Getting really close to purchasing Jane’O. The former owner, Scott, is kind enough to get her very ready for a survey, which happens Wednesday.
Yesterday we finally got the port engine running. There were a ton of problems, all of which have been fixed, since everything is new. First, we found that the generator battery was 10 years old, so I purchased a new one at Battery Specialists in Oakland. The people there were really nice and had a huge selection of wet cell batteries. Jane O will still need a new house bank (4 6v batteries) and I may just buy them there.
Here’s what we ended up doing: 1. We added a new battery to the port side. The mechanic we hired said that the run from the starting battery on the port side is just too long, and the starters are weak. One of them, the spare, was rusted through. It’s a project to rebuild it. A new starter, a cheap one, arrives Monday. I higher end one shows up later in the week, which means the cheap Chinese one will become the spare, after a coat of paint.
We replaced the battery switch with the new one. I took the old one home to disassemble and clean it.
We ran a wire from the charge controller, which supposedly had a spare “echo charge” port. This turned out to not work -- the existing one was using the second port already and the first one didn’t put out any charge.
And, the still-to-do list includes: 1. Screw in the battery switch. It has one screw now, but I need a power tool to sink the other screws in.
Finish the battery shelf. The battery is precariously installed on the step down to the engine room.
Figure out the charging story for the batteries. The echo charge port doesn’t work. Perhaps that is fixable, or perhaps a new house charger is needed.