Mechanical Difficulties Update

After much trial and tribulation trying to find someone who would haul Southern Style out of the water to work on our shaft seal issue, we finally found a place.  Winter Harbor Boatyard in Brewerton, NY.  This is a great place, however they were 2 days back from where we had come.  So on Saturday June 22nd we left Clayton, NY about 5:30 AM and cruised back down the St. Lawrence River and across Lake Ontario and into Oswego, NY.  To be careful not to overheat our injured shaft, we cruised the entire way at 8 knots ( about 9-10 MPH).  We stayed tied up to the wall in Oswego just after passing through Lock #8 on the Oswego Canal.  Sunday June 23rd we headed to Brewerton, NY and Winter Harbor.  We had passed here about a week before, and now we were back.  They were able to haul us out at 8 AM Monday morning.  Let me tell you, it is quite a sight to see your  90,000 lb floating home being lifted out of the water.

Southern Style in position to be lifted

Here she is lifted out of the water on slings

This is a shot of the stern (back) sling

Once in the slings and out of the water they drive the lift contraption forward onto land and lower the boat enough to place several blocks under her for more stability

Pengi wanted to see the propellers now that they were visible out of the water

Additional pictures of Southern Style

I cleaned her white boot stripe while she was high and dry

They worked in her engine room for 8 hours on Monday essentially to remove 8 bolts (this is what Captain Keith tells me).  I took the courtesy car and went to Super Walmart to get some provisions while the mechanics were at work.  We are hoping to still be in Canada by the end of the week.  Tuesday morning the mechanic was back working at 7 AM.  I took several pictures so that Captain Keith could explain in greater detail for our boat friends what is going on.  

Okay boat fans, Captain Keith here to provide a play-by-play of what transpired.  I have received a lot of questions from my boating friends that wanted some specifics.  So the rest of this is going to be a bit more technical.  So if that is not your cup of tea just skip it.  The short version is the boat got fixed.

Here we go... So a week ago we crossed Lake Ontario for the first time heading to the Thousand Islands.  When we arrived last Saturday in Clayton, NY I did my usual engine room check.  I found a lot of water in the bilge which never happens.  So I traced the problem back to the shaft.  The seal was dripping.  Not terrible, but enough that we needed to replace the seal.  I also noticed that there was a distinct smell of burnt rubber in the engine room.  Not a good sign.  Then I felt the shaft, and  it was very, very hot.  Like I could not touch the shaft with my bare hand it was so hot.  Wow!  Not good.

But there was bit of good news.  This boat has Tides Marine Seals.  The good news was that there was a spare "lip seal" already on the shaft.  So it was a pretty straight forward removal of the old seal, and slide in the new seal.  We did that without too much trouble.  The leak stopped and we thought all was good.

Not so fast... We still needed to figure out what had caused the shaft seal to get so hot.  It took me about a day to figure out the water supply to the shaft seal had completely stopped.  I mean NO water coming at all.  I pulled off the hose to the shaft seal and got barely a trickle of water into the boat.  The line has a bunch of melted plastic.  I then start the engine to see if I got water coming in from the engine and got NADA, ZIP, ZILCH.  This is a problem.  Gail and I traced the water line back and pulled it off of the "T" fitting.  I started the engine back up and got one puff of water and then a whole lot of exhaust.  Houston, we have a problem.  At this point I'm pretty sure the shaft seal is toast.  We still need to find the cause.

I pull the cover off of the water pump to check the impeller.  It looks perfect.  No problem there.  I put the cover back on the water pump and in the process I snap a head off of one of the bolts.  Oh boy, now I have another problem.  I try to drill/tap and "easy out" the old bolt without any luck.  It is just in a very tight space and I just can't get the drill to line up straight.  Now I'm pissed.

Luckily, the dockmaster in Clayton had a friend that was a mechanic that was willing to come take a look after work.  He is a pretty big guy, but he wedges himself on the outboard side of the motor and the generator.  He pulls the cover back off the water pump and is able to get a pair of vice grips on the shaft and twists it out in 2 minutes.  Now I feel like an idiot!  He just smiled and said "you are not the first guy to do this."  Crisis averted.  Back to the blocked lines.

