I have always been nicknamed McGiver due to the creative things I have come up with to get myself and friends out of a trouble spot.
This weekend I was able to put my quick thoughts and DIY intellectual wits to good use. On the way out to a dive location in my 19 foot boat, I noticed the Amp gauge was not reading any positive voltage. I had a backup battery and was not two concerned with the issue. By the time we reached our dive location the battery was too weak to restart the motor. Nothing to worry about, I said. I will just switch batteries and we will be on our way. 30 minutes into our 1.2 hour boat run the motor started to misfire and loose power. No problem, I will take some spare wire and hook the two batteries in series. The motor started to run smooth again. A short time later we were still 45 minutes from the boat ramp and the motor started to misfire and loose RPM fast. I fired up the little kicker motor and ran with both motors for the next ten minutes. Now still 30 minutes from the boat ramp and the main motor is almost ready to die. If I only had some more power to push the coil for another 20 minutes we would get back to the truck more than twice as fast as running only on my 5 HP kicker. That's when the McGiver brain kicked into action.
I grabbed my canister dive light and pulled the light head off. I took some extra wire and wrapped the negative charged housing with the bare wire and connected it to a grounding spot on the motor. I had to hurry because the motor was really starting to misfire and was about to shut off. I new the boat batteries were too low to crank the starter if the boat stalls, and I had to act fast. I took the canister light handle and placed the positive post of my dive light directly to the positive side of the coil. The motor picked up rpm and started to run smooth again. To my surprise the motor ran smooth as long as we kept it under 2500 rpm and made it back to the dock with power to spare.
Not a life saving experience, but was excited to make it back in normal time without limping in on my kicker.
Share some of your desperate actions to save the day. I know there is a little McGiver in many of you DIY divers out there.
Scott
This weekend I was able to put my quick thoughts and DIY intellectual wits to good use. On the way out to a dive location in my 19 foot boat, I noticed the Amp gauge was not reading any positive voltage. I had a backup battery and was not two concerned with the issue. By the time we reached our dive location the battery was too weak to restart the motor. Nothing to worry about, I said. I will just switch batteries and we will be on our way. 30 minutes into our 1.2 hour boat run the motor started to misfire and loose power. No problem, I will take some spare wire and hook the two batteries in series. The motor started to run smooth again. A short time later we were still 45 minutes from the boat ramp and the motor started to misfire and loose RPM fast. I fired up the little kicker motor and ran with both motors for the next ten minutes. Now still 30 minutes from the boat ramp and the main motor is almost ready to die. If I only had some more power to push the coil for another 20 minutes we would get back to the truck more than twice as fast as running only on my 5 HP kicker. That's when the McGiver brain kicked into action.
I grabbed my canister dive light and pulled the light head off. I took some extra wire and wrapped the negative charged housing with the bare wire and connected it to a grounding spot on the motor. I had to hurry because the motor was really starting to misfire and was about to shut off. I new the boat batteries were too low to crank the starter if the boat stalls, and I had to act fast. I took the canister light handle and placed the positive post of my dive light directly to the positive side of the coil. The motor picked up rpm and started to run smooth again. To my surprise the motor ran smooth as long as we kept it under 2500 rpm and made it back to the dock with power to spare.
Not a life saving experience, but was excited to make it back in normal time without limping in on my kicker.
Share some of your desperate actions to save the day. I know there is a little McGiver in many of you DIY divers out there.
Scott
