OUTBOARD AND BATTERY TROUBLES.

Ever since I got back I have had outboard problems. The frustrating thing is it runs well for a few minutes everytime I do ANYTHING to it then it starts coughing and spluttering and stopping. It has always got me back but it runs so badly it clearly has a problem.

New fuel. More new fuel. New fuel line. New fuel connectors. New fuel tank. New fuel filter. New plugs. The carb has been cleaned multiple times.

Well I have admitted defeat, I am waving the white flag. My big 18 hp outboard is relegated to the rail as I can not trust it to run reliably and I can not find the problem. I think I have tracked it down to the fuel pump but it won't come apart and I need new diaphragms and nobody stocks them down here. My next 5 anchorages are very open to the west and an outboard failure could lead to me being blown to Panama. In the last year 4 people have disappeared this way

So we have a new egg beater to see me down to Grenada.

Dizzy approves.

My battery bank has developed a bad cell and I run a series parallel set up with all 6 interconnected it pulls down the other 5. I can reconfigure the bank to run on 4 and did this but it looks like they are about done so it is break out another boat buck and buy 6 new ones.

The local dealer had 6 and they were fresh so I humped 372 lbs of new batteries out to the boat. Lifted them aboard. Pulled 372 lbs of old batteries out and humped in 372 lbs of new. Wired everything up and woke up next morning slightly sore but glad to hear my fridge running normally and not cycling through it's low battery routines.