I think I have figured it out. There are two kinds of boats. The ones out on the water moving and the ones that are money pits. Now...others may have a different opinion here. Good. But I'm telling you how I see it. I have to get Mary Lee swimming before she takes me to the cleaners. Well hopefully when engine is started I have done my job well and all the little things I have been working on are now trouble free....... so I can find more things later.

Apparently nobody cares for the way I eat. I have given away so many bottles of mustard and ketchup I don't buy it anymore. Believe it or not the hotdogs and bread don't taste any worse without it :-)

My knees could not take the crawling in here to work. I cheated. I am glad this is about done. My back is really giving me trouble now. I will just have to hope engine does not finish the job. I do the best I can but I would be fired from any kind of job that required me to do even small amounts of physical stuff every day. Some days I just have a hard time just caring about anything.

 I don't think I could even get enough sleep to function on a real job anymore. I know most nights my back is still causing a serious loss of sleep. Well.....That is all expected to improve with time as I work on boat and just keep moving.

Pactience personified. I have never seen a pair of dogs so well behaved. What a dogs life. Just relaxing and watching Steve and Anastasia fix the new home. I can always think of the females name (kenai) I think it is spelled this way but somehow my wore out little brain struggles with the males name. But he still lets me pet him.

I am so tired of this big mess in the cockpit everytime I need tools. Engine parts are under blue tarp on seat. I just could not get all of it in the picture. All around the edges of picture is space filled with stuff.

I forgot to download pictures from today but will have a finished chain locker tomorrow. Will have picture of that tomorrow and hopefully some engine parts.

So saturday has come and almost gone. I still have a bit to do on chain locker. I am still not sure if it should be called a chain locker or an anchor locker. Seems most people know what I am talking about. Truthfully I think it should be called an anchor rhode locker.

I don't seem to have the skill with a computer to figure out how to turn pictures. Maybe by tomorrow night I will be able to put chain and anchor back where they belong and it will all work out as planned. Because if it does not I don't know how to fix it. I have done the best I can on this.

Of course all I have to do is look next door and see Steve and Anastasia putting struts and driveshafts in with help from Phil (the resident mechanic). So far the chain locker is a pretty insignificant chore compared to that. I have learned a lot about the job they are doing and I think if I "had" to do it myself, I could. I would just want to know why. Why would I" have" to do one? Well, I would certainly help a friend with one but I have seen the light. You don't want to do one unless you actually do have to do it.

I don't remember if I showed engine mounts. Engine is certainly going to be pretty. Pretty hard to forget once you have seen it :-).
I have been forgetting to get pictures. It has been a bit of a headache but one of my worst probems is almost straightened out. Engine parts are starting to come in now so soon it is going to be serious busy here. Back has really been acting up lately. I hope it eases off once I get some rest time after Mary Lee is launched.

It has been a tough day. I will have pictures of new stuff next time.

Hi again. I am still having a few problems but will try to catch up a little more.

Steve and anastasia are also pushing for a Sept.1st launch.

Steve

Anastasia. What a great couple. I wish them all the luck in the world. But I still want my boat in the water first :-)

Cockpit lined with engine parts all cleaned, painted and ready to assemble. Parts will be here soon.

Cobbled up bandaid looking mess from last year.To much of a hurry. Like Murphy says, Never enough time to fix it right, always enough time to fix it again..

I have a difficult thing here but I know what to do with it. I meant to get more done today but the heat was a little much so will start first thing in morning while still cool..

Rich's boat went in the other day and he made it about as far as I had before it overheated. Of course I had to be towed in, He got to bring his back under it's own power. I think his is going to go to Florida on a trailer. He is out of time and needing to get back to work. Rich is good people.

Working on templates for patterns when cutting out boards for anchor locker.
So at the end of the day, All is well and everyone has boat work to do.

Things have been a little slow since the last post. I have been sorting out my chain locker issue. Namely how to correct a problem caused by there not being a chain locker. Seems easy in thought but the main mast on a cat-ketch is right in the middle of where I need to be to fix it.

I actually contemplated how nice it would be to throw a rock at whoever was responsible for not putting a good locker in while building Mary Lee :-) Of course that would have just been the easy way.

This is where it all takes place today. I reached in past mast for this shot. Still having difficulties with computer, so will finish up this evening.

