I just got off the phone with Ed at Campbell. I definitely hydro-locked the engine. And their initial thoughts about the water pump being restricted water due to plumbing seems to be the culprit. It makes sense and I hope it’s the solution. I don’t mind replacing impellers – once a year.

The oil coming out of the dipstick also seems to be from the fact the engine isn’t breathing. I’m no mechanic so this is a little out of my league, but it makes sense. Adding breathers and some hosing to the valve covers is what they’re quoting for me now.

They’re working on her. Putting her back together, better, faster, stronger.

I spent all day Sunday working on the boat. We took it out of the garage and washed it. Waxed it. And then hooked up the hose and started it.

First thing I noticed pulling it out of the garage is that it serves two purposes: boat and playhouse. The girls have toys all over the cabin. Cups, plates, dolls, shoes and you name it. Then I noticed that dust had built up pretty thick. But man she cleans up well. I didn’t get to wax the whole thing. Just the out edge and the transom. I’ll work on the pecalon while it’s in the garage.

My big task for the day though was to start it. I wanted to see how well it held up during the winter months in the garage. I wasn’t too sure about the batteries either. Most importantly I wanted to figure out a routine for setting up the hose. I will not burn through impellars this season!

The hose went on with no problem. This actually made me mad considering I hadn’t even tried before. There is a simple hose clamp on the bottom connecting the water hose to the hull. The hose is long enough to bend up towards a hose and the whole thing took 10 minutes. This would have saved me around $500. A 10 minute step. Damn.

She fired up on the 3rd key turn. I needed to pull the choke was all. As soon as it started the water started blowing out of the pipes out the transom. Nice! Sounds great. Ran great. I let her go for about 10 minutes and the temp stayed low. Batteries both had good charges and didn’t sound weak on the start.

Looks like we’re ready! Here are some more pictures from the day.

The boat got fixed. Twice.

The first time was for the fuel pump push rod. Yep. I bent it. It was pretty bad. I was lucky. Fred at Campbell was able to pull it out. Side note: He used a tool that I bought when I tried to do it myself – I was on the right track. Apparently he’s stronger than me and was able to pull the rod out.

We took the boat out after the fixed push rod and had a great evening. Then we took the boat out the next day and had a great day. Up until the boat started running hot. We were trolling around the California side looking for a beach and stopped in a small cove that got a little shallow and had tons of weeds in the water. No beaches so we stopped like we always do to swim and play off the back of the boat. Get back in and start out and I notice that the temp goes from 165 to 200. I asked cousin Jon to lift the lid on the engine – I was thinking maybe it needed some air. It stayed there at 200. This was about 2 minutes now and I decided to shut off the engine. I really didn’t know what to do and so we sat there for about an hour waiting for the engine to cool. It did and I tried starting it. It wouldn’t crank. FAIL.

At this point I figured I had totally hosed my engine. Total disappointment. The funny thing was that there was no smoke, no burning smell – nothing. It just wouldn’t flop over. So we called Sea-Tow. Damn if that isn’t expensive. I highly recommend paying the annual $130 membership before you need to pay the $185/hr fee for a tow. Luckily we were just 4 miles across from Windsor.

I dropped the boat off at Campbells (again) and left it there. Ed called on Monday to say (like he always does) “boat’s fixed”. He told me the impeller was toast again and that I hydro-locked the engine. Well if that isn’t sweet music. I was fully prepared, sitting down and everything, for him to tell me that the engine needed to be rebuilt. Seriously. Kimberly and I even talked worse case scenario of fixing it enough to sell the boat. Yah. I was that disappointed.

So the impeller was probably ruined by nature and yours truly. See, the weeds were everywhere and it’s possible for a while they were clogging the intake for the impeller. Compound that with all of my diagnosing the boat in the garage and not having a hose on the boat. I never ran the boat, just started it a bunch to test things and see if would start. In fact the boat hardly ever ran. I was mostly cranking it to try and start it. Remember – the fuel pump push rod wasn’t working. Cranking it like that without water likely contributed to the impeller drying up and breaking.

I want to put an end to all of these troubles. I’m hoping this is the last post about maintenance. Please God.

At least that’s what I hope it is. I’m sure I did it when I installed the fuel pump the first time. I didn’t get it seated properly and proceeded to tighten it down. I noticed the problem right away and fixed it, but probably too late. Worse – I pushed the rod up into the block to seat the pump properly. Effectively freezing it in there. Now it doesn’t cycle up and down when the motor cranks. I’ve read online many stories of woe from others doing the same thing. 

I’m taking it to Havasu on Friday and leaving it with Campbell. Hoping and praying they can fix it easily and cheaply.

I bought the fuel filter. Put it on. Quick and easy. And because I had an extra new one I decided to replace the fuel pump too. Nola and Madi hung out with me so it was cool. Nola found a model I have in the garage and decided to try and build it all by herself. Madi found the camera and decided to take pictures all by herself. Both listened to daddy moan and groan about the location of the fuel pump and the difficulty of installing it properly. Nevertheless – it’s installed.

So after it was installed I asked a buddy of mine to go with me to the lake to test drive the boat. We got there right after work and found that the boat just wouldn’t start. We did some troubleshooting and found that we weren’t getting fuel past the fuel pump. Yes, the one I just installed. Damn. Did I break something?

So we went back to the house and looked it over again. Pulled the fuel pump and my buddy quickly saw a problem. The gasket wasn’t replaced. And the old gasket was in really bad shape. Good thing the new pump came with a gasket. Quick replacement. Same old moaning and groaning about the location of the pump and the install pain-in-the-neck.

The problem is even after replacing that gasket I’m still not getting fuel to the carb. In fact now when I throttle the boat there is no fuel being pushed into the carb, where before there was a small stream.

