Your blonde boating DIY moments....

[alt]

Come on, spill the beans....

I'll begin... happened this morning.

I service the engines before she comes out of the water in winter. When I took her out last winter, I drained the out-drive oil but didn't fill up as I was in a rush off to SE Asia (preferred to have her empty, rather than used oil) and kept a mental note of this.

Fast forward to today, thought i'd best get round to filling the out-drives as we'll be launching soon. All tools ready....

I remember leaving all the drain / fill plugs just hand tight. I wanted to fit all new O-Rings so I loosened the drain plug on each and noticed a bit of oil - as expected, over the winter the last bits would have fallen to the bottom. I was very pleased to see just in how good of nick the 'old' o-rings were. I was also surprised that the plugs were actually quite tight, considering I only hand tightened (if even) last season as the gearbox was empty.

I start filling using a pump via fill hole (DP-G) but soon oil starts pumping out the dip-stick hole. "WTF?" - maybe i'm pumping too fast? Maybe the oil is too chick because it's cold? But it wouldn't lower and remained at the top. I tried everything... in / out of gear, crank the engine by hand, spin props ... nothing!

Then, it dawns on me.... "Did I fill them last winter?" "No, definitely not" .... but just incase I thought i'd open the drain plug just to see if any oil comes out. As I do.... WOOOOSHHHHH.... fresh oil straight into the pan!! What a D'OH moment!

I drained about a litre and checked the dipstick and then began to slowly fill (and wait a few mins) until I had level perfect. Went back a half hour later to find the oil levels at 3/4 which is where I like to keep them.

What a f*cking plonker I am. For the record, I keep a record of every bolt I replace in a service manual (with receipts). Went home to check WTF was going on and, there infront of me in writing: "Gear-oil Changed - Port & Starboard - (x date)"

Won't be doing that again! At least no damage done, the only casualty being about 2 litres of oil I had to dump. Gave the lads in the yard a good laugh, too.

What's my prize?

 

[benjenbav]

The only one I care to remember is along the lines of:

nut falls into water, followed by spanner, followed by idiot

 

[Portofino]

Went to the boat recently ,stayed a night on board .Took some cheap e-bay led bulbs and started to replace the G what ever 24 v in the saloon ,galley etc .
When it came to the cockpit lights they did not work -using the switch on the breaker panal in the boat - where i normally - well last season used .
Swopped them about in the saloon to ck the new bulbs and if the old 24 v worked before I took them out .They were all ok no duds
Got my multimeter out to ck V to the fittings -- zero , ck,d the v at another fitting I had to dismantle in the saloon to see if the multimeter worked ,it did .
Dismantled the cockpit light fittings to trace the wires -- getting dark now -- went into the E room to attemp to trace back the wiring .Got the hand book out and started to look @ wiring diagrams and try and find a hidden fuse ?

Wife getting bored now (was expecting a nice meal out ) said

"what's this switch on the dash -- that says cockpit lights do ? "

Yup -- theres two ways to turn em on ,dash and saloon panal ---DOH !! ---- I had a senior moment and forgot !

Wasted 2 hrs .

Another one
Wanted to drill a hole near the dash to run a new gps mushroom wire .
Went to the local Jumbo DIY ( think uk B+ Q ) -- got a new French drill - 220V quite a high spec to keep on the boat .
Previously had one at apartment in Antibes but it's nether in the right place .
Got a suitable core bora bit € 12 .
Got set up all the tools n gear out
Stud on the foredeck ,marked the spot ,plugged drill into extension lead ,it's got a new hand tight self tightening chuck ( no chuck key needed ) - attached the new bit ,squeezed the trigger ,with the drill pointing skywards to ck power -- ,the orange outer circular core bora spun off and flew into the water between the boats -Splash

Drill was defaulted in reverse and the orange outer bit was not tight ---so it just spun off ., the pilot drill was still there -chuck tightened .

Now lunch time and the next day is yet another French Bank hol .

 

[pks1702]

I once tried to prove a Webasto would run on water :ambivalence:

 

[Mr Googler]

Couldn't figure out why I kept blowing fuses on my 12v TV after replacing a cigarette style power socket. Checked and rechecked my wiring thinking the wire colours where strange........had my volt meter probes connected the wrong way round so what I thought was 12v + ''twas not!! Numpty.

Resealing under my rub rail and a friend said roof and gutter sealant was good stuff for that. He forgot to say the butyl stuff should have been used. I didn't realise I had bought the bitumen based stuff till after a whole tube. What a bugger to get off a newly polished hull. WD40 and a repolish. I was really gutted about that one. Live and learn.

 

[QBhoy]

I once topped up the fuel tank of a jet ski at the local garage before launching, only to discover later it was actually the 2 stroke oil tank I had filled....doh

 

[C08]

Replacing some long stainless hull to deck screws starboard size all went well. when i got to the port side i assumed that there was the same clearance between the inner cabin moulding and the hull, there was less and I just missed drilling a hole right through the middle of my new autohelm master brain box!

 

[alt]

Replacing some long stainless hull to deck screws starboard size all went well. when i got to the port side i assumed that there was the same clearance between the inner cabin moulding and the hull, there was less and I just missed drilling a hole right through the middle of my new autohelm master brain box!

OUCH!! And I felt bad throwing away a tenners worth of oil.....

