We made it. Still doesn't run out right, but it started everytime never stumbled during maneuvers. We slept on the boat 2 nights and just enjoyed the lake this weekend. The folks at the lake were so happy to see us and that I got the boat finished they set of fireworks (they called it labor day celebration but whatever).
Saturday before heading to the lake I made a canopy for the boat utilizing the storm damaged trampoline we had, and the 2x4's I had used in the previous attempt at a canopy.
The fabric from those is pretty tough and makes a really nice sun shade and kept the deck pretty cool as well. Not really great a repelling water though.
Well it's that time of the year again for us Midwestern boaters. I used a 1 gallon of antifreeze and a few tears in the engine block. Fogged the cylinders and now we're good to go. This year I found a white tarp to cover the cockpit and now with the addition of a solar panel to keep up the batteries I wondered if I could get enough sunlight to keep the batteries charged with the panel covered. The answer is yes we've had several cloudy days and today was a nice sunny day. I've been getting power from the solar panel and since it's bluetooth connected I can see how that batteries are doing without uncovering it.
It's been a while since I posted so this is a update for the last few months.
Since the weather has broke the boat has been on the water every other weekend. The latest trip found me pulling it 750 miles away to try our hand at ocean fishing. The fishing might have been great had the ocean not been bigger than the boat at the time we tried to go out and our follow up day wasn't any better. We did get in on some blue crabs for our trouble and a little family time in the old bucket. That's all pretty good considering how bad it was when we started..
I'll have to post pictures later there some sort of issue with the server.
It looks as though I never made good on the pictures from last season and here in getting ready for this one. We took the old girl down to South Carolina for some fun on the brackish water the ocean was to much for a run out. I put the boat on my triple trailer for that trip and made it down and back from Indy without incident. As you can see we're well into the smiles and fun phase of a boat boat project. I've started crabbing and we finally got the hang of it. We really used to boat as much as possible last year. It was in the water almost every other weekend.
This season I've added a few things and got around to polishing the old girl. I'm adding more rod holders and just installed a 9.9hp kicker motor. I even added some storage for long items that should be handy and declutter the deck a bit more.
Well some fun stuff this week. I welded up a rod holder for the transom at work while "on break" .
I've always wondered how much work it was to polish out 316ss to mirror or near mirror polish. With only about 2.5 hours in time the holder is getting to blingy level
I think she is finally sorted. Once again drug her 700miles from home to Lake Marion in SC for a little R&R last week. I had been having trouble with the Rochester carb that I had rebuilt it never acted right on the secondaries, so I took a 650cfm Edelbrock along with me and bought a adapter to mate it to the intake. A quick little rig up job to to feed it fuel and make the throttle work and she runs out great now. i can actually throw the throttle all the way forward and the engine responds immediately. I was able to add some timing in addition which got my top speed up a bit more and got me out of the hole quicker. She also has a name now The BeAnKel Cay Shes named after my daughters Beth-Anne and Kellie
Thanks, She's coming along. I think it may be time to consider trim tabs to get her up and rolling easier.
She's much better than last year engine wise. The other carb made all the difference in the world. I still need to look at my base timing and see what it is, I kept backing out it thinking it had a ignition issue that was actually a lean pop at or above half throttle.
Then since I've gotten better at polishing the stainless I may try and polish out the aluminum frame for the top.
