YAAAAAAH!!

Today was boat project day.  Pam is still in Texas for her son's graduation from Air Force Basic Military Training.  She called last night, and eventually asked what my plans were for Saturday.

"Maybe I'll take the electric motor off the hoist so I can see why it doesn't work", said I.   I had tried to work the hoist last year but all the motor did was hum.  Either the motor is seized up real good, or the gearbox is jammed.

"Uh huh" said Pam.

"What??"  protested I.

"You've been saying that for weeks!" said Pam.

She was right.  I had been talking about working on the hoist since February.  I want to get the Whaler off the roof so I can sell it, and use the hoist to get the BBQ off the aft deck along with the cabinet it's bolted to.   "Well, the weather had either been too nasty to do it, or too nice to waste it on boat projects" whined I.

"Yeah OK" said Pam, a bit condescendingly, I thought.  Seven times is the rule.  I need to say I'm going to do something, or be nagged seven times before I actually do it.  I'd only said I'd work on the hoist what, maybe five times? 

So Saturday morning I get up, and after breakfast etc. take the dogs to the great dog park in Norwalk, where the dogs spent a few hours playing and getting suitably tired out so as to nap all afternoon.   Back at the boat after lunch.  What to do?  I guess I should tackle the electric hoist on the roof, the one used to lift the 13 foot Boston Whaler.  I'll show Pam.  So up I go, tool box in hand.

13 foot Boston Whalers are not only good boats, but make good storage boxes too.

I examine the motor.  It's held on with a half dozen hex bolts.  I remove them and try to pull the motor off.  It won't come.  Something inside the gearbox is stopping it.  I have to remove the gearbox cover, but first I have to unbolt the electrical box.  No biggie.  Within minutes, the electrical box is dangling from the motor.

Next, I remove the hex bolts holding the gearbox cover on.  I pull on the cover.  It doesn't budge.  I tap it with a screwdriver and my make-do hammer (a big socket wrench.  I never actually use a hammer for much of anything).    The cover starts to separate from the gearbox.  I know this because gear oil starts pouring out, lots of it.  YAAAAAAH!!  Gear oil spreads over the deck, which is rounded so rain rolls off and into the gutter and then into the water.   Gear oil headed for the water!!   I have visions of Encon storm troopers massing over my boat, writing tickets with big fines!  I look around for something to catch gear oil.   The only thing I can find is the back cover for the hoist, which has three holes in the bottom, but it seems like it's better than nothing.  I stick that under the drips and dash down the ladder to below.   I grab a small waste basket and a roll of paper towels and fly back up topsides.   The gear oil is spreading but it hasn't made it to the gutter.  Quickly, I unroll big wads of paper towels to head off the spreading oil monster and thrust the waste basket where the oil is leaking out of the gearbox.   Whew.  BP has nothing on me!

Surveying the damage... yuck.  I spend a half hour mopping up oil with paper towels which I deposit into the waste basket.  I can't get all the oil up.  It's soaked into the fiberglass, I think.

With most of the gear oil gone from the box, I removed the cover and the motor. 

There's a worm gear on the shaft.  No wonder I couldn't get the motor off.  The worm gear is bigger than the hole through the cover the shaft passes through.   The inside of the gearbox is very cool, with all sorts of gear-type things.   I can rotate the gears by hand so the problem isn't the gearbox, it's the motor.

Now what to do?  I put vice grips on the shaft and try to turn the motor.  It doesn't turn, not a bit.  Twenty years of sitting uncovered probably has it full of crud.  The motor is probably toast, and a replacement is $400.  I decide to do something.... Dave-like.  With nothing to lose, I fill the galley sink with water and submerge the motor.  Hey, Pam's not home.   She'll never know.  Maybe the crud will dissolve and the shaft will turn.

Yeah, I guess I should have emptied the dish drainer first.  The electrical box and control were covered in gear oil, even though I wiped them down.  Knowing I'm a clod, I put them in a plastic bag so I don't make too big a mess.  I left the motor in the sink for a good hour.  When I removed it, the shaft still wouldn't turn.   I put the motor on the foredeck to dry out while I consider my next course of action.

By the way, the little rug stuffed through the hawse hole is chafe protection.  Living on a boat when the wind blows 50 MPH sometimes requires diligence.