breausaw":9ufbvb1n said:
mgarr682":9ufbvb1n said:
Looks like some pretty good fishing in that parking lot. I many have to take a fishing pole along tomorrow..
At over 31 feet the water is a little deep in the parking lot also. :wink
Yeah, I got to thinking about that last night and decided that the fish finder was obviously demo mode, meaning it wasn't getting a signal from the transducer. When I checked it today I found I hadn't inserted the transducer lead fully into the bracket and it wasn't getting a connection. After fixing that the fish were gone. Drat.
With a fresh supply of zip ties I finished wiring up the 12 volt outlets, the fish finder cables, and mounted my GPS puck.
Then I moved on to the dripping bolt in the ceiling, the one that holds the front of the ceiling shelf up on the port side and holds down the front of the roof grab rail. Before leaving the boat yesterday afternoon I stuffed a dry paper towel around it to soak up as much water as possible over night. It rained most of the night and again today. When I checked the paper towel this morning it was just a little damp. Armed with my brand new whopper phillips screw driver from Northern Tool I tried to tighten the screw but found that it was totally tight, tight as in bottomed out in the threaded end of the hand rail.
I noticed that both of the screws in the front of the ceiling shelf that attache to the front of the roof hand rails had flat washers but no lock washers. All of the other hand rail screws had lock washer and a flat washer like this one:
Suspecting that the missing lock washers would make up the difference and allow the screw to snug down the hand rail and hopefully stop the leak I made another trip to the local bolt and screw distributor (Asheville Bolt & Screw, about the only place in Asheville with a reliable supply of stainless fasteners). Two lock washers later I was back. Before working on the leaking screw I pulled the screw on the opposite side of the shelf to install the lock washer on that one. Before removing it I checked and it was good and tight. Well, the starboard screw hadn't been dripping like the other but it obviously wasn't sealed either. To wit:
When I pulled the port screw, the one that had been dripping yesterday, I found something a bit odd:
The longer screw is the one from the port side, the shorter from the starboard. Even with a lock washer the longer screw was too long to snug down the hand rail. The shorter screw is too short to even get threaded into the hand rail with the addition of a lock washer. Looking at the ends of the screws it's obvious that they've been cut off or ground down. It's a shame they couldn't get them the right length. And too, with water coming in around the hand rails they'll have to be pulled and rebedded if I can get a dry spell soon. Looking on the roof where the grab rails attach there is a thin white layer of some kind of bedding compound but it isn't doing a very good job of sealing.
For today the shorter screw went back in without a lock washer and the longer went in with extra washers so it could hopefully snug down enough to keep water out.
Tomorrow, decide where to put the fire extinguisher.