Transmission Transition on Tenthouse Creek

—Blogpost written by Bob

Our layover in Galesville was caused by problems with our v-drive transmission--there was a very long delay in shifting into forward and there was significant leakage of transmission fluid from the seal nearest the engine.  This layover began on Sunday, June 14.

Monday, June 15

I talked to Luke at Hartge's Yacht Yard first thing in the AM and their mechanic work was way behind schedule and they probably couldn't get to pulling out our transmission for several days.  We were able to borrow the marina's van to pick up a rental car in Annapolis and then proceeded to pick up our car from its winter storage location in Baltimore.  

We picked up our packages (including my new-to-me camera) that had arrived at our marina in Baltimore.

One of the first images I
captured with my new
(to me) Nikon D-750 
camera. (She was 
watching a barn 
swallow.)

A bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit at McDonalds and pizza at Italian Market made up for a lot of the fast food we missed during our 8 months away from the area.  We REALLY missed good New York style pizza!

I was really surprised at how fast we could accomplish things using our car--far quicker than what we've been able to accomplish using just our dinghy over the past eight months.

I removed our upper forward life line and took it to West Marine's rigging shop in Annapolis for a replacement that was 1-1/4" shorter.  There were three people working in the rigging shop at the time and the lead time on my replacement life line was a week to 10 days!  I have never seen them this busy.

Our day ended with Happy Hour with a few snacks and watching some TV...

Tuesday, June 16

This morning, once again, we went out for breakfast (after returning our rental car)--this time at Naval Bagels in Annapolis.  Today was Naval Bagels' last day of serving only take-out.  We had to order by cell phone and then they would bring our order out to us.  Maryland is quite different than most of the southern states we came through--here in Maryland, someone not wearing a face mask is the exception rather than the rule. (I am not at all surprised that some southern states are experiencing a resurgence in coronavirus cases.)

In the afternoon, we did some grocery shopping, stopped by our storage unit, and stopped at Fawcetts for a few items needed for upcoming boat projects.  Late in the afternoon we stopped by Mexican Cafe for a couple margaritas, chips and salsa, and a quesadilla that we shared--we really missed Mexican Cafe in Annapolis!  After two of their margaritas we weren't very useful--we drove home and called it a day.

Wednesday, June 17

We woke up late this morning--8 AM (probably due to our over-indulgence on margaritas from the Mexican Cafe yesterday).  The sky was overcast and it was drizzling ever sol lightly.  More rain was expected later in the day.  I filled our water tanks in the morning before it started raining harder.

We were still waiting on the availability of a mechanic to remove our transmission and decided to get a head start of some of our summer boat projects.  One project in particular was improving the fastening of our backrests on our outdoor cockpit cushions.  Originally we had used the very sturdy (industrial-grade) hook and loop fasteners which had VHB tape on the back.  While they adhered well, the hook and loop fastening was not sturdy enough--they kept coming loose and causing a trip hazard when entering the boat.  So, I removed all the hook and loop fasteners, using a pocket knife and adhesive remover.

We punched the holes through the vinyl fabric of the backrests and installed the snaps on both the fabric and on the fiberglass in the cockpit.

I punched three holes for snap
in the upper portion of the
backrests.

I screwed the fixed portion of the
snap to the fiberglass
coaming.

The final product with the
backrests in place.

In addition to fixing the fastening of our backrest cushions in the cockpit, I also made stainless steel studs to replace the all the existing wing screws on our AirHead composting toilet.  The original wing screws consisted of plastic head glued to a socket head cap screw—half of the originals had failed.  Usually the plastic wing cracks and then falls off the socket head cap screws.

At left is the new stud/wing nut design, 
at center is a failed wing screw,
and at right a wing screw
that hasn't failed yet.

The new stud/wing nut
design in use.

Fortunately, all eight cap screws have the same thread size: 1/4-20.  The new studs I made are 1-3/8” long but if I were doing it all over again, I would make the 1-1/4” long.  I used blue thread sealant to affix the studs to the threaded inserts in the composting toilet.  I found that it was much easier installing the studs with the toilet removed from the head—otherwise it involves a lot of working in cramped quarters.

This little project took a couple hours but I don’t have any more concerns about failed screw heads in the future.

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Stay tuned for our eventual transmission repair...


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