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Well, just as I was docking yesterday, the bow thruster gave it up again.
Hit the switch and heard a horrible grinding noise... no thrust. Went down
to take a look after we docked up, and found the two bolts holding the motor
to the coupler flange still assembled, but the motor wasn't attached! That's
right... the two bolts were still in the lower flange, complete with washers
and nuts. The #%$^&&* mechanic that had reinstalled it last time had bolted
it through two alignment wells instead of bolt holes on the motor plate.
This is a polymer plate about 1/2" thick. Most of the holes are drilled for
the bolts, but two of them are "wells", diameter larger than the bolt heads,
and only maybe 1/8" thick at the bottom. So instead of 1/2" of polymer to
hold the big 24 V motor in place, the guy bolted through these two wells,
which of course gave it up, leaving the equivalent of two plastic washers
hanging on the bolts, and the motor backed out of the couplers.
I pulled up my pix of the original installation to check orientation, bolt
positions, etc., and noticed that the guys had rotated the motor, and the
flange was different. Couldn't fix it quickly, and we're only one day from
home, so just taking it home the old fashioned way and will call the guys
who did this to come fix it the right way. I won't mention any names yet,
because I don't know if they're going to turn out to be heroes or bums yet.
A couple of learnings... when somebody else works on something on your boat,
at least give it a good once-over physical inspection yourself. It was
working fine, so I never really checked the workmanship inside, which
probably would have caught this and been an easy fix. Also, the value of
taking pictures of everything is really great. Not only do I have pix of the
original installation, I took pix of the failure yesterday, and WISH I would
have taken pix after they fixed it. Digital cameras rule!
Keith
_____
"We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees."
-Jason Kidd
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