Your best on board botch?

J

jimboaw

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Just spent a whole afternoon "fixing" a 15 year old Ronstan RF 1373 block .The cheek on one side of the clam cleat had broken away and as I don't use my running backs very often the cost of a "new" one didn't seem justified. Drilled out the rivet. Used a large (ish) ss washer that would centre on the clam cleat shaft. Drilled said washer and block body to accept small bolt with lock nut to pass through side of block. Don't know how long it will last but I had fun doing it. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Offering to repair a deck to transom joint under the cockpit of a 40 foot stink boat. Took 3 weeks to complete; all the steering gear and hydraulics had to be removed and then do the repair then the owner wanted new flowcoat added, then wanted the entire area flowcoated, then refit the steering gear and bleed the hydraulics. The repair took all of 30 minutes.

Avagoodweekend...........
 
couldnt get one of my nav lights to stay workingdue to tired contacts in the bulb holder.

I "temporarilly"soldered 2 short bits of wire directly to the bulb and joined them to the cable with a connector inside the bottom of the lamp(had to remove part of the metal bulb holder for it to all fit)

That was years ago,still working fine and I have since done the same with all my nav lights and have a spare bulb with 2 wires soldered on ready.

The most impressive bodge I ever saw was a converted lifeboat with the cab off a small lorry fitted as a wheelhouse complete with seats steering wheel , wipers and hand brake.
 
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The most impressive bodge I ever saw was a converted lifeboat with the cab off a small lorry fitted as a wheelhouse complete with seats steering wheel , wipers and hand brake.

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This is the only p oper bodge. The othe s seem like pe fectly good repai p actice to me.
(must get this " " fixed, the e's just a space on the keyboa d at the moment)
 
Don't know that it's the best - there have been several and I can't remember tham all. But one that has rebounded recently invloves the water pump for the domestic supply.

2 winters ago, I didn't realise it was necessary to drain the pump to prevent ice damage. So in spring the pump didn't work. I took it out, (obviously it's not in an accessible place - through the cockpit locker and into the lazarette space between transom and aft bulkhead) found all the cracks in the casing after checking the price of a replacement, filled the cracks with epoxy, reassembled and was surprised to find it worked again.
Then 3 weeks ago, it started operating without being asked to. Inspection showed a tiny leak somewhere round the pressure switch. Cleaned the thread, added thread tape and put some epoxy round all the joints in the switch that I could find. Reinstalled and it was still playing up a bit. I bought a replacement. On the next trip to the boat, it was working fine so the replacement is still in its box...
We'll see.

Derek
 
I prefer to think of my bodges as creative use of available resources to avoid spending money! Possibly the most successful has been to stop the water pump on my 1GM leaking due to the shaft being worn where the water seal sits. I cut a piece of leather out of the tougue of my shoe and cut it to fit neatly behind the water seal so that the lip now runs on a different part of the shaft. This has worked perfectly for the whole of last season, and is still in place. If Yanmar sold new shafts at a sensible price I would have been denied the satisfaction of this success!

I have also used a similar shoe leather trick in making a new washer for a primus stove pump. But I now have a couple of pairs of shoes with holes in! Incidentally, if you run out of paraffin, primus stoves will not run on diesel, and petrol is asking for trouble, but white spirit is fine.
 
Many years ago we got a rope around the prop, big time. This happened in Bembridge so we were safe. However we had to get back to Emsworth. Simple enough. The rope around the prop had rendered the engine out of use, so whilst waiting for the tide to refloat us off the beach, I went around the various workshops where I found someone to donate a piece of wood and saw that allowed me to make up a 'plug' to fit in the boarding ladder to support the 3.3 Johnson. This worked well enough to get us back home with no wind, but before the next forcast NE 6-7!
 
I once ran out of two stroke mix for our Stuart Turner. I had a can of neat petrol but no 2T oil, but did have a bottle of Mazola. Reasonned - Castrol R & Mazola are both vegetable oil, should be OK.
The engine ran fine [by Stuart standards] & didn't seize, but smelt like a chippie for several days.
Dan
 
Shoehorning a 28hp VP2003 into my Snapdragon24 when the 7hp(one upon a time) MD1 finally turned up its toes The job started with an angle grinder in the saloon, but I reckon the engine box looks better than it did before!

Jissel goes better too... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
"Did the light still shine over the correct sector.. ? "

The bulb is still in exactly the same place held by the original bulb holder but with out the old dodgy spring loaded connections.So no change to the sectors.
 
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Does the owner just apply the handbrake instead of fiddling about with mooring warps?

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Only when parking on a hill...... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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