It pays to read the manuals

[rgano]

Today I was told of a fellow and his brother (both long time boat owners) who went out fishing in the Gulf yesterday anchoring in forty feet of water. The brand new windass on the brand new 27-foot center console boat allowed the released anchor to free fall to the bottom. Time came to go home, but the windlass motor whined away with no retrieve action, and they were required to manually retrieve. I asked if there was a star-shaped hole on the top of the windlass and was assured there was. Neither one ever owned a windlass before. It was a hore to read all the manuals the PO handed over with my boat, but reading the Lewmar V700 windlass owner's manual alerted me to the fact that I did not have the required windlass wrench aboard. A similar reading might have alerted these two to how to tighten the clutch.

 

[Comodave]

Who reads the manual???

 

[FF]

"Who reads the manual???:


Lazy folks that would rather read Da Book , than repair or replace gear.

 

[rgano]

Who reads the manual???

My guess would be about 99% of us here. But then that's just me.

 

[Russell Clifton]

I have spent a boat load of money by not reading the manual close enough on a previous boat. Developed a "miss" in one of the Cat engines. Started out by changing the fuel filter as we had just made a rough crossing, but did no good. The next day limped into port and had a diesel mechanic come and look at it. He had years of experience and spent hours in the engine room, finally announcing that something in the valve train was bad. The next day off came the cylinder head and off to the machine shop for rebuilding. I was in port for 15 days waiting on this. Reinstalled and still had the same problem.

The engine ran better at lower rpm so headed back to our home port. Called the guys at NC Machine and they sent out a 30 year CAT mechanic with actual experience on this model engine. He spent 3 days in the engine room with no results. The season was over so we put everything on pause for awhile as the bill was now several thousand more.

On the next attempt, two guys from CAT came out with over 60 years of experience between them. They spent the entire day and gave up. They went back to the shop to think about the issue.

On the day they were here I had noticed that the oil pressure fluctuated just slightly when the engine stumbled and decided for some reason to get out the owners manual and started reading. I came to a sentence that read make certain to check the oil level while the engine was running at idle, otherwise the oil level will be low. I had never had any engine where the oil level was checked while the engine was running. I started the engine and went below to check the level. Sure enough it was low. I put nearly a gallon in to get it to the full mark. Went back to the wheel house and the oil pressure was fine and the engine ran perfect. No more miss and no fluctuation in the rpm's. I couldn't believe my eye's. I called the shop and told them I had fixed the problem and they couldn't believe it either. Turned out the governor was protecting the engine when it sensed the low oil level.

This stupid mistake cost me many thousand's of dollars and months to repair. All it took was 10 minutes and a gallon of oil.

 

[psneeld]

On the other hand....

Reading a manual that was printed 30-50 years ago and swearing that only the oil suggested in the manual is suitable .....and probably a few more things in there is when one should read between the lines....

Read the manual, but never settle for falling behind the times or realize that new while seemingly better can have its flaws too.

Takes a lot of research to stay on top of things.

 

[sunchaser]

After 14 years of use my Maxwell windlass started leaking oil. When checking the manual it was stated that seals and O rings should be changed every 3 years.

 

[MurrayM]

A fellow a few slips down from me decided to run his engines at low rpm for a long time to save fuel...he didn't read the bit about running the engines up after a set number of hours for the turbos to kick in. Engines didn't like that. His son didn't like getting the tip of his finger lopped off either when he checked to see if the turbo was spinning after working on them.

 

[cosmo]

Next I expect you'll tell me to pull over and ask for directions....

 

[rgano]

Next I expect you'll tell me to pull over and ask for directions....

Nope, that what GPS was invented for. When it fails, then you can ask.

I met a couple who before GPS were coming down the Tenn-Tom and came to a y in the road and went down what they figured from their state road map was the right channel. After a good while with the shores narrowing in on them, they pulled over to a fellow in a Jon boat who informed them of their error.

 

[ghost]

A fellow a few slips down from me decided to run his engines at low rpm for a long time to save fuel...he didn't read the bit about running the engines up after a set number of hours for the turbos to kick in. Engines didn't like that. His son didn't like getting the tip of his finger lopped off either when he checked to see if the turbo was spinning after working on them.

Sounds like they should install corks on their forks so they don’t put their eyes out.

 

[ancora]

My trawler has an ancient Wagner Micropilot autopilot, that could not hold a course due to set and drift. After 20 years of owning the boat, I finally got out the Wagner manual and discovered I can plug in my Garmin chartplotter into the unit. Will be doing so this weekend.