Re: Bayliner Capri unintentional restoration project
First of all I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get this posted. I had a very busy weekend and have been without internet at a job since then.
The boat was splashed last Friday!!
New to me boarding ladder installed, name placed (no naming ceremony yet but have to have a name on the boat in order to use the harbour), removed from workshop and ready to go:
Just prior to launch:
And here she is floating!:
The story of the launch:
Met up with a mate and the marine engineer who has been helping me with the engine and electrics. He is from Cream Marine near Salcombe and turned out to be a massive hero at the weekend! After doing a few last minute bits and pieces we launched the boat (very nerve racking moment). It floated (phew) and sat really nicely in the water which was a massive relief.
On trying to put it into gear it just seemed to slip, make a funny noise and have no forward propulsion. We put this down to stretched gear cables and tightened it up which seemed to fix the problem. Got all the way out of the harbour and opened her up; got straight on to the plane and it felt great! About 2 seconds later the engine died and then we had the problem with the gearing again.
The boat engineer (Nick) was there with his workboat so towed me back to the slipway. We ended up putting the boat back on the trailer and taking it to his workshop where we replaced the gear and throttle cable. We then re-launched the boat in the afternoon after checking all the gearing working properly with the muffs on the engine. However, as soon as the prop was under load in the water we had the same problem again so retrieved her back on to the trailer. The next day the Nick took the gear box (lower unit of the outboard) off my boat and replaced it with the one from his own boat which is the same engine but a 200hp. Nick was supposed to help for just a couple of hours on the Friday but ended up spending 2 long days trying to get the boat working properly so am pretty grateful to him!
During the journey back to the workshop and back one of the wheels came off the trailer. On inspection it had actually sheared off at the section where the suspension unit enters the axle with the suspension rubbers. This I found really frustrating as I had refurbished the trailer and had it professionally serviced to avoid just this sort of problem.
Anyway, the gearbox change fixed the gearing problem and the boat was running beautifully for about 30 minutes until the engine died again. This time it turned out that the fuel tank was dirty inside (despite being covered during the rest of the build after installation but obviously not well enough) and had clogged up the carbs and fuel jets.
So we had to recover the boat and limp it back to the workshop on the 3-wheeled trailer! Overall, not a hugely successful first launch but I was just happy she floated nicely! So I need to buy a second hand gearbox unit off ebay, get the carbs etc cleaned again, clean out the fuel tank and speak to the trailer mechanic about the axle before another launch attempt.
I think we got up to about 35 knots when she was working but didn't get round to performing a proper speed test!
