May 18, 2013 - Back from Vacation

Our 'Plan C” vacation following the Kentucky Bourbon Trail was great. After an all-day push, we arrived at our hotel in Elizabethtown, KY, a few miles south of Louisville.

I can highly recommend the Kentucky Bourbon Trail for a low-key week’s vacation.  The actual trail takes 3 ½ days if you push yourself, which we did.  One suggestion is to take the website’s suggested itinerary and reverse it.  That’s what we did, mostly be chance.  I think they designed the tour to save some of the best-known distilleries for last.  But we found the tour at the Jim Beam distillery so complete, it helped us understand all the other tours, even if they were a bit light on one area or another.

We stopped to visit friends and relatives on the way home and spent last night with some friends in their home in Grove, OK, near the shores of Grand Lake.  They have a delightful locations, backing up to a large field of several acres.  We sat on their patio for breakfast and watched various birds visiting their feeders.  I could get used to that life!!

We arrived back in town on earlier today.  Unpacking will happen over the next day or two, and Monday I will launch the boat and take the trailer to a shop to look at the wheels and axle.

May 11, 2013

Well, with the trailer down and having missed the NGCC, I am really bummed. But I'm taking my vacation by golly. The question is, what are we going to do?

Plan B

As we debated this last Friday, we thought “If we can't take the Gulf Coast Cruise in our sailboat, maybe we can find a cheap “last minute” rate for a regular cruise. Maybe out of Galveston.” But Gloria pointed out that we would need our passports. Unfortunately, they expired several months ago. We decided right then that one of the first things we're doing is getting the paperwork done and renewing them. We did that on Friday, but obviously there's no way they'll be back in time for us to take a cruise this week.

Plan C

Several years ago, my brother-in-law was stationed in Scotland with a major oil company. We took a family vacation and went there. Although the kids were just in their early teens and couldn't sample the wares, we went on a quest to visit several of the Scotch distilleries. What we learned about single-malt scotch and blended scotch was fascinating. Why not do something similar in Tennessee or Kentucky?

A quick check of the Internet shows that Kentucky has organized the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, roughly centered on Lexington, KY, involving 8 major distilleries, as well as a Craft Distillery Trail, with a number of small distilleries. We decided that we will have time to drive there on Monday, spend Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday on the large distillery Trail and drive home Friday.

Hot dog! We have a plan!

May 9, 2013 – Day One & Done!!

It was a late night last night as we had not finished packing. We got up with the intent to have the boat hitched up and be on the highway by 7:00.

Well, not quite.

It was about 8:30 when we pulled out of the boat club parking lot and hit the highway. We got about 5 miles down the road when there was a loud thump and the trailer lunged to one side. A quick check in the rear view mirror showed sparks showering from the left axle and no sign of a wheel. I quickly moved to the shoulder and stopped. Just as I stopped, Gloria asked “What's that?” and pointed to the left. Out my window I saw the wheel rolling past us and angling across 3 lanes of rush hour traffic. No one hit it and about 100 yards down the road it stopped in the center median. I was sure we'd blown a bearing and the hub was ruined.

“We're probably done,” I said.

The shoulder was unusably narrow, but I carefully made my way back to get a quick look at the axle. To my surprise, the hub was there and looked intact, though the threads on the lug bolts were damaged. The Bearing Buddy, however, was no where to be seen.

As rush hour was waning, I made my way across the road and recovered the wheel. The holes for the lug bolts were eroded away to about twice their normal size. No lug nuts were present, apparently having been broken, or thrown earlier.

We called a friend from the boat club, who came and picked us up. We removed one lug nut from the right wheel to use as the model to find replacements. You would be amazed at how difficult it was to get replacement lug bolts. After a trip that took way longer in time and distance than it should have, an auto parts place produced a handful of nuts they assured us would work. We then stopped by a hardware store and picked up a ½" x 20 die to clean up the threads of the damaged lug bolts.

Fearing for our lives and limbs, we called the OKC police, who send a cruiser to partially block the right lane of the parkway. We cleaned up the threads, put the spare tire in place, and proceeded to try the lug nuts. They didn't fit!! We took them back to the parts place and learned that the rep sold us metric lug nuts, not SAE. Armed with the right lug nuts, we returned. The officer had remained with the boat and, almost 4 hours after we started, we pulled back onto the highway.  Thank you so much, Officer M. Smith!!

We immediately pulled into a tire shop to check the torque on the nuts and check the pressure. They didn't have a cap for the hub, so we determined to go to Bass Pro, where I bought the Bearing Buddies originally. But first we grabbed lunch at a fast food place across the street.

Thus, it was about 1:30 when we pulled into Bass Pro. We went in, bought the Bearing Buddies (they only come in pairs) and borrowed a rubber mallet to install one on the left hub. That process didn't take long, but I noticed that the (intact) right hub was noticeably warmer than the left that had the trouble.

We decided to drive down I-35 about 8 miles and pull into a gas station to check the temperature of the hubs. If the right was was still warmer than the left, we would abort the trip, rather than lose a bearing miles down the road. In fact the right was warm, while the left was barely above ambient.

