Ya, Lil Mo, nothing like a free boat! I probably could have gotten away with just fixing the motor and gone back to fishing, but I really wanted to make this one "mine".
I had a fairly productive day. I was able to get a number of pieces carpeted, including the floor and the panels that run along the gunwales. Also carpeted the control box panel. Basically, I want to get the pieces covered that need to go in before I can begin building the new deck section.
I let everything dry for 3-4 hours and then started screwing it back into the boat. It got dark on me quick tonight, so I didn't get any good pics of everything reinstalled on the boat. I'll pull it out of the garage in the daylight this weekend for the photo shoot. It's looking great!
I don't think I've mentioned this before, but last time I had the boat on the water was around this time last year. The trolling motor cables coming off the pedal were really hot (burned my foot) and the momentary switch worked sporadically. At the time, I had no idea what the red switch was on the side of the pedal (label had fallen off) - constant on/momentary/High bypass. I flipped it around randomly and continued to fish with it toggled to constant on. The entire time I thought it was only running when my foot depressed the button.
Anyway, I schooled up on TMs the last few months and figured out what the 3-position red switch does, and I also figured out why the momentary button wasn't really working. The microswitch on the pedal had gone out. I found a replacement on boats.net last weekend. It arrived today and I installed it. I also picked up a new 50 amp circuit breaker, so I wired it all up to a battery and ran some function tests. I'm happy to report that everything works now, including variable speed for constant/momentary mode, as well as the hi bypass. There was a lot of rust/corrosion going on inside the pedal due to the hardware used, but I got it all cleaned up. You'd think that Motorguide would get on the stainless steel bandwagon for their products.
I took another piece of advice from casting call and ordered a long roll of carbon fiber vinyl ($11 on Amazon Prime). I'm planning on using this on an aluminum panel to cover some gauge holes that I'm omitting from the console and cover some cracks. I may also use it in some other "spots", but that's top secret for now
Anyway, this is what I got from USPS yesterday. Thanks, Obama.
The entire package was smashed, so I shipped it back today and got a refund. It has a really sweet low-gloss/matte finish and I like it a lot, notwithstanding the tragedy pictured above. So I went ahead and re-upped on a replacement roll from the same supplier. Hopefully this time the postman will treat it a little more gently.
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