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  1. tpenfield

    Boat Buying Pickle . . . Info or Ideas??

    My brother who has not owned a boat in about 25 years has now become interested in getting a boat. He has found a pretty nice boat (center console), put in an offer, and I got him lined up with a good surveyor in case it moves forward. A wrinkle to the deal is that the boat comes with a...
  2. tpenfield

    JBL Marine Speakers

    The nearly 20 year old stereo speakers on my boat have seen better days and barely work. So, I bought a pair of JBL MS9520 marine speakers, which I plan on installing this weekend. I only noticed a couple of consumer reviews on the web, so not much to draw on as far as making a good choice...
  3. tpenfield

    'In water' cooling system maintenance . . .

    My port engine is showing signs of a cooling system issue, so it looks like I have to do some maintenance while the boat is in the water, as pulling the boat and re-launching it is wicked expensive. Some Info & Symptoms so far are: Twin engines per my sig below . . . FULL closed cooling...
  4. tpenfield

    Structural Moisture Remediation - something I came across . . .

    I know that the topic of resolving structural moisture ( in transoms, stringers, bulkheads, foam chambers, etc) in a "pre-rot" situation comes up on this forum from time to time. I myself have raised the issue with my current boat. Conventional wisdom is to cut & gut the affected areas and...
  5. tpenfield

    Too much Seafoam in motor oil ?

    OK, I went to change the oil on the Mercruiser 7.4's this weekend, and had some extra Seafoam. So, I added a can (16 oz) to each engine before the oil change and ran them through a 30 minute warmup, then pumped out the oil. To my surprise the oil came out foamy. So, initial thought was "oh...
  6. tpenfield

    Bravo 3 Bellows Replacement - Times 2

    As I prepped my boat for seasonal launching I noticed that the u-joint bellows are showing signs of wear from chaffing along several ridges of the bellows. At least from what I can see with the outdrive tilted up. I have not known chaffing to be an issue, at least based on my previous Bravo...
  7. tpenfield

    Question about filling Bravo III outdrive w/ Gear Lube . . .

    Yea, so I filled my twin Bravo 3 outdrives with gear lube yesterday, and that was a lot of 'fun' :rolleyes: In doing so, it has prompted some questions. I recall reading through the service manual a couple years ago and if I remember correctly, 1) I take the upper plug out, 2) fill from the...
  8. tpenfield

    Subscription Notifications not going away after delete

    I am noticing that the subscription notifications in the message center are not going away when I click to delete them. They used to, no problem. This just happened with the recent site maintenance.
  9. tpenfield

    New Anchor and Bow Roller

    A fairly big weekend on the boat project front . . . I have been meaning to put a new anchor and a windlass on my boat. This year, the budget got stretched a bit on some other issues, so I decided just to do the new anchor and roller this year, and then the windlass next year. I decided to go...
  10. tpenfield

    Formula 330 SS Head Liner Refubishment

    I noticed that the headliner cloth was hanging down at the end of last season. The cloth seems to be separating from the foam backing, etc. So, I planned to do a little bit of work on it as part of the prep for this season. My plan is to remove the center section of the head liner and rebuild it...
  11. tpenfield

    Small Mercury Outboard Drive Shaft Removel Question

    I am trying to take the drive shaft out of the lower unit on my 1969 Mercury 7.5 HP outboard (serial # below in my sig). I have got the bearing carrier out of the lower unit and removed the bolt off the pinion gear at the end of the shaft . . . but the shaft does not want to come out. :noidea...
  12. tpenfield

    Electro-Mechanical Trim Indicators

    I have been working on a project to replace the standard Mercruiser trim indicators with something that would be far more accurate. There are mechanical trim indicators available in the performance market, but those have some short comings in that they usually only monitor the lower end of the...
  13. tpenfield

    IRS wants THEIR Billion back . . .

    Well the Admiral called me on my way home from work today all upset. It seems that we got a demand letter from the IRS for taxes owed . . . happened to be related to a 529 account from a couple of years ago. After an hour on hold and then talking with the IRS, they said that we did not file...
  14. tpenfield

    Engine swap on my old Toro Snowblower . . .

    With the record amounts of snow fall this year, here on the east coast, I have become quite the snowblower gear head. Not that I was a novice before, I just did enough to keep the thing running. My Toro crapped out on the first snowfall of the year, and at first glance, it looked to be an...
  15. tpenfield

    Claw anchor for my 33 foot boat. . .

    Well, I ordered a claw anchor, along with an appropriate bow roller, for my 33 foot Formula. The anchor arrived yesterday and at first glance I thought that I might have gotten too big of an anchor. I got the 33 lb claw from Lewmar. Boat is 9K lbs dry . . . Ocean/bays. I was thinking a 22 lb...
  16. tpenfield

    Spring Boat Prep Work . . . Mantenance, Repairs, Upgrades

    The Admiral can always tell when Spring is upon us as I rack up many $1,000's on the credit cards with boat stuff purchases. This year is no different. Along with some surprises, I have a fairly substantial list of projects this year, both from an upgrade and a repair perspective, along with...
  17. tpenfield

    Household Electrical Wiring Question . . .

    This might be a question for any licensed electricians in the crowd . . . I am putting in some programmable/automatic timer switches for the summer house, replacing the standard SPST switches that were original. In doing so, I ran into some wiring connections that just don;t look quite right. I...
  18. tpenfield

    Bravo III . . . aahhh phooey !!!

    I am at the 'summer house' doing some maintenance and took a look at the bravo 3's for my boat in the garage . . . A telltale oil drip on the ventilation plate . . . oh I hate it when that happens :rolleyes: This one is the starboard outdrive. . . and I did replace the oil seals on both...
  19. tpenfield

    Boston, MA Area Snowmaggedon 2015 (pics). . .

    Well I think we have rivaled the 'Blizzard of 1978', which paralyzed the region for a couple of weeks. Only difference is that in 1978, it came with 1 storm that lasted a couple of days . . . this time it has been several storms over the past few weeks. I got out yesterday (after snow blowing)...
  20. tpenfield

    New England Boat Show Feb 14 - Feb 22

    The Boat Show is in town (Boston) and just a shout out - who's planning on going :noidea: The weather for this Sat/Sun (14-15th) is supposed to be bad and public transportation may be shut down. I plan on going on Monday (the holiday) to see all the boats that I won't be buying this year...
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