 

[Nick_H]

Fitted a brand new Honda 20hp outboard to my RIB with it still on the dinghy chocks on the swim platform. I had to release the RIB's retaining straps to make space, and having finished the job I sat back on the tube of the RIB to admire my work, at which point the whole rig and me toppled over backwards and ended up upside down in the water, with the wrong half of the new outboard submerged.

 

[petem]

Not boats, but cars. Poured a load of Redex down the cylinders then turned the car engine over. Got out to find the garage ceiling cover in oil and dripping nicely over the contents of the garage. Parent not impressed.

Changed the oil in my Mini and couldn't understand why there was no oil showing on the dipstick despite the litres of oil that I'd put in. You don't need me to explain why!

 

[Mr Googler]

My mum filled my dads Austin allegro engine with water. She wasn't even suprised she'd used 5 watering cans.

She also reversed his Granada estate into his sliding door transit and wrote them both off.

Been divorced many years now

 

[Anthony]

Re-filling outdrives with oil from under the boat and needed to see the level of the remote reservoirs in engine room so as to know when to stop. I had the great idea to put the GoPro in the engine room so I could view the tank on my phone below via the live preview on the GoPro app. I knew roughly how many pumps fill a leg up and started to get suspicious at the header tank not yet filling up, then it suddenly dawned on me, ran up into the engine room to see oil overflowing out the header tank into the bilge and confirmed my realisation that I had indeed been filling the opposite leg to the tank the camera was pointed at!

It was a Del Boy chandelier moment...

 

[BruceK]

dropped a spent oil filter into the bilge unscrewing it. You try fish them out before they've dumped their oil. Cleaned that up over a weekend and the following managed to dump half a litre of diesel into the bilge when changing primary filter and closing the wrong petcock shutoff. Wont do either in a hurry again.

 

[Firefly625]

when I got my Hardy the windlass failed on the second time I used it, thought I had checked everything and diagnosed solenoid. So bought new lewmar solenoid (I think £150 from memory), the thing was fitted in the most inaccessible spot, spent about 5 hours contorted around fuel tank and water tank and only could get one arm in to space but managed to finally get it fittedt..........& of course still didn't work.

Found cable fallen off back of breaker switch due to corrosion, £14 later and 10 minute job sat in the cockpit all fixed.

 

[fisherman]

Ah. Forty years' worth...
Recently in a senior moment put oil in the header tank. Before I thought about it I drained it through the block, I could have simply added water and floated the oil out.
Just got into bed couple of years ago, then remembered I had dismantled the raw water side, at low water, boat dried out, but had opened the seacock after carefully closing it earlier, for a reason I can't now remember. Got to the boat, 12 miles, in quick time but not so quick I might have been pulled. The ingress had been slowed by passing through the Jabsco, bilge alarms going, water not quite up to the starter.
Went to check on the ancient 1902 Pilchard driver we had in 1972, alongside at Penryn. Found my oppo had not only removed a 3in waterline exhaust fitting, but had left the boat listing that way and she was filling up on the flood. I leapt, as you do, for the bilge pump (having rammed a rag, broom and boathook handle against the hole), the pump was a 'T' handle in a standpipe on deck, which detached at the first pull and shot me overboard. I had to hitchhike the 20 miles home as well. We made little or no money but the same week I was at last able to buy a decent full length oilskin smock, along with thigh boots, de rigeur in 1972, I was fed up with being wet. That evening alongside Flushing quay I stepped from one boat to the next and my new skirt didn't stretch far enough, I let slip an unladylike word as the water closed over my head once again.
In a small boat alongside a big one at Flushing, dark, winter evening, tired. I untied to go and went astern, nothing happened. I went asterner, still no movement, I could hear the gearbox was turning, at which point the bigger boat which had gone astern at the same moment gave a kick ahead and stopped leaving me going flat out astern across the channel into the path of a boat coming down river.
I've seen a few, like the old bloke cowering in the bow of his boat as a set of mackerel feathers with a 2lb lead on the end whizzed round over his head having caught the flywheel of the seagull outboard.

 

[alt]

Thanks for the stories.... I don't feel so bad anymore!

 

[petem]

Not a DIY thing but who hasn't pulled away from their berth, felt a bit of resistance and pushed the throttle forward a little and looked back to see their shore power cable flying through the air and landing in the water, thus tripping the whole of the pontoon?

 

[rbcoomer]

I'm feeling somewhat worried now as all I've done is a) leave the bung out and launch the boat and b) leave the keys at home. Suddenly feeling that I've saved all mine up and should perhaps quit while I'm ahead!

 

[KINGFISHER 9]

How many times have you rowed ashore and left the car keys on the boat? Have you done this more than once?

 

[Jim@sea]

In the early 1960's (1961/2) I had to do a 200 mile trip without a proper road map, anyway while driving through very rural area my radiator started to leak, in the next village there was no garage (to buy radweld) but as I was once told that an egg would stop a radiator leak and or mustard. I bought an egg and poured it into the radiator. The mistake I made was that the radiator was extreme;y hot and after pouring the egg in , I watched it cook perfectly on the plate inside the radiator. I can still remember the horrified looks of the people at the village shop when they saw me pour the egg into the radiator. Anyway two tins of mustard stopped the leak.