A three hour tour? A three hour tour?!

Hopefully I don't get that frustrated, that fast.

So, pure wild guess, but would it be easier to convert these older boats to a diesel-electric drivetrain than to restore the transmissions?

I have a Jeep I am rebuilding. I thought that was a major undertaking, but it nothing compared to a boat.

During my college summers I drove grain truck on a harvest crew. I had a Ford LNT 9000 with a 6V92 Detroit. Great engine for that truck, but all that vibration led to a lot of maintenance. Love those Detroit Diesels. Buy futures in Lock Tite.

Burdizzo said:

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I have a Jeep I am rebuilding. I thought that was a major undertaking, but it nothing compared to a boat.

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Is there a Jeep rebuild thread I don't know about?

Sometimes it's the little things that you accomplish that make you feel the most victorious.

I had been struggling with pulling the 3 small gears out of the gear carrier in the clutch pack. I had figured out that a slide hammer was the way to go, as the sleeves holding the shafts were threaded, but could.not find an adapter to the appropriate size and threading. Searched all over the internet, tried to find anything for days. No luck.

Tonight, about 9pm, in a burst of inspiration, I had an Idea of how I could 'cajun engineer' a solution, and amazingly it worked! I'll post pictures tomorrow night. But now, tomorrow, I can start rebuilding that and the clutch pack - this was my only remaining obstacle; I'm pretty sure I'm happier about this than I should be.

Anyway, just a quick update. This weekend, I am planning on heading to the boat for the weekend, removing a bell housing, working on an A/C unit and installing a couple of electronics. If I don't post an update before then, I will then.

I know a charter you can probably pick up the contract on once it is seaworthy:

They are coming. Going to get the bilge, the cockpit and some of the interior this weekend.

Tonight, I'm going to get some good ones of the gear carrier and components of the clutch pack. I'll be trying to update this thread all the way through the project.

I'm gonna need a bigger boat!

I got ready a little quicker than normal, so snapped some pics of what I've been working on as far as the transmission.

Below is the part that was giving me fits. It's called the gear carrier in the manual - three gears that are held in place by insert axles, that are threaded, but stuck way in there. Could not find the right adapter from a slide hammer to the right thread, so I improvised. I threaded a hardened steel adapter onto a properly threaded bolt, then used the gear pulling adapter (three legs designed to grab, instead of threading) onto the hardened steel bit, and managed to get it to come out. You don't want it all the way out, because they are very tough to line up, but it needs to be far enough out to free the gear.

The tough little ******



With one gear removed.



The improvised adapter on a bolt.



The interior of the transmission case - a little rusty, can you tell. Gotta get that race out - probably next week.



The bearing that I have to remove, on the gears that I still have to disassemble



Decided to replace all the fittings as well.



I LOVE Evaporust. The first pic below is rusty clutch plates



The next is clean plates on the housing that was dipped in Evaporust.


And this is the color that every part of that clutch pack was before. Yuck.



This weekend I will get pictures of the boat all over, including those immediate things I need to work on.

I'd suggest doing the AC first. Maybe take a small generator to run it independently just in case.

Evapo rust looks like it worked like a charm. Looks like you might have to split that race to get it out. That needle bearing might require some sort of special tool and a slide hammer. Have found a quality seal installer kit with discs of various sizes helpful in this situation. Also a chisel and center punch of the highest quality if you have to split the race. I've made the mistake of trying to get away with using harbor freight junk on this kind of deal. I've found out the hard way that hardened punches, chisels and quality drill bits essential here.

Luckily, one of the 2 ACs works and gets it down to about 80. Hot, but bearable.

It is. It's not real good for the boat to try to go on one engine, but if I had to, it could. Hopefully, I will have the transmission assembled in a couple to three of weeks, and bring it back to put it back together. Goal is to have it closer to home by the end of the year, so I am pushing towards that goal.

And honestly, when I leave town, work doesn't seem to bother me quite as much.

Very clean shop. 3 days ago, one of the pipes in the wall busted, and I am also currently tearing out drywall, etc, so everything on one side got lumped in the middle of the room. You know you can never just have one project going on, right?

Hopefully get that fixed soon, as well.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Could you, theoretically, drive it closer to home with the one engine and transmission?

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Living vicariously through Agfencer98 I've thought about the logistics of this.

You'd have to be absolutely lockdown on that one engine and try and make a run up the ICW. Would try and go near clutch ahead the whole way to conserve fuel. Also have a trailered support vessel on standby following along on the highway with a fender setup to launch and take it in an alongside tow in case an emergency.

Biggest risk would be crossing Bolivar roads which is the most dangerous area as far as vessel traffic in the US. The area between Bolivar and sabine would be desolate if you broke down. Also the area around Sabine would be concerning so far as vessel traffic goes. Would do my very best to find a safe mooring avoid running at night. ICW is more dangerous than it looks at night so far as recreational vessels are concerned.

Some marine gears are designed with what they call a 'get home bolt' that it allows you to lock the clutch pack and use the shaft but only in one direction. Downside is that you start the engine and the shaft is turning. There is no neutral as you got to shut down the engine. Don't know if Capitol transmissions have a similar feature. Also steering assist might only be run off one engine so thats another issue.

That would be my plan but I wouldn't want to attempt it in the winter due to the risk of wind and getting caught in shallow water.

Got to Aransas Pass on Friday at 3am. Seriously debated not making the trip, as it had been a long week and I was very, very tired. Now, after today's results, I'm very glad I did.

Got a late start today, and had just a couple of goals.
Number 1 was to get the clutch drum and flywheel detached from the engine. I had trouble with it last visit and really wanted that done so I could have all transmission parts back home to clean up and work on.

Number 2 was to repair the forward A/C and re-pipe it so I could easily do periodic cleaning flushes on it. Those lines tend to get encrusted with barnacles and similar stuff and get blocked and stip working, so I wanted an easy way to flush it when I needed to.

Number 3 was to clean out the bilge.

Number 4 was to install the mounting brackets for the new Garmin electronics.

Number 1 took me 6 hours, as it just didn't want to let go, but finally, with the help of the captain in the slip next door, we got it off. Now time to bring it back and get it cleaned up. I've attached some pictures of it before I got it off, and the 2 parts after.

The re-piping for the A/C is done, we are going to flush it tomorrow and see if we diagnosed the issue correctly, we think we have, but who knows. I'll get pictures of that in the next update.

Bilge clean-up is a tomorrow task, and going to be very dirty, but I'm glad to finally be able to do it.

When I got frustrated with not getting the bell housing off, I took a break to mount the electronics, so that is about 80% done.

While taking a break, I had 2 pretty good finds looking through some storage areas I hadn't really combed through yet. One was the original life ring that came with the boat, labeled 'Post 43'. It's dirty, but we are going to try to restore it and display it.

The second, which is cool to me, at least, is the only chart I have found on the boat, and it is from New Orleans to the Calcasieu River. I was born in New Orleans, and I live about a quarter mile from the Calcasieu River. Since the boat is in Aransas Pass, I thought that was pretty cool, and a little weird. Attaching those pictures.

I will post more after I get back home, but I did get a quick pic of my view from the skybridge, and of the current state of the helm (very dirty). Please forgive me if the pictures come out weird - first try posting from mobile.

Congrats on what seems to be a very busy, but productive, day. Good luck with the transmission work ahead.

I had a house in Port Aransas for 10 years .. I miss that place .. had some good times fishing all around that entire area

Great updates ..