Airpacker

Did you get the Black Hawk working yet? Results?

Cord

iTrader: (2)

Things are not pretty. After busting my ass to get the boat rerigged, the effort ultimatly failed. We had everything together less a couple of components. The exhaust needed to be jury rigged after the postal service lost my tips. The steering bracket that I had made up was not correct and needed hardware. And the batteries needed to be installed (not a simple feat as the Gill brackets were broken-again). My friends came through and helped me get these items done. We dipped the boat in and proceeded to start bleeding the systems out. We were tying up the ramp and I was under pressure to clear it. There was still some air in the steering system and I knew that there may be a leak, but I chose to launch anyways. My goal was to get around the point and into a slip where I'd finish things up. Well, I didn't get more than a couple of hundred yards before the steering bled out. I was stuck doing circles just outside of the no wake bouyes. Of course, we realized that in our haste, the cell phones got left behind. After a good half hour of circling we were finally able to flag down a passing boat and get them to tow us back in. The leak is in the extension box and I can't reach it with the engine installed. I have to pull the engine. While I'm at it I'll pull the extension box too and change a couple of things around for better access.

The good news is that the ventilation system I designed does work very well. This drive shifted softer that my old bravo. I can see the high off plane speed as being a future issue though. It's gonna be tough to maneuver this thing around the dock.

There is yet another problem that may need to be resolved. I was turning into a marina to get some parts (Did you know that the rear trim pin was longer than a bravo pin?) when the boat got rear ended. The drive hit right on his hood and kicked up raking the shafts through his radiator. The marina measured them and it looks like they are out of alignment. The cop said he couldn't determine fault so no citations were issued. I don't have the money for new shafts and I really don't want to make a insurance claim either. I really need to get the shafts remeasured and take things from there. I'm afraid that I won't like the news though...

Airpacker

Well, this may be your lucky day. I just may have a good set of used lower shafts. I called my drive guy and he will look through my spare parts bin and see how good the shafts look. If they are ok, we can prolly come to some form of a deal

P.S. yea, docking is a biotch at 8 mph idle speed , just make sure ya have big fenders !

Cord

iTrader: (2)

Yea, Gary kinda though he could pull something off too. The real problem is that the parts are only half the solution. There's not much you can do on the labor either.

WETTE VETTE

Man Cord, it sounds like you and Foul have about the same luck lately!! I hate hearing these types of stories, especially since I will be splashing my boat in a couple of weeks after spending countless hours rigging and making things just the way I want them. I have had to pull the engine to fix a leak before and that really sucks!! Hope your luck changes!!

Craig

Cord

iTrader: (2)

I'll have good luck so long as I stay away from the boat. But hey, at least I didn't sink it!

Airpacker

So did you feed air to the drive via the exhaust port through the transom assembly? If so, show me the pics.

Cord

iTrader: (2)

Yes I did. In my rush, I didn't get any pics but it's a pretty simple contraption. I took a stock aluminum block off plate and welded a 2" pipe nipple to it. I threaded on a check valve and then adapted that to a hose barb. You can see this assembly is quite large and it really fills the box up. I wanted to make sure that I would get a negative air flow. I then took a 2" hose and fed it through the transom and up, well above the water line. Water does fill the hose, but it has no inertia due to the check valve. I wanted to be sure that I wouldn't fill the boat in reverse.

Airpacker

it will be interesting to see how well it works getting on plane. You could check for vacum at the hose end when you are trying to plane and see if it actually sucks

Waterfoul

Tim, I thought the mechanic at LOTO measured the shafts as being IN spec according to his manual. I thought they were both listed with specs of +/- .010, and neither showed that much on the dial gauge. Most was .007 I thought.