   So today I thought I would share a little bit of family history I just learned a very short time ago. My moms dad. Who died when she was a little girl. Came out of a family with 16 boys and 3 girls. All 16 boys fought in world war 2. All 15 of his brothers were killed fighting. He was the only one to come home. I don't know yet what side they were fighting on but that little tidbit was in the obituary. He was buried in Mitchel South Dakota.
    Dad told me once that he was a third cousin to Keizer Wilhelm and could speak several languages. I can neither verify or disclaim any of this but when I have things caught up I want to find out more. I think Keiser Wilhelm was run out of town by the nazi's but even that is a guess from something I remember studying in high school. If I had known some of this back then I may have had much more interest in what I was learning.

   When I first saw this little guy a few days earlier his mom was still cleaning him. Hard to believe he has grown so much in just a few days. This was in front yard in Thompson Falls, Mt.

   Took barbacue with me to Thompson Falls, Mt. I used it a good part of the winter. I never did actually see anyone else out in the snow drinking beer, listening to music and burning chicken :-) Well someone had to do it.

Front of house I was caretaking last winter. You just would not believe how huge this place was. I never measured the living space but I was in on building enough homes to make a guess that this would have been between 4 and 5000 ft. Thompson Falls has a Winchester mansion. Rogers dad built what he needed. It had a huge shop in the back. Everyone who was shown the house was overwhelmed the first time through.

  Rogers 1978 Bronco I used last winter. It has a new engine but we are unsure what it is. It was bought at auction as a project vehicle and it does have the heavy duty version of the 390 in it. That however is just the block. It had new pistons that were stamped 40 thousanths over and the guy was an old ford guy who was building this for pulling heavy trailers. A 410 mercury crank would have made this a 428 ci. Well whatever it is. In 4 wheel drive and low range it would be hard to stop. I owned several fords with 390's that had 4:11 gears and they never had the snort this thing does. Of course in low range you could watch the gas gauge drop as you drove it :-)

This is looking down on Thompson Falls from about the 5000ft. level on one of the many forest service trails in the area. I notice digital pictures tend to wash out at distance on sunny days, but I tried.  I notice that most of the people who had moved to the mountains from the big cities feel like they are really living the life but in actuallity they are doing exactly what they did when living in the city. Work, home, bar?, grocery store.
    They sit and stare at the mountains because they are afraid of the evil things that most certainly must be out there and will never realise that what made the natives the way they were was being close to nature. Not just reading a book about it and pretending to know. If you have ever spent a lot of quiet time out in the woods just observing wildlife/nature then you know what I am talking about. I kind of feel sorry for them.  In the old days people lived in town and the surrounding woods were open for all to enjoy. Now they want to own estates and put up no tresspassing signs. So they sit in the house overseeing their property and nobody is out enjoying that anymore.
  A friend told me they do that because they think it makes them safe to be away from people. Just the opposite. If someone is going to rob someone. They would most certainly go to the secluded places first where they are least likely to be seen and have a better chance of getting away with it.

  OK....that is my bitch. I love the mountains and having been born and raised in them I don't like seeing what is happening to them.  It bothers me to see people flocking in and not having any appreciation for what they see. All they want to do is stare at it from the safety of a house or figure out how to get rich with it.  I doubt I will ever move back to the mountains. The time and place I grew up in has changed more than I can take.
   I think the boating world will be a very good change for me. I know there are going to be teething pains but I am most willing to put up with them to be out here doing what I want to do. I have wanted to do this for a very long time and it is now right in front of me.  Guess who took a day off to rest and is getting anxious to get going again. :-) :-) :-)

Today was much like the other days taking engine apart. A whole lot more elbow grease than expected.  Remember the valve cover from yesterday?

Now put this under it.

The block will be yellow as will the front cover. Motor mounts will be yellow  So far I have not figured it all out. I think I will be putting a picture of it on my boat card. I doubt if most people will forget seeing an engine painted this way. Who knows, I may be doing some engine work for do it your selfers along the way. As long as they do the heavy lifting and searching for parts. Who knows. I also have a book to write. I do like working on engines though.

 I will say that I have worked on some old cars that were quite neglected and I never saw anything like I have seen on this engine. I think I have a cure for some of it. I think "No seize" put on the shaft of bolts, not threads. Then wd40 used on the threads.(it works great on spark plugs in aluminum heads to keep them from seizing). The wd40 that is. The no seize on the shaft of bolt should keep the corrosion between the bolt and the hole to a minimum. Don't know for sure but it seems like it should work better than nothing.

I think Rich is putting Horizon in the water tomorrow and if you remember the picture of neighbors Hatteras. Steve and Anastasia will be pushing to get it launched before the first of September. If I am not going to watch all my friends leave first this year then I will have to be humping it. I just want to splash down no later than sept. 1st. I know it looks busy but I think it will surprise the people who are not mechanically inclined how fast it will go together. Mechanics will think I am slow but I am still recovering and I don't do this for a living. Motors,for me, have always just been fun.

