I was planning on simply giving the old Whaler away along with the motor that has issues. Looking at the Craigslist listings, however, has convinced me that there might be a market for the old girl. It is a very old girl -- 1979 -- and the motor has issues. The starter gear doesn't spin up by itself to engage the flywheel. With a pry from a screwdriver, it does the job.
It does the job, that is, when there's a working battery. I knew that this old battery wasn't taking much of a charge but I didn't realize that "much" in this context was zero. Nada.
Before that, I put the muffs on the boat for the water cooling. Before that, I had to get some pliers to turn on the water as the handle has corroded off. Great.
Oh yes, and even before the cooling, I had to power wash the boat. It was filthy. It cleans up nicely though, more than the one up north -- but that's because it isn't sprinkled with pine sap.
It did start, however, using my battery charger in "start" mode. Had it been started recently, I could have pulled started it, more than likely, but not after sitting for many moons.
I got it going and then thought about taking a short spin ... but the steering was completely frozen. Great. This is getting worse all the time ! I fussed with it but no luck.
Later, I thought about replacing the steering cable and found a tag with the model number. The cable itself is only $85 but replacing is more labor than that. So ... I thought that I'd check out whether I could replace it myself and did some more fussing. It had to be removed from the motor end and ultimately, hammered out. Once out, it was working so ... I squirted some Kroil penetrating oil into the cylinder on the motor where the cable is inserted and lo and behold, I got it working, very smoothly at that ... great !
So that leaves me with a) the starter and b) a clip at the back of the cover that's rusted out so that the cover clamp-down doesn't work. That can't be worth a lot but the starter might be. I think that I'll get back as much as I put into it if it's running ... and starts ! I'll call Ralph's Mobile Marine on Monday and see what he thinks about cost.
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We weighed Cassie; she's now 12 pounds 4 oz, up a couple of pounds in a week. I've got a cardboard box suspended by twine that I've made up for that purpose and use my accurate scale. She'll get an "official" weighing at the vet in a few days.
I just loaded up the second to last season. After I'm finished, I have to double check a couple of seasons that seem to have unusual numbers of episodes; one long and one short, against the DVDs. The second refurb Roku 2 arrived in the mail yesterday and it's now setup in the bedroom.
I got a call from our security company last night that I'm getting a "battery low" message from the panel. At least it's working ! It only runs on battery when utility power is out. I'll have to order another battery and replace that when I'm up north; yet another thing to add to the "bring" box.
I've been taking Cassie for walks, not very long but getting used to the leash.
Cassie always digs all her toys out of the basket. In this case, the pull toy is left behind; we haven't played with that yet !
Onward ...
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