October 3, 2008

Fortune’s ups and downs After having had quite a run of success with all manner of repairs here, both Dave and I seem to have hit a dry spell. I took a long shot at repairing a TV and video player for Patrick, but couldn't make any improvement. Not surprising to me, since electronics is NOT my strong suit. (Yo, Spike, time to come back up!) Dave checked out Tempo's small inverter, found it positively dangerous, but can't find where the power is leaking to the case. We then both went over to see if we could get a weed eater running for Emai, as they're doing a major island cleanup in preparation for the funeral of Emai's grandmother ( the body is coming from Majuro on the next ship). We tested everything, located a plugged fuel system, corrected that, and then nearly wore out the starter cord. Not even one pop. Nothin' wrong except that it won't work. So Emai had us give his Honda 30 HP outboard a once over, to make sure it's ready to ferry people and cargo to and from the ship next week. When he pulled the cover off it made me want to moan. There's a big epoxy blob on the exhaust manifold because the manifold corroded through and sprayed water all over the motor. The patch has that down to just a dribble. But the salt water bath means everything steel is literally falling apart with rust. The motor is 6 years old, but that's a long time here. It looks like 16. We got it running, after 2 hours of carburetor and spark plug cleaning, but it soon started leaking fuel from the carbs. We suspect there was some crud in the fuel lines that migrated into the carbs, so they need to come off again. It seems like a lot of work for something that probably won't run for more than a few more hours before something critical fails. They have an alternative, a Yamaha 30, but it's a two stroke. Older, simpler technology, but it burns over twice as much fuel, and that's a real issue here. I suspect we'll end up giving them some fuel before this is over. But in the morning we go back for round 2 with the Honda. Wish us luck; we need it. This is beyond expertise!!! Ted