On a high note. The Francos met someone with a nonsuch cat boat. I was unable to contact the guy like he asked. However, on the site, nonsuch.org  I looked at. I saw a floor plan on a 30 ft. nonsuch that cures the issues I don't like in my living space. So, you never know where the good stuff comes from, but there is always something good in everything. Just not always in the way we might want it.

 I know the adventures so far are not what one would want, but pretty soon Mary Lee goes in the water and I will leave no stone unturned looking for adventure. I was given a chance to live again and I am not going to sit around watching life slip by. Pretty sure at this point that I have recovered enough to want to start dating again. I know, but I hurt to bad to even care for a long time and I think I am recovered enough to enjoy it again. Well once I get caught up with the boat work and get a chance to rest a bit :-) :-) :-)

Some days start off well enough but nothing seems to get done. I did finish water pump. However, I got packages from Idaho today and found out that envelope thought to contain passport actually asked me to go through hoops to prove I exist. That is fine but this is the clincher. All the stuff I have to send in is in Texas in storage. Somedays you just can't win.

   So since I had to put away 3 big boxes of stuff, call passport office in Seattle and run with Rich to Harbour freight for a ring compressor for installing pistons. I didn't get anything done with the head.

I did finally give up on the old percolator coffee pot. It just takes to long to make coffee. I picked up a coffee press today. I am anxious to try it out in the morning.

I also got 6 bags of ice from Walmart. Time to try out that icebox under the coffee press in last picture. Picture doesn't show it right but it didn't even come close to filling it half way. Walmart didn't have blocks so I tried cubes. I know blocks will last longer but I know this will give me an idea how long ice will last in there.

I have had to take pain pills to keep working for the last two days. I know I have been overdoing it. I have done all I could do to the point of exhaustion every day now for over a month. I think I need to take a couple of days to recoupe. I don't want to. I have a deadline and I need to do this myself. I find myself in a quandry. My legs are getting stronger but most nights the nerves are jumping in them. I know it is nerve damage from back injury. One of the reasons I am retired and doing this.

 I am taking mega vitamins and electrolite replacements to make up for all the sweating I have done. I guess it would not hurt to take one day to relax. It would be easier if I could just go sailing to relax. Oh.......that's right. I am doing this so I can have some quiet time on the water and no matter what I have to do, soon I will be on the water.

Tomorrow will be a good day. I can get up and enjoy coffee. I have mostly done without it as it has just been to hot. But I do love coffee in the morning.

The paint scheme has evolved. The main engine parts are to be bright yellow. Maintainance things like dipstick, oil cap, etc. will be blue. The starter, alternator, waterpump. and I don't know, maybe pulleys will be blue. Bolts will be red. as will things not to be touched. I know, sounds like something in a childrens playground. But I already have the paint and I want to be able to find things on engine. Besides, I bet mine will run as well as any and be as well maintained as the best of them.

Oil pan, tranny, and that evil aluminum front cover. I bet I have 5-6 hours into that thing. 4 of the bolts were the equivilent of welded into the holes. The first bolt head broke off while trying to get it off engine. I finally had to cut heads off others after it was out and beat them back through the holes as the threads would not come through. Penetrating oil would not help. I win. It is now cleaned,painted and ready to re-install.

Blue fill plug on tranny. Still looks subdued doesn't it?  Hold on.

A picture is worth a thousand words but I bet you can't think of to many right now can you?  This is just the valve cover. Wait until you see the rest of it. I have built enough engines to know the paint doesn't change how they run. But since I have all this pretty paint.....why not.

This is water pump. It is a diamond in the rough. Actually it is tight and has a lot of life left in it. Wait until you see this tomorrow. I have not figured out the proper colors yet but I will try to make it as aesthetically pleasing as the valve cover is. You know it will all have to match when put together or it will all need taken back apart and done correctly.......Yea right :-) A friend told me recently that even though I am stuck on the hard, at least I am doing what I love. OK.....but maybe I can have a little fun with the rebuild.

 I have been thinking. If people were willing to do the lifting and finding of parts. I think as long as the engine doesn't sit in my galley or take up space on my boat, I might just be willing to do more of these. I missed working on engines. It was always one of my favorite hobbies. I would buy old vehicles just for the joy of making everything on them work again. It was never about the money. It was figuring out how to undo the damage others had done. Like a big rewind.

