Thursday September 27: On the Hard Again

So Yesterday's Dream is on the hard again. The schedule looked like it would be Monday until the marina could haul us out but due to Steve's gentle persistence, they  decided we could take the place of the sailboat that was being put in this morning. By 10:30 it was time to being work.

Our original plan was to have everything done by the marina. The trouble though is that they really don't have any time for us yet.

So Steve started on what could be done ourselves

First was working inside the boat. The shaft is attached to the transmission so these bolts needed loosened. This needs to be done before the shaft can be removed (goal for today).

Once the shaft is detached from the transmission, the prop needed to come off. There are two nuts which secure the prop that needed to come off. Steve used the biggest wrench we had and that still wasn't big enough. Time to go for the GIANT wrench the marina had around.

Taking off the nuts was no problem after heat was applied to the nuts and the giant wrench was applied.

Once the nuts were off, the prop was next. This requires the use of a wheel puller as the shaft is tapered and the prop needs to be pulled loose. After we broke our wheel puller, the marina guy brought out the GIANT wheel puller. With a bit of heat applied again, off it popped!

The shaft was now ready to be removed. Fortunately someone had the foresight to put a hole in the rudder so the shaft can be pulled straight out. It's about 6 feet long and 1 1/2 inches in diameter made of stainless steel.

It took a bit of pounding by Steve (with a 5 lb hammer no less) but in the end, he won :-) His comment was that he wouldn't have been doing this a year ago!!

Next step was to remove the plate at the top of the shaft tube by removing the 4 lag bolts holding it to the crossbeam in the boat. We thought the bolts looked rather interesting. Guess there has been a problem in this area for some time now :-)

Last step for the day was to turn the inside fitting off of the shaft tube (which can be seen in the center of the picture).

There was definitely a hole in the shaft tube. It was easily seen by looking down the tube with a light. Just to check, we filled the shaft tube with water and sure enough the water came out at the same spot in which the leak first appeared.










So this is the story of day one. Tomorrow will be an early start to keep this project moving .....