{"id":9818,"date":"2019-05-03T10:12:50","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T15:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=9818"},"modified":"2019-05-03T10:14:06","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T15:14:06","slug":"finally-putting-it-back-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=9818","title":{"rendered":"Finally, putting it back together."},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a very long winter, for me anyway, having to wear closed toe shoes for months now.\u00a0 Can you imagine?\u00a0 Well, it’s getting warmer now and happily, yesterday was a first of the season and Brenda and I were able to sit outside on the deck.\u00a0 What a welcome change.\u00a0 Things are looking up even if it wasn’t warm enough for sandals.\u00a0 \u00a0Even the hummingbirds have returned from their winter in the tropics.<\/p>\n

After months of tearing things apart on Pandora I am happy to say that I am now beginning to put things back together, bit by bit.<\/p>\n

I finished the installation of the cabin heater and was pleased to find that I had done everything right after it was checked by the mechanic at the marina.\u00a0 He also pressure tested the engine and found that the source of the anti-freeze leak was limited to a single loose hose clamp.\u00a0 I had feared the worse, perhaps a bad water pump.<\/p>\n

As I have mentioned before, the basic plumbing for an auxiliary heater was installed when the boat was built but I was a bit unclear as to whether it was installed on the boats’ cooling system in the correct way.\u00a0 \u00a0Fortunately, it was.<\/p>\n

Here’s a shot of the system in place.\u00a0 It looks pretty tidy but getting it there was a bit of a knuckle buster given the tight confines.\u00a0 \u00a0To keep fluid flow even, they recommend that I make the bends in the cooling hoses as gentle as possible.\u00a0 \u00a0There’s the heater itself, on the right.\u00a0 And, the starter battery on the left.\u00a0 I wonder if it’s time to replace that too?\"\"This is the switch to control the heater fan.\u00a0 There are three fan speeds and two vents.\u00a0 \u00a0 It’s located on the front of the settee in the main salon so it will offer easy access.\u00a0 I hope that it won’t be “easy breaking” as well.\u00a0 \u00a0I am hopeful that the cushion, right above it, will keep it out of harm’s way.\u00a0 \u00a0That’s also the vent, right below it.\u00a0 It can be opened and rotated to direct the, hopefully, hot air.\u00a0\"\"As I have mentioned in prior posts, a lot of the overhead panels were badly damaged from dripping water coming from badly bedded fittings on deck.\u00a0 The granny bars, near the mast were particularly bad offenders.\u00a0 Here’s quite a stack of panels that needed recovering, about a dozen.\"\"The vinyl on each panel was held in place by hundreds of staples, something like 500 per panel, many rusted beyond hope.\u00a0 I had to pry each one loose with a screwdriver and then pull it out with a pair of pliers.\u00a0 Talk about repetitive motion injury.<\/p>\n

I ended up with some blisters after two days tedious prying and pulling.\u00a0 \u00a0There were staples literally every half inch in the velcro and many more under that holding the vinyl.\u00a0 \u00a0This was one of the better panels.\u00a0 \"\"Others were so badly rusted that the velcro just pulled off.\u00a0 \u00a0Of course, that left a mess of bent rusted staples behind.\u00a0Many of the panels are scored to allow them to bend to follow the curves of the ceiling.\u00a0 In many cases, they were cracked so I had to reinforce them with even more staples, stainless steel now.\u00a0\"\"All of the panels are cleaned up now and out for recovering.\u00a0 \u00a0I was going to recover them myself at the canvas shop but Chad decided that he didn’t have room for me to spread out and is going to handle this himself.\u00a0 \u00a0Oh boy, this process is going to get even more expensive.\u00a0 Let’s hope he can finish them fast, really fast.<\/p>\n

After he’s done I’ll take them to Pandora and decide how to affix the new LED lighting fixtures.\u00a0 Oh yeah, I had to remove all of the puck lights from the panels.\u00a0 Not a great move so now I get to add even more new lighting to the list of purchases.\u00a0 \u00a0I hope it’s not too obvious that the new ones don’t match the others.\u00a0 I am hoping that if I put the new fixtures in the forward cabin that will minimize the difference.<\/p>\n

