Most of you know the issue with a friend who's supposed to be buying our Party Cruiser--from 3 years ago. I told him I'd wait until he sold his boat first (1989 Four Winns 245 Vista).
Well, even in this crappy economy it looks like he's finally going to sell it (to a friend of his). He's going to take a royal bath on the deal if he takes the 5 bills he's offered, but I could really use the 22 bills
I was offered!
Anyway, he calls me yesterday (the last day of my vacation) and asks me if I can help him get the boat ready to float. He hasn't touched it for over a year, and it hadn't been dewinterized. Sure, I'll help out...
He shows up with the boat, and sure enough, every hose is laying in the bilge. Fortunately the other ends were still connected. Never messed with a 460 King Cobra before, but other than it was 100° out and that 460 makes for some tight working conditions, it only took an hour or so to hook everything up. And of course, after I'm done there's an extra hose clamp. So I spend another 15 minutes looking for where it might go before I decide it's probably just an extra.
Ok, is the plug in?
Nope. And true to Murphy's law, the plug is nowhere to be found. So I look for one in my basement. Best I could find was a threaded 1/2" fitting, a piece of hose to connect to it, and an old sharpie top to plug the hose with. It did the job.
So now we're ready to dunk the boat. The guy buying the thing had just finished cleaning battery cables, lets see what happens...
Nothing. Of course. Ok, lets look at some obvious stuff. Naturally we lift the heavy ol' hatch and re-check the cables and the perko switch BEFORE checking the stick. Which wasn't in neutral.
Try again--it's cranking---and cranking...Finally it fires, then dies the instant I let go of the key...
Naturally, I pull the ignition switch out and check all the connections, which are all tight and good, and then proclaim "This Switch Is BAD!" I then put the switch back into place, for safekeeping, when I notice, right next to the switch, a funny little button-thing. Crap.
Hold in the button, start it, and it stays running...
Stupid kill switch... *sigh*, my brain don't save my legs a single step...
But where's the "plug" for the kill switch? Of course, it's nowhere to be found either. So using the extra hose clamp, and of short piece of plumbers tape I fabricated a 'button-pusher'...
Finally, we fire up at the ramp. Water's pumping, no water's leaking, so I give 'em the heave-ho and good luck...
The boat ran great! They were out for a couple of hours. We got in the Bayliner and stopped and BS'd for awhile, and then they decided to head for home and clean the boat up. I took his keys and headed back so I could back his trailer in and help him load up...
Now for the reason this story is in the "trailering" section...
After parking, I do a look-around, and tell him to be careful because his hitch is low, and the boat might want to sway because most of the weight would be on the front tires. Then I looked at his tires. LAST year he had a bunch of rags on the trailer, and I told him he needed to change them, BAD. Well, he'd changed 2 on the right side, they were almost like new. On the front left was a better tire, but on the rear left was the last of the rags... "You better get this one changed over before it strands you somewhere!" I tell him...
Shoulda kept my mouth shut.
15 minutes after they leave, I get a phone call. I should've taken my camera along with the tools...
They didn't get very far before the tread on the rag separated from the tire. When it did, it caught the plastic fender. The fender then peeled the tread off the tire like it was an orange. And the tread yanked the fender edge right off the bracket, which folded up and got caught between the tires. And as the fender was yanked off the bracket, it pulled the bracket right into what was left of the tire. So there's a bracket and a folded up, rubberized plastic fender all jammed into the tires, one of which looked like a steel-belted innertube.
And it was still holding air!
I brought with me some basic tools, a 4' pipe wrench, a hammer and various tin snips. After all that, the bracket moved away easily using the pipe wrench. And 2 bolts disconnected the 2 fenders from each other. Now it was time to check the spare tire...
Brand new spare tire. Yay! --which is held on with someone's evil idea of a theft-proof home-made lock. It worked, and we didn't have a cutting torch handy.
Oddly enough, the buyer lived less than a mile from where they broke down, and they were able to get the boat to his place without that tire blowing...
And that was about 7:45 pm, and the end of MY vacation...
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