tcm
...
Unfortunately, my excellent idea of Practical Mangusta 108 Owner supplement has fallen on deaf ears. So here is another ramble about half-drunken DIY, rather along the lines of B1 slapping teak oil on formica which just must have taken place after closing time.
On a leopard 23, everything is nice EXCEPT it's a bit rusty around the bottom of the guard rail stanchions, which is a bit crap and needs cleaning off, even after only a few months. So, it only takes a few beers and a quiet afteroon before the toolboxes come out and a wild attempt to dismantle things and remove the cause of the rust.
I tried the back rails first, which come out as a small lump of two vertical stanchions , each attached to the top guard rail. The side ones look a bit too dificult!
It all come apart v easy, and you soon find that the naughty eyeties have slapped in the rails and THEN drilled in the hole for the horizontal wire. So the swarf is sitting at the bottom of the stanchion. Also, the bottom bit of stanchion housing sits flat on the grp, almost making a seal, so rusty water is sitting in the bottom of the stanchion housing and not draining away. So, make a nice c-washer with a gap for water to drain away and get ready to re-attach.
Then you'll find that the top rail is a bit loose, and not welded but screwed to the to each stanchion. But to tighten this up you need a socket and an extension bar about 3 feet long. Even a £49.99 halfords set of sockets won't have this. Time for a few more beers, and wait confiidently for some mad "solution" to hit you. Aha.
Get out an old sweeping brush and find a hacksaw. Gleefully put the sweeping brush in the vice as this is the first time the vice in the engineroom has come in handy. Now, saw away a bit at the top of the sweeping brush to make it square, and jam a socket on the end. Now, you have a five-foot socket driver, albeit a bit tickly at the sweeping brush end.
It only takes about half an hour of twiddling with various sockets to realise that its a 15mm nut. I wonder how they got that in there?
Twirl the sweepingbrush about to tighten it up. Listen carefully for the scruching noise as the wooden brush-ended socket wrench squishes up, and the whole lot jams. Pull out the sweeping brush, minus the sqaure end and the socket now jammed up the guard rail stanchion. Consider leaving the socket in there, but dismiss this. Bash the rail about and eventually it comes racing out, and retrive it from the bottom of marina using scuba gear. Repeat for all other stanchions around the side of the boat (later, not today).
Next week: a useful listing of every supplier of 4.35-metre-long double-sided zips in the Balearics.
On a leopard 23, everything is nice EXCEPT it's a bit rusty around the bottom of the guard rail stanchions, which is a bit crap and needs cleaning off, even after only a few months. So, it only takes a few beers and a quiet afteroon before the toolboxes come out and a wild attempt to dismantle things and remove the cause of the rust.
I tried the back rails first, which come out as a small lump of two vertical stanchions , each attached to the top guard rail. The side ones look a bit too dificult!
It all come apart v easy, and you soon find that the naughty eyeties have slapped in the rails and THEN drilled in the hole for the horizontal wire. So the swarf is sitting at the bottom of the stanchion. Also, the bottom bit of stanchion housing sits flat on the grp, almost making a seal, so rusty water is sitting in the bottom of the stanchion housing and not draining away. So, make a nice c-washer with a gap for water to drain away and get ready to re-attach.
Then you'll find that the top rail is a bit loose, and not welded but screwed to the to each stanchion. But to tighten this up you need a socket and an extension bar about 3 feet long. Even a £49.99 halfords set of sockets won't have this. Time for a few more beers, and wait confiidently for some mad "solution" to hit you. Aha.
Get out an old sweeping brush and find a hacksaw. Gleefully put the sweeping brush in the vice as this is the first time the vice in the engineroom has come in handy. Now, saw away a bit at the top of the sweeping brush to make it square, and jam a socket on the end. Now, you have a five-foot socket driver, albeit a bit tickly at the sweeping brush end.
It only takes about half an hour of twiddling with various sockets to realise that its a 15mm nut. I wonder how they got that in there?
Twirl the sweepingbrush about to tighten it up. Listen carefully for the scruching noise as the wooden brush-ended socket wrench squishes up, and the whole lot jams. Pull out the sweeping brush, minus the sqaure end and the socket now jammed up the guard rail stanchion. Consider leaving the socket in there, but dismiss this. Bash the rail about and eventually it comes racing out, and retrive it from the bottom of marina using scuba gear. Repeat for all other stanchions around the side of the boat (later, not today).
Next week: a useful listing of every supplier of 4.35-metre-long double-sided zips in the Balearics.
