And the work begins

The next day after we arrived at Deaton’s we were hauled out and found this. We had a total failure of our boats bottom paint. It took us an hour of scraping, powerwashing and more scraping to clean them off. Then a few weeks later I had to rough sand the entire bottom to remove the round pads that they leave behind.

thousands of barnacles

They set us in the side lot and that's when the real work began. I removed the transmission and sent it in for rebuilding. It sounds like such an easy thing… just remove the transmission. NOT!

To  remove the transmission you have to disassemble the sound box around the engine, and remove the exhaust system, but to do that you have to remove the: house batteries, battery box, battery box frame, and then exhaust which is 30 lbs. of steel! Then you have to remove the turbo charger from the engine (only to find that the heat exchanger has been leaking and the engine, rear mount, etc. are is rusty). In this process I also found that the raw water pump is leaking and the front mount, etc. is rusty also. Now, disconnect the propeller shaft, remove the coupler, remove the PSS rotary seal on the shaft. These items are (of course) very hard to reach no less work on. Then grind the side of the rudder away (so that the shaft can slide out of the boat), remove the propeller and slid the propeller shaft out of the way. Finally, you can disconnect the transmission and rig up a 3 part tackle to lift it out of the bottom of the boat. Oh and in the process of cleaning the exhaust (previously removed) you also discover that it has rusted thru and needs to be replaced. Now, you have major clean/repair to do to the bilge area too. Other than that, it’s just another day on a boat.



6 of our 8 house batteries. Each one weights about 60lbs 

While grinding I discovered... 

So, I hit it with a screwdriver and this hole appeared!



One month later, the transmission was back, everything was rebuilt, replaced, sandblasted and repainted, and ready to go. It was a scary yet satisfying day when we put the Snow Goose back in the water and had her running along under her own power. Now for the next job, and the next and the next…..