Thursday, November 06, 2008

Oh No, Screwed Again

Vero Beach
No LL

This morning early I resolved to do an unpleasant chore. I had to replace the zinc on our propeller. The water in Vero is very murky and not so clean which makes it not nice. Besides, it was a bit chilly and windy and the water was cold; not the best time for swimming.

Brushing aside all that, I went in the water to inspect the old zinc. It was completely gone. The poor design of the Max Prop zinc I've complained about before. The zinc first wears away at the screw holes which fasten the zinc and it falls off.

I started removing the three screws that held the zinc in place. While unscrewing the second one, it broke off. Oh No! It left the stub of the screw in the screw hole. Double oh no!

Now to repair that, I'll have to haul Tarwathie up on the hard for an hour or two. Then I'll have to drill out the remnants of the old screw without damaging the threads on the prop. That will cost $250 to $300 just for the haul out. That makes it a very expensive screw. You might say I'm screwed.

For temporary protection I hung a loose zinc over the side attached to a wire with the other end attached to the boat's ground. At least that buys some time while I think on the problem.

Can anyone suggest a better way to get that screw out while under water?
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5 comments:

  1. Chuck Gough11/07/2008 1:00 PM

    Hi Dick,
    How about an "Easy out" screw extractor.
    Chuck Gough

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bill K11/07/2008 6:54 PM

    Dick,
    Can you just use a zinc on the shaft or don't you have any shaft out in the open ?

    Bill K

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11/08/2008 11:15 AM

    I thought maybe you could pull the prop much easier than hauling the boat, but I can see that isn't really an option as I am watching a video on the installation of a max prop. My sympathies.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12/08/2008 11:17 AM

    I've often painted the part of a zinc around the screw hole with nail polish (and then let it dry) before installing it, to protect that thin bit from wearing away. Caveats: 1) I started doing this before it was so easy to research things on the web, so maybe there is a something better to do it with. 2) I haven't used a MaxProp zinc, specifically.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dick Mills12/08/2008 1:42 PM

    Anonymous,

    Thanks for the comment. I do and did paint the zinc like you said. It erodes faster there anyhow.

    Dick

    ReplyDelete

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