Almost Lost Another Nut

Since the boat hadn't been in the water for almost a month, Thursday night I fired her up in the trash can in the alley to make sure everything was running well. With all systems go,  We decided to take the boat out on Friday afternoon to start the Labor Day weekend off right.

We took the boat over to the dunes for load-in about 11:00 A.M. Everything went well and we loaded in. She fired right up and I was ready to pull away from the dock when I noticed I couldn't steer the boat. Really? After a month out of the water, it seems the steering ram had rusted into place. I borrowed a can of WD40 from a sailor who was tied up at the dock but I had no luck the steering wouldn't budge. We loaded up the boat and headed home.

In the alley, I disconnected the linkage and holding the ram straight up in the air I soaked the rod/ram with WD40 and let it soak in. Then I tapped the rod down with a hammer while a help turned the wheel (putting pulling pressure on the rod). Slowly the ram released and the rod began moving in. Once it was all the way down I pulled the rod with a pair of Vice grips and my helper turned the wheel the other way. I cleaned the rusty lubricant off the rod and we applied a could more coats turning the wheel lock to lock to pull more lubricant into the ram.

We headed back over to the Dunes and loaded-in without a hitch. The weather was beautiful albeit a little humid for SoCal but out on the water was perfect.

 

After a couple hours on the harbor we headed over to Hill's Boat Service which is our fuel dock. (Gary Hill is the owner and I coached his son Carson on the Balboa Bomber's our local ASYO Soccer team 20 years ago.) While at the fuel dock I decided to check my prop nut and pulled the motor up out of the water.

Much to my surprise the prop nut cotter pin was gone! You can clearly see it in the picture in the previous post it was properly installed with both legs properly turned over the nut. And there was my precious beehive nut sitting loose on the prop shaft! OK this is weird what tore off the cotter pin? Fortunately I had an additional cotter pin in my engine compartment, so I popped the hood and put the extra pin in the prop.

The long one in the photo was the one that I had just lost. I installed the short one but it was only long enough to bend over one leg. So I decided to head straight back to our dock which was only a few blocks away. When we got to the dock, I pulled the motor up and the second prop pin was gone!

We put the boat away at the dock and I spent the next 42 hours being totally perplexed. What was tearing the pins out of the nut?

Saturday it was overcast in the morning so I decided to tackle a tail-light rewiring project on my trailer. When I was out getting trailer parts, I headed over to West Marine and bought a pack of 3 Stainless Steel Cotter pins. On the way over to the dock I ran into one of my dock neighbors and explained my drama.

I told him how I tightened the beehive nut and then backed it out a 1/8-1/4 turn to align the nut hole with the hole in the prop shaft. He told me the nut needs to be tight. As bizzare as it sounds, evidently when I put the boat in gear the prop shaft was spinning up and the pressure on the pin from the weight of the brass nut would cause the (mild steel) pin to shear off!

On most automotive applications a cotter pin is a safety measure to keep a nut from rattling loose. On a front wheel bearing you turn the nut tight and back it off to the last position, but on a prop shaft, the cotter pin gets pressure so the nut needs to be tight. He told me I either needed washers to space the nut out or even better, I needed to turn the nut down tight. So, since I was close to the next nut-hole I got out my big Craftsman Crescent wrench and turned the nut down tight and I installed my new Stainless Steel cotter pin.

With crystal clear skies on Sunday we took the boat out for a Harbor Cruise and hoped for the best.

Here's the result... a classic day on the water and when we got home from cruising my prop, nut and cotter pin we all still in tact.

I'm a Nut Job

The boat has been out of the water for 3 weeks in August, but here's the new prop and nut and she's going for a swim today.

Along with the Michigan Prop I found and bought 2 beehive nuts, one actually arrived. The shaft diameter and thread of the one that arrived was perfect, but the ID to clear the prop nose was too small. I took the slow but steady approach and clearenced the nut by hand. The final product works perfectly.

 

During the downtime we ended up missing the OBR day in Los Alimitos Bay, I read on goldenstateglassics.com that another of the attendees spun a prop that day, so I guess I'm in a good club.

In the end new prop $130 prop nut $45 lesson learned to replace $1 cotter Pin... as they say... priceless.

Props for Your Scott McCulloch 60-75.2 HP

When searching for props here's some helpful information about various Michigan Wheel props that would fit the Scott McCulloch 60-75.2 HP motors.

