This lady wants to give me all her money

[soggy_feet]

There is a question at the end of this, bear with me, I'm a storyteller.

A couple of years ago I moored my houseboat in front of this ladies house and paid her half of what the marinas were asking for a mooring. During my time there
I demonstrated enough boat mechanic skills to impress her and after buying a 95 Bayliner 3.L this year, she called me to ask if I'd look at the WOT stalling issue she's having.

It took no time at all to realize that I could feed the SHT forum for a year with stories about her unless I drill some basics into her head.
Garboard drain plug needs to go in more than hand tight..
Back the trailer far enough into the water to float the boat on or off, don't power load, OR UNLOAD.
Whether there's a no wake sign or not, WOT right off this particular launch is a terrible idea, since it's 3ft deep on average for about a 1/4 mile until you're out of the cove.

So I get the boat out to open water, open it up, realize that it's starving out wide open, and if you don't back off the throttle, it'll stall. If you don't start it right back up, it floods.

Pull the flame arrestor off, and gas is pouring into the intake manifold with the engine off.

Ok, so the boat sat with old gas, carb is gummed up, not flowing enough on the top end, can't stop flowing at the bottom end. Back to the launch we go.

I tell her how much the carb rebuild kit will probably cost her, tell her I'll charge her $20 for the work since she helped me out with the cheap mooring for a few years.

Get back out to the boat to pull the carb 2 weeks later and I see that the prop is now trashed. So the boat is limping, but she's determined to use it anyway.

I tell her she can't run the boat like that, it's not worth the potential (additional) damage it'll cause. I tell her what her prop repair and replacement options are, and she tells me that she'll get the prop fixed in a couple of weeks, but could I please finish the carb so she can take her boat out.

I reiterate that she's liable to cause some expensive damage running with her 14-1/4" prop at about 9" on the diameter, she tells me she'll address the prop next week, and she won't go far with her boat.

So, I try to explain it in car terms. She's got flat tires. You don't drive on flat tires because you're not going to get very far, go very fast, and you're probably going to do more damage. She tells me that she "didn't know it played that big of a role", and then asks how much damage she'd do if she just took it out for one weekend.
Sweet baby Jesus...

So, I'm re-installing the carb today. It'll need to be tuned on the water. I tell her that the carb is going on today but that I'm not making any attempt to do anything more than tighten down the bolts until she addresses the prop, or tells me to.
She's still pushing to run her boat tomorrow, and take care of the prop next week.

I really don't want to take all her money, but I haven't been able to convince her to do it right or not do it at all.

So, how would you handle this situation going forward?

Part of me wants to do her a favor and close down the idle mix screw and idle stop, and leave the electric choke disconnected. She'll be disappointed when she tries to take her boat out tomorrow and it won't start, but not as disappointed as when she sees the quote to replace all the bearings and seals on the prop shaft.

When I meet her this afternoon, I think I'm going to present a quote for a lower unit rebuild in addition to the $90 bill for the carb rebuild. Next time she won't get the almost free labor. I'm hoping that she understands the numbers even if she doesn't understand the explanation of what will happen if she tries to shortcut on boat repairs/maintenance.

 

[roscoe]

Personally, I'd pick up a used prop for her, and put it on.
Pad the bill by $40, eat the rest as a big thank you for the mooring deal, and say good-bye.

OR....
Put a prop on it, get the carb tuned, demo it for her, then put her crap prop back on and walk away.

 

[soggy_feet]

Finances are kind of tight for me to be fronting the money for that, but the payout may be years of getting paid for seasonal maintenance vs. her blowing the lower unit this summer and writing off the boat.

Think I'll jump on craigslist real quick...

 

[Scott Danforth]

I would pull the prop off, take it in and get it fixed. then pad the bill like Roscoe mentioned. with the prop off, she cant go anywhere.

regarding the flooding, is it carb related (bad float / needle & seat) or fuel pump related.

 

[soggy_feet]

Carb is done, when I took it apart it had about a 1/2" of water in the bowl and all fuel passages had a buildup of old gas gum.

I've got a 10 gallon ultrasonic cleaning tank at work, I disassembled the carb, dumped everything in the tank, cranked the timer up to 20 minutes then air hosed it dry. Parts come out looking like new. If I use the special solution purchased to clean Wire EDM contacts, I can even put a shine back on brass parts.

Have one potential lead on a replacement prop. Emailed and told the guy to call me if he gets the email before 6:30 (I'll be in town then anyway).

Looked at my collection of props, and then laughed. My boat is propped like a work boat, the new drive I'm switching to came from a Chaparral 235XLC with a 5.7L V8.