I’m getting really frustrated and nervous about all this. I’m sure it’s something I’m not aware of or something simple I’m missing. I’ve replaced the batteries, the coil, the fuel filter and the fuel pump. And something else strange – when I prime the carb with starting fluid or a little extra gas from a gas can – the boat will fire up and run long enough to burn the starting fluid or the gas I primed it with. Once that burns off it sputters out and dies. I know for a fact fuel isn’t getting to the carb. I just don’t know why.

Damn.

So Nola and I were looking at the fuel filter last night. It looks like it is going to be an easy replacement. I didn’t pull it yet though cause I don’t have a new one. I went online to see where I could buy one and turns out that Napa, AutoZone & Checker don’t list it as available online. Hmmm …

Well, I could probably buy it online from all of the other places I did find – I just wish I could drive down the street and get it.

I also spent some time just “lookin around”. I found the case stamp for the block. 361959. From my research online that puts the block right around a ‘78-’90 production and probably an LS6 model which is a part of the Mark IV series or Generation 2. Apparently this was the block that mostly went in the Corvette at the time (up until ‘76 I believe). Nice. It’s also known to produce right around 450hp stock. Apparently this is without all of the “emission compliance” parts. Which the boat does not have! I would be tickled one day to find out what the boat does …

I took pictures of all of the replaceable parts (coil, distributor, etc). Found the line to drain the oil from. Only one thing left to do really. There is this peacock on the fuel lines before the fuel filter. It doesn’t appear to do anything. I imagine it’s a left/right valve close type of switch but I haven’t tested it to find out. I may pull it tonight to have a look.

I got the Optima’s and installed them last night. Easy work. The original batteries were ACDelco and one was dead. This is what caused the whole “fuel gages” incident last time we were out on the water. It makes me much more comfortable knowing I have two brand new batteries. And I got the good batteries. I hope they last because damn they were expensive!

I took the time to get some water out of the boat as well. There was a small pool of water right below the V-Drive and I’m not sure why it was there. I bilged the boat right before we pulled it out of the water and it was clear when we got it home. Somehow the water sits in this spot. No big deal – it’s easy to get to and clear out.

First thing I noticed was the wood. I totally dig the wood used to build the components of the boat. Solid construction everywhere and it is so cool to see how it’s handmade. There are even spots where they wrote “24″ on the wood. And in a lot of spots on the wood I can see the word “Petto”. Maybe this is the original owner? Second thing I noticed was that the Optima batteries are slightly narrower and shorter than the ACDelcos. Uh oh. There are these blue rubber coated frames that hold the batteries in place and the fit over the top of the batteries. Well not the Optimas! This might be a problem.

Well I’m no Jesse James, but I had an idea and it worked out great. I took some scrap metal I had and fabricated two straps to wrap the frames with. This will hopefully hold the batteries down. It doesn’t look professional when you’re up close – but in the picture it looks like it was meant to be there. Bolted everything back into place and fired up the engine. I let it fire just once so I knew it would crank over. Man I can’t wait for this weekend!

Oh – and I had help. Nola bear was out in the garage with me the whole time. She handed daddy the wrench and the rag and made sure all of the wingnuts stayed in one place. I had Coors, she had Diet Pepsi. The best part – right after we’re done installing the batteries we got one of the best monsoon storms we’ve had in a while. Rain literally dropped out of the sky. I took Nola out into the middle of the street and danced in the rain. It was a great time. Here are a few more pictures of my little helper.

Tonight I gave the boat a thorough cleaning. I waxed the whole boat and gave all the wood some teak oil.

Before:

After:

You might need to click on each photo to really appreciate the difference. But believe me, there is a tremendous difference.

And by the way – while vacuuming I saw a pull tab for one of the bench seats in the cabin. I pulled it and the seat folded down and what did I find? The table for the cabin. Nice surprise right before our first trip to Lake Pleasant!

Our first day with the boat was eventful. First thing we did was grab some lunch. I think that is probably a must after writing a check that big. Beer and some fish and chips was on order at Mudsharks. The girls enjoyed lunch too, and Mommy joined Daddy in the beer. After we ate it was off to the hotel to get our suits on and get the boat in the water! We launched at Windsor and headed out. Just past the no wake buoy I throttled up and got us about a half mile out. Then I figured we could get in the water for a minute to cool off then head for the channel. So I stopped the boat and we swam.

The first thing I noticed was there was smoke coming from the engine. I thought that it didn’t really smell like a bad smoke (no oil burning) and that it was possibly just fine and maybe it was a cleaner that was just burning off. Why not right? The engine was spotless and shiny!

Well we got in the boat to head out and when I turned the key I knew we had bigger issues. The boat would not start. Crap. What did I do?

Campbell came out and towed us back in. Turns out after about an hour of looking at dead-end clues it was the water pump impeller. From the picture you can tell there is a rubber wheel and that it’s little fan blades are shredded off. Yah – that’s not right. So they replaced it and actually apologized because that should have been done before I bought the boat. At the end of the day it was good with me because I learned more about the boat.

So after that we towed the boat back to the hotel and decided that was enough excitement for the day. Big boat purchase. Big beers for lunch. Big impeller blow up on the water. The second day on the water we found our beach and I was going through the boat with a fine tooth comb. I found a cardboard box in the cabin cupboard. Open it up and what do I find? Yep – an impeller. Seems like maybe the previous owner knew something I didn’t!

Recently Written

• 37th Annual Campbell Regatta
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• Lake Havasu – 5/16
• New member to the Campbell Club
• Lake Pleasant – Good trip
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• The boat engine is fine – there is hope

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