Gail and I then spent the next 3 days tracing the water lines, figuring out the water flow, removing hoses and working to figure out where and why the water is blocked.  In the meantime, I am learning a lot about the boat and its systems.

After we cleaned up the water lines the first time, we tested the flow.  We were supposed to get one gallon of water per minute at idle.  So we started with the good engine (starboard) to check the water flow.  Sure enough, the water at idle was over one gallon per minute.  Perfect!  Then we tested the problem child, the port motor.  The first time we only got about half a gallon per minute.  Crap!  It is better than when we started, but there is more work to do.

With Gail's help, we did finally get the lines cleared out.  We still really don't know why the line got blocked to begin with.  There was a little bit of calcium and barnacle build up in the forward steering cooler, but not really that much to completely stop the water flow.  But we went ahead and pulled it apart along with the starboard cooler to make sure we didn't have a similar problem getting ready to appear on that side.  We back-flushed lines with a garden hose many, many times and rodded out the tubes in the cooler.  Finally, we tested the port motor again and PRESTO, we got over a gallon a minute at idle.  Halaluya!  The skies clear, the birds sing, and the four letter words finally stop coming out of my mouth.

But wait there is more... After pulling apart the starboard cooler (the good motor), cleaning it and putting it back together, I start it to make sure everything is good to go.  Water flow is good and I think we are all set.  I turn off the motor and look at the cooler and what do I see, but a nice steady stream of water coming out of the hose elbow.  More four letter words fly.

Pull it all back apart, get the elbow off and sure enough, a nice big split in the hose.  Crap!  Get on my bike and ride to the hardware store first.  No luck.  Ride to NAPA Auto Parts store.  I show the guy the part.  He says he is not sure he has anything like that, but let's go take a look.  We walk to the back of the store.  Sure enough, he has one 90 degree hose that looks almost perfect.  SOLD.

Ride back to the boat with my fingers crossed.  Put it all back together and it fits perfectly.  Thank GOD.  We are in business.

At this point, we think if we ride the 85 miles back to Brewerton, NY at 8 knots that everything "Should" hold together.  It does.  I am down in the engine room every hour with an infra-red heat gun shooting the temperatures of both shafts and the housing.  They are about 1 or 2 degrees apart all day.  I feel pretty good.

Now we get to Winter Harbor to take care of what I think is a melted shaft seal.  I had ordered the part a few days back and have it all ready to go.

Of course, with any boat job, access to the areas to work is always an issue and this project was no different.  We first needed to remove 8 bolts from the transmission to the shaft coupling.  Naturally, the bolts are rusted in place and we are working in a space about the size of a shoe box.

Below is a picture of the 8 bolts finally removed

We had to remove a work bench, 2 AGM 8D batteries that weighed over 160 lbs each just to get access to the coupler.

Below on the left is the new shaft seal; on the right is the burned up old seal.

The stuff sticking out on the right is the bearing that melted

Left is the good one.  You can see the gray bushing on the inside and how it should look.

The shaft got so hot on the right that the gray bushing melted away.

When we saw the old shaft seal and the condition it was in, we concluded that we needed to completely remove the shaft and check that it did not warp.  We got it on the machine and it was perfect.  Since all this was apart, we decided to go ahead and replace the cutlass bearing too.  That was another project.  Long story... the story ends with a "sawzall".

The cutlass bearing was still in the shaft tube at noon.  When the guys got back from lunch at 1:00pm, the old cutlass bearing came out, the new one went in, we got the shaft back in, the new shaft seal on, the coupler back on, the props back on, and the whole thing bolted back on the transmission.  At 3:30pm, the boat went back in the water.

So basically it took a day and half to get everything apart and only 2 and half hours to get it all back together.  The guys at Winter Harbor are great.  They are experienced and I learned a lot in the process.  My experience here was very different from anything I received in NC.  I would come here again in a minute.

We have just a few things left to finish tomorrow.  We are going to install 2 new house batteries, and get the work bench reassembled and back in.  We think we will be on our way by noon tomorrow.  You are never happy to have your boat in the yard on the hard, but this experience was probably the best I have had.  I'll let you know if my mood changes when I get the bill.  if you have other questions I didn't answer, fire away.  Shoot me a text or leave a comment.  Cheers!