With a sense of frustration and disappointment, we headed slowly home. Back at the boat club, Gloria looked carefully at the trailer and noted that the right wheel appears canted in at the top. I suspect the axle is bent.

So, as soon as we got back Friday afternoon, we canceled the hotel reservations, notified the cruise that we won't be there, and unpacked the food we were going to take on the cruise.

And we're at home tonight, but we both agree we need a break of some sort. Whether we drive to Galveston, or New Orleans, head west to camp in the Rockies, or do something else will be decided in the next few hours.

Sorry to disappoint you.

The next morning, I took photos of the wheels.  For comparison, here is the left wheel as seen from the back of the trailer, which appears fine.

Below is a view from the rear of the trailer of the right wheel.  Notice how much more of the tire is visible at the top of the fender than at the bottom.  No, the fender is not crooked.  The tire really is at an angle.

This is the same wheel as seen from the front of the trailer.  Something's definitely wrong, here!

May 5, 2013

I loaded Serene Dream back on her trailer. The remaining To-Do items will be easier done on dry land. To my relief, the outboard run beautifully. I even left it running while the boat was tied to the dock beside the ramp. I backed the trailer in and then brought it out when it became clear I needed to extend the tongue. It took about 40 minutes and would have taken longer if Jake, one of the club members, hadn't volunteered to help.

Now things will be at a standstill until Wednesday due to the job schedule. I need to have the To-Do list complete and the boat loaded for the trip by Wednesday evening.

Thursday morning we will hit the highway for Florida!!

May 3, 2013

In a desperate effort to get this blasted outboard running, I thought maybe the fact that is was low on oil was causing it to overheat and die. I filled the crankcase and, hopefully, pulled on the starter. The motor fired up and ran about 45 seconds. I tried it again and it ran about 30 seconds.

Rick, a friend from the boat club, called to me and I invited him aboard. We pulled the spark plug, which looked fine, and check he fuel pump, also fine. Regardless of what we did, the motor would run for under a minute, then die.

Finally, Rick said he had a motorcycle that did something similar and it was a stuck float valve. He suggested draining the carburetor bowl and checking for crud in it. He held a plastic tub under the drain screw as I undid it. When the screw was about halfway out, I saw a stream of gas flow from the side of the bowl. We didn't have the tub in the right place, so we have no idea whether anything was in the bowl. But while the drain was open, we pulled the starter a time or two to flush some gas through it. Just for good measure, Rick gave the carburetor body a couple of taps with a wrench. We closed everything back up and I gave a pull on the starter. It fired up and ran!

I left it running for about 30 minutes on the internal tank, then another 20 on the external before I had to go home. I have my fingers crossed that the problem is fixed.

April 27

April 27, 2013

Today is Splash Day at the Boat Club. It marks the official start of the club's sailing season. The festivities included music, short speeches, a bagpipe and drum band, and then food, drink and a dance band.

We took advantage of the warm weather and light winds to take Serene Dream out of the harbor for the first time this year. To my delight, the outboard fired up first pull and we motored until clear of the harbor. We raised the sails and had a nice hour or so.

Once the sails were up, I raised the motor and turned off the gas switch. I've mentioned before that the Mercury 4 hp has both an internal gas tank and a connector for an external tank. There is a switch on the side that turns on and off the internal tank. As we were using the internal, but the motor was not running, I turned off the internal gas tank.

Anyway, after about an hour, it was time to head back in . Of course, the wind was light, but blowing directly out of the harbor. It's a small harbor and there's no room to tack, so it was time to fire up the motor. I lowered it into the water and pulled the cord. Again, it fired right up and we headed it. As we headed it, my wife and daughter dropped the genoa and main. After about 5 minutes, and as we were nearing the mouth of the harbor the motor slowed and died.

What the heck? I figured we were out of gas on the internal tank and plugged in the external one. The motor would catch and run 4 or 5 seconds. As the winds were almost dead, the crew frantically raised the main as we drifted slowly toward the rip-rap on the shore. I was able to get a little headway with the sail, but the channel was just too narrow.

I continued to try to get the motor started, to no avail. My wife became concerned when she saw a boat coming out of the harbor, since we could do little to avoid it. As it got closer we realized it was the boat in the slip next to ours, and another club member was at the bow with a line. They towed us in and then tried to help diagnose what was wrong. In no particular order, we discussed:

Contaminated gas in the eternal tank,

Plugged fuel filter,

Bad fuel/air mix on the carb.

In thinking back on it, I am convinced it is crud or contamination from the external tank. Why else would the motor run fine on the internal, but not the external. Of course, that ignores the fact that it died while coming back in on the internal tank. But in reading this, did you catch the mistake I realized I made after I was back at the dock? After lowering the motor and re-starting it to come in, I never opened the fuel valve for the internal tank. It ran 4 or 5 minutes on the fuel in the lines, then died. Would it have died if I'd have the valve open? Maybe. Maybe not. At this point, I'm second-guessing myself into oblivion. But I'll buy a new tank and external line/bulb combo and try it again.