The Motor Swap

Luckily I’m talking about Grandma Natty because any other motor would have been terrible.
Left=The old motor – | –  Right =The new motor

So on my way home from work I stopped by Christ the King School.

This is right next to the church Heath and I got married at and we wanted to scope out the school for Peanut a year and a half from now. First we went to the Kindergarten classroom and met the teacher. She was really nice and seemed great. She had 35 years experience with teaching preschool, Kindergarten and 1st grade. She has been in Kindergarten for the last several years and has a class of 12.

She told us all about their day and what they learn and how they do it and it was pretty impressive. I also liked the way they start out the year like a preschool class and ease the kids into a normal kindergarten class and by the end of the year have them set up like a 1st grade.  After the teacher explained everything to us and answered all our questions we got a tour of the school. We were surprised at how small it is. Has anyone been there/ went to school there that I know? The grades seem to have like 8-12 kids in them and only 1 class per grade. They offer a lot for a school that big and I think it would be great to have that much attention from the teacher when Peanut is young. However that is possibly a little too small for the higher grades. I think Heath and I are setting up tours at 6 schools and will discuss everything with his dad. We got lots of time but it was really interesting to start looking and kind of exciting for Peanut  when the teacher started telling us about what they would do and learn.

After the tour I headed home and changed and Jon came over with his boat motor.  We stuck it in a 50 gallon barrel and filled the barrel with water and hooked up the old battery and fuel tank. Of course we turned the key and nothing happened. We got out the meter and started testing voltage and discovered the battery was really low. We discovered it was not in neutral. With the battery charging and the gears in neutral we turned the key and the starter spun but did not have enough battery to get it going. We pulled and pulled and pulled on our little rope on the fly wheel but nothing happened.

Jon and I have spent a few hours on my boat motor and this one is nearly identical with a few parts moved around so we have a troubleshooting procedure down.

-We took out the spark plugs and cleaned them and tested them for spark
-We tested voltage on a number of spots that would be needed
-We checked the fuel line and found some leaks and fixed them
-We took off the carb and cleaned it all out and made sure it was functioning as it should
-A new one for us we took apart the fuel pump and found a small hole that was leaking gas

So we swapped the pump and some hoses and a spark plug with parts on my boat motor and hooked up the battery to the truck. We turned the key and the starter spun just right, caught the fly wheel just right spun it a few times and VROOOM!

We had a 30 something year old motor in a barel hooked to a truck puttering away. This was actually a big relief. Do you remember the last time Grandma was running http://theprewitt.com/node/442 Well it died out on the Kansas river and left Jon Derrick and to a lesser extent Tony in a bad spot. Jon got this new motor on craigslist a while back and had never run it so I was not sure we would have a working boat this year.

Once we had it running it was time to swap it. We aired up the trailer tires and pushed it out from under the deck and around the yard to the side of the house. We didn’t make it up the hill and had to hook it to the truck to pull it up.

Once it was in the driveway we began unhooking all the tubes and wires and bolts and cables from both motors.

It seemed really complex but Jon and I each took a side and only had to remember what went where on that side so it was not too bad.

It got dark during this process so once we had the old motor out and the new one in it was a little tough to see the colors of wires and the connections where they went but we got it all figured out.

We ran into a little trouble with the custom steering set up so got everything but it hooked up before cleaning up and putting everything away.

It was after 9 but we had still not eaten so got the girls and headed to Chelly’s, as suspected they were closed so we went down the street to Lew’s for some burgers, sandwiches, chips and salsa and a few beers. We all seemed tired and rushed home to bed after dinner.