I'm pretty much at the other end of the spectrum from the chewed up prop she's got now. Only improvement is that mine are balanced.

 

[soggy_feet]

Oh, and I'm probably not going to just take her prop.
I told her the carb isn't tuned and there's no guarantee that it'll run right off, so holding her up that way is one thing.
Taking the prop, no matter how well intentioned is actually stealing, and will probably be the last time she calls me for help.

 

[jbcurt00]

So, if I understand you correctly, you ARE trusted to dismantle the carb, but you're NOT trusted to remove the prop or have your suggestion to not use the boat accepted as good advice?

Then let her use her boat as she chooses. I'd avoid the local waterways while she's out though....... IMO, You've done PLENTY for her $20 carb rebuild/test/tune.

BTW: It's called 'job' security.

 

[JoLin]

It isn't your boat, she isn't your kid, and you aren't her father. I know your intentions are good, but she's entitled to use her own boat whenever and however she wants to as long as she isn't putting anyone else at risk. Let it go.

 

[bilge rat jim]

There's an old saying- you can't fix stupid. (not even with a big hammer and 3 rolls of monkey tape)

 

[soggy_feet]

you ARE trusted to dismantle the carb, but you're NOT trusted to remove the prop

I was instructed to remove/repair the carb, I WAS NOT instructed to do anything with the prop at this point.

she's entitled to use her own boat whenever and however she wants to as long as she isn't putting anyone else at risk

She's owned the boat for less than 2 months and has already been towed in twice. As soon as you do that with passengers, you're gambling with putting someone else at risk.

WITH THAT SAID, I left her a note after I installed the carb yesterday afternoon advising her one last time to fix the prop before she takes the boat out, adding that the choice IS hers, but is that 40 minute cruise out around the point worth $500.

She sent me a text last night, called me a party pooper and said that she'd wait until the prop was fixed. Told me to put my guy on it.

The real kicker is that if she had agreed to that when I gave her the options last Thursday, I could have had that prop turned around on Friday, and she'd have been able to take her boat out this weekend.

 

[midcarolina]

people are strange and unpredictable........ Many good intentioned folks have gotten into trouble just trying to help someone! If I where you I would stop by a office supply store and pick up a service order receipt book ( about 5 bucks ) when you do work and find potential issue;s you note the potential issue's on the work order.....That way if the customer refused to ok the work they cannot claim you didnt tell them. the work orders are multiple copy with a place for a sig from customer.

Taking that one little step can shield you from serious headaches in the future.

 

[NYBo]

Just wait until she offers to "barter" for your services... Then you cut and run for sure
.:jaw:

 

[soggy_feet]

Heh, yeah. I've learned that lesson.

First couple of side jobs I started I made it clear that since it WAS side work, people shouldn't expect that the work be done as quickly as a professional shop dedicating full days, 5 days a week, and there's always the risk that something happening that stops me in my tracks.
There has only been ONE situation where that happened.
A guy asked me to cut a walk thru in the transom of his steel Chriscraft. I did, and it looked amazing finished, but the second half of that fell apart.
He made the initial cuts to remove the steel for the walk thru to save me time and him money, since I was working on replacing the entire bow of my steel houseboat right then.
I told him to cut nice and straight to make it easy to frame in and weld, and also so that he'd be able to save the cutout since he wanted a door for the walk thru.
Straight for this guy apparently meant +/- 1". Scrap that idea. Told him I'd try to make a plastic replacement and used the original cutout as a mold to heat/form a sheet of plastic. Bought the $80 sheet of plastic, formed it in a walk in industrial oven, three days later, it had sprung back almost to a flat sheet. I struggled with it, I had more pressing things come up (like moving), and I had to throw in the towel.

To keep me focused on jobs, and to make sure I didn't have someone screaming at me for "taking their money and running", I wasn't accepting any money until the job was done at that point, then they would pay in full.
It was explained to me and then driven home by that transom job, that while well intentioned, that tactic didn't protect me from a customer bailing on a project, leaving me with the cost of a bunch of material that I might not be able to use anywhere else. He got that transom cutout done for $100, and it took me much longer than I anticipated since he boogered up the cuts, and I never charged him for the $80 sheet of plastic as I'm sure he would have put up a fight over it anyway.
I made $20 on a job I should have made $200.

So now, all materials are paid for up front, and my labor is covered when the job is finished.


Ugh, this file attachment stuff is miserable.

Here's the original.
https://plus.google.com/+MattLorenc...6038181405442822802&oid=100315182670889068613

 

[soggy_feet]

Oh, and I keep track of quote and invoices-with notes-in Excel so I have a record of whats done, what needs to be done, and what should be but isn't addressed.