Bronze Propellers:

• SMC620 - bronze, 3-blade, 11.5x13, 14 to 16' Boats, light loads
• SMC626 - bronze, 3-blade, 11.5x11, 16 to 17' Boats, all loads, skis
• SMC628 - bronze, 3-blade, 11.5x12, 14 to 16' Boats, all loads, skis
• SMC629 - bronze, 3-blade, 11.5x8, cruisers, houseboats, sailboats
• SMC630 - bronze, 3-blade, 11.5x8 

Aluminum Propellers:

• PS71 - aluminum, 3-blade, 11.5x12, 14 to 16' Boats, all loads, skis
• PS72 - aluminum, 3-blade, 11.5x13, 14 to 16' Boats, light loads
• PS73 - aluminum, 3-blade, 11.5x11, 16 to 17' Boats, all loads, skis
• PS74 - aluminum, 3-blade, 11.5x10, 17 to 19' Boats, all loads, skis
  Replaced by Michigan PN: 152026
• PS75- aluminum, 3-blade, 11.5x9, 20 to 24' Boats, one engine
• PS76 - aluminum, 3-blade, 11.5x8, cruisers, houseboats, sailboats

I've Spun Out of Control

As a new boater I'm learning new things everyday. The most recent thing I learned is that just like a motorcycle, stuff will fall off the boat.

In the photo above when I was changing the lower oil earlier this summer. The prop had an old-school beehive prop nut with a sketchy cotter pin securing the prop nut.

Last week I was flushing the motor with fresh water and noticed the nut was missing. My guess is the cotter pin broke a while ago and the prop nut eventually turned itself off and is likely laying at the bottom of the Newport Harbor. Also it appeared the prop had moved back a 1/4" or so. The shear pin was partially blocked by the blade casting.

The guys at fiberglassics.com pointed out that I had likely "spun" the prop. This is when the rubber between the nose assembly and blade assembly gives away. This allowed the prop to slip back over the shear pin.
Since you buy the prop separate from the motor, the beehive nuts were likely used on many different motors. Mine was used with the Michigan Wheel SMC626 bronze prop. This replacement prop nut was found on Ebay and was listed as being off a mid-50s Evinrude.

 

Since the prop was "spun" I was in search of a replacement prop. By chance I also found this new in the box 50 year old Michigan wheel SMC 626 bronze prop on Ebay for $130 shipped. The prop is listed as a Elgin-Scott-Wizard 60-75.2 hp Homelite 55 it is 11-1/2x11 and is cast bronze.

We are planning to attend the Old Boats Rule gathering in Los Alimitos Bay (Long Beach, CA) next week. I'm hoping to get everything in this week and if everything goes well, we will be cruising again next weekend.

Who's the old guy driving my boat?

I turn 50 this year, the boat is 53. The boat still looks pretty good.

B.O.A.T. Gel Coat Repair

They say B.O.A.T stands for Bust Out Another Thousand... One of the previous owners of our Dorsett evidently ran over a rock and the result was a pretty nice scrape of the gel coat on the bottom of the boat.

 

In addition there were some scrapes all the way through the gel coat  at the lower edge of the transom. Since I leave the boat in the water for 3-4 days at a time, to seal the fiberglass I went ahead and did the same repair on the transom using a little two-part marine resin. 

Unfortunately, I found that the salt was removing both fixes as when I would pull the boat out and clean it the resin was flaking off. I was concerned this would eventually fail and the fiberglass would begin to soak up water, delaminate and in my mind that led to the boat sinking.

To fix this I decided to bite the bullet and have a professional repair the gel coat. I was fortunate to find Mel. He is a local mobile boat gel coat repair technician and he and his helper George came out and did a great job fixing the scars.

Here's the big fixes. Mel also found two hairline cracks in the gel coat parallel to the trailer supports. These cracks were ground out. New glass was placed across the area and filler and gel coated.

  

For some reason, someone drilled three holes in the gun whale these were also filled and gel coated.

Scars and chips on the splash well from a trolling motor were sanded filled and gel coated.

In addition to the big stuff Mel fixed a couple of chips on the lower edge of the side and cleaned up a whole bunch of scratches on the bottom of the boat. George spent two days on his back just sanding the bottom of the boat!

Mel did a great job at matching the 50 year old / faded color. The repairs are  barely visible unless you are in direct sun light, looking on an angle and you know what to look for. In my book that's a great job.

  

I feel a lot better now as the bottom of the boat is properly sealed. I just didn't want to come out to the dock one morning and see the boat under water.

This fix was $900... Bust out another thousand.

July 4th Newport Dunes Fireworks

This year Fourth of July boating in the Newport Harbor could best be described as "sticky". We rarely get humidity on our coast but this year we were unseasonably warm for July. The inland heat resulted in low cloud cover at the beach for most of the weekend with higher than normal humidity levels. Thursday evening was capped off by the Newport Dunes fireworks display.