So the day is done. I will clean up and paint the head, waterpump and block tomorrow. I have to get all parts cleaned and a light coat of oil where needed. Don't want rust on important stuff. All gaskets will be scraped. When parts show up you know what will be hitting the fan. I can make a lot of engine stuff happen in a short time when I want to. Believe me, I want to. So if anyone out there is bored, you know where to be next week. I might need someone to hold the flashlight for me :-) :-) :-)

I do believe I am starting to enjoy living again. Wow! What a hard road that last one was. Do not turn left back there. It has taken me 6 and a 1/2 years to fight through that one. I came out dented up and still have mud packed under the fenders (so to speak) But really. Take care of your back. An injury can put you through things you cannot possibly imagine unless you have lived through it.

Friday started off much the same as most days. I think I would like to just lay in bed longer. I get phone calls late as most friends are 3 hours behind on the clock. They think they are calling me before bed but it is 11:00 pm or later usually. So I get to sleep about 1:30 am. Not complaining. I enjoy the company,but, By 7:00 am it is starting to get pretty warm in boat. Does not seem to matter what combination of things open or fans blowing.

So I was saying. Mornings are about like groundhog day(the movie). I wake up sooner than I want. I am a little groggy. To warm to make coffee. Drink 5 hour energy drink or equivelant. Figure out what to eat. Then it is laundry time. Doing clothes with washboard is a tad bit tedious but very affective. By the time I get yesterdays clothes clean and hanging I am well awake.

I decided that no matter what else happened. I was going to have the serial numbers off that engine block before the sun went down. I had looked at the engine block a few times rather closely and even though I was told the numbers could be anywhere, I could not find the magic spot. I put wire wheel on drill and proceeded a massive cleanup/search. I found them the very last spot I looked. But only after I found a website where the guy went through the same thing and said where he found his.

Mission accomplished. I made a few calls and have now found crank and connecting rod. I should have them in about a week. The price was certainly right. $300 for both.

I am determined to see something turn yellow today. The oil pan is the worst looking mess so I get wire wheel on it and a couple hours later it is yellow.

my work bench

The oil cap, dipstick and I don"t know what else will be blue. The engine will be all bright yellow. Yellow will show any and all leaks without having to look very hard. just as an added tough. I found a can of high heat ford red. Bolt heads will be red :-) :-) :-). Leaves a distinctive image doesn"t it. I was going to paint it blue with yellow accessories and the guy next to me suggested the yellow. Why not. When you open the doors and look at engine you will have no doubts about whether or not it is original.

So the guy with the suggestion. He works here. He and his wife are moving aboard a 41 ft. 1964 , Hatteras?

They plan on sept.1st. They have much to do but are here about every night after work.

So last night I learned a lesson that seems pretty obvious at this point. It was hot. Rich asked if I wanted to head over to west marine with him. OK. Pretty hot. not to cloudy. Probably not going to be gone to long and boat is up in the mid-90"s inside. I left it all open but the forward hatch and the two ports in v-berth.

 When done at west marine, Rich mentioned the new Jason Bourne movie. Seemed like good idea and it was nice outside. I almost fell asleep half a dozen times the first 45 minutes. rest of movie was ok. Walked out into a rainstorm. Got lucky. Other than the large puddles under hatch and companionway and some wet under ports. Not horrible. Gonna be drying things out but could have been much worse. all electronic things escaped harm.

Went down to Jimmyjohns for a sub. Good sandwich and good price. Walked through store next door to see what they had. On way back to boat the storm hit. I sat in truck probably 20 min. waiting for rain to slow down a bit. When it quit that was about all for the night. On a side note. The storm was really blowing. If I had not shut boat up earlier It would have been a special night for me. I will never walk away from boat again without shutting it up tight. I can deal with cooling it down better than drying it out :-)

So the engine has finally relented to my superior firepower :-)  All it took was every trick I ever learned to get rusted bolts out (well that and a bucket full of perserverance.

So far so good. Time to walk down to the pavillion for another picnic.

Kippered herring, string cheese, chips, chocolate mouse and water. Lunch of champions. Now I am ready to finish pulling engine apart.

This is the culprit. The spun rod bearing and a crankshaft that needs turned and a rod that needs reconditioned.

Of course no disassembled engine is complete without pictures of the head that hid all the bad stuff. I actually am beginning to enjoy the engine work. My back is screaming at me but like I said, my world needs puzzles. I like engines, they are easy puzzles for me. I may actually do more of them as long as they are not in my galley.

So Rich is helping me figure out some computer stuff. I swear, computers are much more complicated that engines, or for that matter, anything I have seen done on a boat to date.