The main reason that these panels were damaged was because of leaking from deck fittings, the traveler and granny bars, as I have mentioned previously.\u00a0 \u00a0 I was fearful that the traveler would prove to be a challenge to remove and fortunately, it came off fairly easily.\u00a0 \u00a0 It was alarming to see what it looked like when I was in the thick of it.\u00a0 \"\"I was also surprised with how little bedding compound there was under each fitting.\u00a0 Also, the traveler is held on by a dozen fastenings.\u00a0 \u00a0That nasty leak over the galley should be gone, for now anyway.<\/p>\n

All better now.\u00a0\"\"The list is still long and winding but at least I am moving forward instead of two steps back.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, remember that mast step problem?\u00a0 The corroded bolt heads?\u00a0 Oh, how I wish I had never started that project and left well enough alone.\u00a0 I really don’t think that the corrosion was particularly problematic and now I am weeks into messing with them and still can’t get them out.\u00a0 \u00a0Yesterday I tried using a much larger $18 extra hard drill bit to just remove the head of the bolt.\u00a0 No luck, the bit bound in the hole that I had already drilled broke off after less than a minute.\u00a0 I’ll bet that I have trashed nearly $100 in bits so far.<\/p>\n

Next step, a grinder or some other type of cutter.\u00a0 Details to come, I guess.\u00a0 This is a great example of where hiring it out might have actually saved money.\u00a0 It would surely have saved anxiety.<\/p>\n

I think that I now know that they may be fastened from the underside of the mast step with nuts and washers.\u00a0 Unfortunately, to get at that would mean pulling up the floor in the forward cabin, a big job to say the least.\u00a0 \u00a0I had hoped that they were lag bolts.<\/p>\n

Now, I’ll need to determine next steps and purchased a nifty video scope that will allow me to look through a small hole and see what it looks like on the underside of the step.\u00a0 \u00a0I fear that I will find bolts and washers, not doubt, nasty and corroded.\u00a0 \u00a0If so, how to get them out?<\/p>\n

I purchased this nifty video scope on Amazon<\/a> from one of the Chinese sellers for a remarkable $35.99\u00a0and free shipping.\u00a0 The instructions were obviously written by someone who’s first language wasn’t English.\u00a0 I expect that they just loaded the Chinese instructions into Google Translate, Chinese in, garbage out.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the iPhone app worked immediately.\u00a0 I couldn’t believe it was that easy.<\/p>\n

The instructions, such as they are, included this enlightening segment…<\/p>\n

“Note 1:\u00a0 if not necessary, we do not advise our customers to change the original WiFi SSID and WiFi password for stabler using experience.\u00a0 if you forgot the modified password, pls use a clip to press the resent hole and restart the endoscope and re-join its WiFi.\u00a0 \u00a0 When connected well, the blue wifi signal LED will flick, if not, it means it failed in connection, please charge wifi box through DC5v 2A portable battery or computer USB, or the box battery will be burned.”<\/p>\n

Burned!\u00a0 Yikes!\u00a0 That did not sound promising at all.<\/p>\n

Alas, it worked so the instructions, such as they are, weren’t needed.\u00a0 And, no battery burning at all or should I say, so far.<\/p>\n

But wait, there’s more.\u00a0 It even illuminates what you are trying to look at with a very bright but dim-able LED.\u00a0 Note:\u00a0 I did not come complete with a gold fishy.\u00a0 I guess that means it’s waterproof too.<\/p>\n

Believe me, you need one of these too.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"And it even came with some nifty attachments, including one that looks around corners.\u00a0 Wouldn’t it be fun to drill into an adjacent hotel room wall with this?\u00a0\u00a0\"\"So, this afternoon I will “scope” out the mast step situation and see what I have to do to get those bolts out.\u00a0 Wish me luck.<\/p>\n

Well, there’s still plenty to do and it’s nice to see at least a glimmer of light as I begin to put it all back to together.<\/p>\n

I sure hope that isn’t the headlight of a train racing toward me.\u00a0 No,\u00a0 I’m hoping that it’s just the light on the end of my new nifty scope.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a very long winter, for me anyway, having to wear closed toe shoes for months now.\u00a0 Can you imagine?\u00a0 Well, it’s getting warmer now and happily, yesterday was a first of the season and Brenda and I were able to sit outside on the deck.\u00a0 What a welcome change.\u00a0 Things are looking up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9837,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9818\/revisions\/9837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}