!!!!! after all of that, we were out there running the boat for over an hour at 4k steady and we are pushIng a massive tub for gassers. The boat has a 13'6" beam and is 42' long over all, being pushed by twin 454 vdrives with 16" wheels and it gets on plane.

SO....... GET READY FOR THE KICKER!!!




























Not more than 10 minutes after I posted this video during our roughly hour long run at 4k (owner driving), the stbd engine made a sudden horrendous clanking noise and started vibrating. I immediately had him pull back to the throttles and the clanking subsided and we limped back into the marina at 1200rpm where the clanking was nearly gone but the engine still had somewhat of a vibration and felt like it was running on 7; but it never stalled! lol

So now I have to go back down to the boat with the "new engines" later on this week and start taking the stbd engine apart hoping he just tossed a pushrod which would be very odd seeing as how this is a MK5 block and should be flat tappet hydraulic with set it and forget it rockers. If it did toss a pushrod as I suspect happened, hes getting all new lifters, pushrods and rocker nuts. yay!




hows that for fun?!

 

[MK1MOD0]

Damn! That engine is going to make ya seriously work for it! Hope it’s isomething simple this time.

 

[Shlbyntro]

Not to be confused with my fuel issue boat. But this is another from across the lake, twin SBC Volvo Vdrives

customer complaint: engine is losing coolant but its not in the bilge.

it was reported to me by another mechanic who had given up on it that the heat exchanger passed a pressure test and there was no coolant in the oil. "engine runs fine" (it didnt)

my initial inspection showed water on #3 and #5 spark plugs but oil seamed ok.

I got approval from now my customer to perform a top end tear down with intentions to perform a valve job should everything look good during the tear down.

welp, aside from finding water in the oil once I pulled the intake all was pretty straight forward. a couple pushrods are rusty as hell too and the 10 pin connector needs fixed. Turned out to be a blown head gasket..... anyway, heads are getting sent out to make the valves and seats nice and shiny again. heres where she stands, guess I was too tired to take a pic of the bare short block lol

 

[OLDRAAT]

You got a little bit of luck with that Carver having small blocks. A buddy had a 1995 38 Santigo with 7.4s that was a bitch to work on, especially the hull side. It also sucked that Carver made the mid 90's 38's on the smaller narrower hull. The original size was perfect. For me, wished I had bought a Wellcraft 43 portifino back then.

My Formula 41PC was a breeze compared to those (disclaimer: all boats are a bitch to work on ).

 

[Shlbyntro]

You got a little bit of luck with that Carver having small blocks. A buddy had a 1995 38 Santigo with 7.4s that was a bitch to work on, especially the hull side. It also sucked that Carver made the mid 90's 38's on the smaller narrower hull. The original size was perfect. For me, wished I had bought a Wellcraft 43 portifino back then.

My Formula 41PC was a breeze compared to those (disclaimer: all boats are a bitch to work on ).

my 330 Dancer has bigblocks

 

[Shlbyntro]

 

[SBMech]

At least you have some fun stuff to play with when you are not playing plumber man on a boat!

For fuck's sake I hope you are charging well, that in the well crap is horrendous!

Good to see you kicking ass again!

 

[buck35]

I sure wish you lived closer to me!

 

[Ace in the Hole]

I sure wish you lived closer to me!

Breck on his way to do cool shit....

 

[buck35]

Breck on his way to do cool shit....

When are coming up here to sled, and where do you ride?
Edit; just outside Wenatchee

 

[Ace in the Hole]

When are coming up here to sled, and where do you ride?

I'll be in Leavenworth, WA from around Dec 15-January 10th or so. (I'm open to meeting up in different places..I took most of the month off..and my wife will only be up on weekends). I'll do another Trip up there in early march depending on the snow. Probably will do one Montana Trip as well. The rest I'm thinking we will make a few trips to northern AZ, and Maybe one trip to CO...will just depend on work. I'll probably try to "force" @Shlbyntro to come on one of those trips at least lol.

I'm going to roll out of Havasu the Monday after thanksgiving (as soon as AJ's guys are done with my boat) to Durango, CO to pick up my sled deck. Odd as it sounds I'm excited as shit to pick that up lol. Planning to spend the night there, have them load it up in the AM then head back to PHX. The new sleds are in WA, so I'll pick them up once I get up that way.

 

[Shlbyntro]

I'll be in Leavenworth, WA from around Dec 15-January 10th or so. (I'm open to meeting up in different places..I took most of the month off..and my mom & In-laws will be there to watch kiddos lol). I'll do another Trip up there in early march depending on the snow. Probably will do one Montana Trip as well. The rest I'm thinking we will make a few trips to northern AZ, and Maybe one trip to CO...will just depend on work. I'll probably try to "force" @Shlbyntro to come on one of those trips at least lol.

I'm going to roll out of Havasu the Monday after thanksgiving (as soon as AJ's guys are done with my boat) to Durango, CO to pick up my sled deck. Odd as it sounds I'm excited as shit to pick that up lol. Planning to spend the night there, have them load it up in the AM then head back to PHX. The new sleds are in WA, so I'll pick them up once I get up that way.

shit man, id just drop by CO on your way up to WA and save the fuel.

also, Im all travelled out for the year, Ill tag along next year

 

[Ace in the Hole]

shit man, id just drop by CO on your way up to WA and save the fuel.

also, Im all travelled out for the year, Ill tag along next year

I've still got to install the weather seal kit, and I'd like to actually bolt it in the bed vs using straps or turnbuckles. So I figure Its better to bring it down here and we have forklifts at our company warehouse so I can have the guys lift it as needed. Unless we buy another gooseneck trailer or something it's going to be there permanently so I want to do a clean install and wire in a light plug that plugs into my bedside.

 

[Ace in the Hole]

When are coming up here to sled, and where do you ride?
Edit; just outside Wenatchee

We'll meet up for sure. @Woodie & @Stream88 are up that way too. I remembered you were somewhere close. We tend to ride near the cabin which is up chumstick. I like the trails off 112 by the sleigh ride place. We also go up off highway 2. Joe Cannata (super nice guy that owns the 59'er diner, and the snowmobile rental co) showed us some cool spots over the years. I'm open to finding more lol.

 

[HNL2LHC]

Just made reservations for West Yellowstone in Feb. Was questionable if sleds would be available. I was trying to get everyone to buy one then we could do road tripping with @Ace in the Hole this winter. SUVs are looking to be $2k for 5 days. I might be driving up in the truck from Havasu if anyone has a trailer of sleds to be pulled. LOL