I will attempt to find picture of galley without engine, parts and tools in it. I now have my home back. I will assemble engine in cockpit and install myself. I am determined not to need help with any part of it. I will also be painting engine bright yellow with a few parts like dipstick and pulleys bright blue. Will be working on that while I wait on parts.

So the engine fiasco continues. I have said before that fate looks out for me, just not always in the way I wanted. Of course you know I thought I was just going to drop crankshaft out the bottom of engine and have it ground. Replace with new bearings, etc. Well.............Something along those lines. It turns out I have fought pulling rusted and corroded bolts for days now. This morning I was finally able to get rest of oil pan bolts out with vise grips. I let them soak with penetrating oil most of yesterday and all last night.

These are all 10 mm bolt heads and the few I could pound the box end of the wrench onto I had to use a 9mm wrench. Picture does not really tell the story. 
  
So a couple days ago I met Rich. Rich is the computer guy for one of the cruise ships down south. Nice guy. He fits in with what I am learning about the people in the boating world.( It seems hard to find bad people)  So Rich has run me for tools, etc. I showed him Bacon Sails. Last night after deciding we ought to be able to build our own crab traps for less than they sell the better ones for. We bought some chicken wire and bailing wire. Around 11 pm we had two box looking things that really could look like beat up crab traps.

Before we started.

Before run to walmart last night for bait. We will pull them tonight and see how we did. Whether they work or not we had a good time trying and I had a bit of comic relief from the engine messing up my home.

Richard owns Harmony. A 21 ft. bayliner cabin cruiser. He is 46. two years younger than I. He decided a while back that instead of laying around doing nothing when on vacation from cruise ship, he would start doing the things he always wanted to. The Bayliner is one of them. He lives in Florida and wanted to buy a boat and travel south on the intracoastal waterway. He should be leaving in a few days. The company has been good. Once again I will watch a friend leave before I get to.

Front cover took 3 days. It is aluminum and with bolts corroded solid in 3 of the holes it took time. You cannot force aluminum. It breaks if you do and this piece could cost as much as $400-500 dollars if you can even find one. But finally it realized I was serious and having no other recourse, it came off.

I was pleased with what I found here.

I knew what I would find here. I just didn't realize until I got here that head will have to come off in order to slip crank out. I did have a spun rod bearing just like I thought when it went.

  The high side to all this is I will really know the boat inside and out by the time I get moving with it and with all the traveling I am wanting to do, This engine needed brought up to snuff with the rest of the boat. As much as I didn't want to get this far into it, the engine had some neglect problems that really needed straightened out.

New washer and dryer came in today. I need to figure out where I am going to put them. I can't even find where the quarters go. Funny how just a year ago I was selling a new set of front loader washer and dryer.

So now I have a new fangled way to clean my clothes. I think ,for me, getting back to doing for myself all that I can should prove to be a lot of fun.  I have spent the biggest part of my life learning how to be self sufficient. 

I also had my canning kettle show up today. Yes, I do know how to use it. When I get Mary Lee down south I have to build some storage drawers I designed to keep jars in on boat. When done, I can just put up food, including meat. I don't think the food you buy in cans is worth the money they charge for it anyway.

It is just after 5pm and finally down to 98 in the boat. It is going to be another late night on engine. Feeling less exhausted from lack of sleep on night I pulled engine. I know when I am to tired to mess with something. I will have it pulled apart tonight and know the extent of damage. I am pretty sure I spun a rod bearing. Sounds like it. Engine still runs. Turns over easy. Has a little knock that does not belong.

I think I have missed doing engine work. The more I work on this one and the more I think my way through the little problems. The more I realize that I have to have puzzles in my life. Figuring out" HOW", is important to me. It might also be why I tend to procrastinate some of the small things and push into the big ones. The small things take no effort so are not worth doing until the last minute. Aaah, now the big troubles that you can really sink your teeth into. Thats the ticket :-) 

You are right Linda and Steve. Looking back at where I have fought my way from leaves a sense of accomplishment. Not big enough yet, but enough to make it all worth it. I just have this little hard push here.

  I know a lot of people don't understand it, but then they didn't lay in bed for years thinking all the fun stuff was over. It is not all bad. The important people in my life who keep offering encouragement sure deserve a lot of credit. I would do this even if I had no encouragement. But it is nice to know people care.

Maybe someday I will share more of what I went through while layed up. A lot was just a blur of pain and pain meds. But it was hard. Oh yes, it was hard, and it is still to soon to want to talk about details. Maybe I am still in denial ;-).

Well, I gotta get to work.Seems like I am the only one who does any work on this boat :-)  Yes, I am still enjoying myself.