Mike Wolfe Chapter Three "The River Queen Refit"  2005  Copyright Mike Wolfe 2005

Fire it up!

All along the forward side of the engine compartment we have three stainless steel 90 gal. fuel tanks, all of which have some, but not very much, rather old gas. Number 1 tank (port side) was the one that was most empty. About one inch off the bottom of the tank. I mixed in some booster and stabilizer with about 22 gal of new gas and plumbed it into a electric fuel pump and ran it 'til we got nice clear gas out of it. Quite a lot of gunk came out! Due to the long time between startups, (6 years I'm told) buddy Daryl said it was absolutely necessary to split open the carb and look into the floats. Without hesitation and with great skill Deller opened #1 carb up with Carl to assist. What a crap-load we found inside! (Good call, Del!) But in short order and two or three beers later the mess was cleaned up to an acceptable level with the promise of a rebuild kit in the future. Some more time was spent on plumbing in a makeshift fuel line as most of the existing copper had been removed for some unknown reason. Then it was time to fire it up! Once again it was time for the ol' heart to start pumping again. Okay, it's no biggie for some people but I was excited, as well as Darryl and Carl. I still had no idea if the engine was broken inside or froze up, and after spending a good deal of time, money and sweat working on the exhaust and electrical. Well, after some pumping and cranking, she fired and seemed O.K. Except for the ticking of what we think is hung lifter. Well, it would have to do for now to get us to haul out.

On our way to haul out.

07/03/98

Saturday, July 3rd. What a day - I'll not soon forget. Weather was warm and calm. Darryl picked up Carl on the way over to launch his wonderfully restored 1969 Crestliner over at Paradise Point. His job was to take the path we were to take from the haulout to Village West and then provide escort and backup back to the haulout. With my family aboard and Carl to fend, I slowly pulled out bow first with only #1 engine. When seemingly clear of the shed I gave her a shot of reverse hard over to swing the stern out to exit. Dude said we were all well and clear when we could hear "Wham-wham-wham!?" Sure as shit the reverse lock was not working and the drive came popping up and the prop struck the bottom of the dock. Later I was to discover the lower unit on my Dana cracked and the original 17"X17" bronze prop almost un repairable. What a start...So now with a bad vibration we limped along at dead slow, just barely making way to the new rebirth of an awfully old boat to Doug Torry's boat yard for haul out.

On our way to the yard.

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