My Boat Is Held Together By Zip Ties!
- Thread starter Rick D
- Start date
I must be the odd-man-out cause I hate duct tape and have not used it in decades. After I very short time it falls apart and leaves behind a sticky residue mess.
I will admit to going through a lot of zip ties in my currently ongoing reworking of the electrical panel. So many things had been added to the system over the years that the wires were all braided into a macramé mess. I labeled and disconnected every wire, unwove it from the others and draped it out the side that it came from. Then I reconnected everything in layers by function. Much neater now.
I will admit to going through a lot of zip ties in my currently ongoing reworking of the electrical panel. So many things had been added to the system over the years that the wires were all braided into a macramé mess. I labeled and disconnected every wire, unwove it from the others and draped it out the side that it came from. Then I reconnected everything in layers by function. Much neater now.
I love bailing wire but I have since switched over to electric fence wire. It is more ductile and easier to twist without the use of pliersIn my earliest days of sea experience, it was duct tape, black electrical tape, and bailing wire for temporary fixes and bindings. Now, of course, the zip ties, which are throughout the boat; but I still keep the other three remedies handy.
In the Marine Corps we called that "percussive maintenance".
So I mentioned needing a bigger hammer...
Today I asked my marine mech how to loosen the stuck packing nut on my prop shaft.
He asked what I had tried so far. I told him I tried two pipe wrenches, I tried soaking in PB Blaster overnight, I tried a little heat, I tried two men on two wrenches, I tried precision open ended wrenches, I tried a handle extension...
He told me to "Use a hammer".
Today I asked my marine mech how to loosen the stuck packing nut on my prop shaft.
He asked what I had tried so far. I told him I tried two pipe wrenches, I tried soaking in PB Blaster overnight, I tried a little heat, I tried two men on two wrenches, I tried precision open ended wrenches, I tried a handle extension...
He told me to "Use a hammer".
1/ did he mean use a hammer on the nut , or on the end of a wrench attached to the nut , like a breaker bar ? 2/ i once saw a morse gearshift cable which fried itself on the engine exhaust because the engine installer didn't use enough harbor freight zip ties to actually keep the too-long morse cable looped high enough off the exhaust manifold. the exhaust heat and excess cable sag allowed the morse to fry itself. which froze the cable (with gearshift in forward, of course) which then disconnected the end of the morse from the teensy little press pin that yanmar used to hold the morse onto the gearshift lever. the worst part was hitting the dock in full forward , thinking the gearshift was in reverse, when in fact unbeknownst to me the fried morse had it stuck in forward. the admiral kept yellling REVERSE REVERSE but the boat wasn't slowing as it usually did as i approached the slip ( with a 15 kt stern wind of course.) (and in front of the whole dockside 5pm drinking crowd.) so i of course throttled it up, not realizing that for lack of a zip tie or 5 from harbor freight, i was about to hit the dock at 5 knots. in forward. the best part was waiting 3 weeks for a new morse cable OF THE CORRECT LENGTH . and also having an unhappy person standing below next to the engine to shift gears by carefully pulling on a line thru the hole in the end of the gear shift lever.
The rapping with a hammer can break any corrosion that is holding the threads ... so don’t hit so hard that you might dent or bend any thing but a lot of light taps might mechanically free what is holding it solid. Tap and then some more BP ... then tap some more
+1 for this. I repacked my stuffing box this year, and I don't think it had been touched since the boat was new in 2009. Lots of nice patina on the nuts, which were frozen on their threads. Between PBlaster, two stuffing box wrenches, and finally some sharp raps with a hammer on the flats of the two nuts, they yielded. Just make sure you get all the corrosion off the threads and put some Lanacote or something similar on the threads so you don't have this problem in the future.
Also, before you try to turn the locking nut, use a brass wire brush to clean the excess corrosion out of the exposed threads so that you do not just work that buildup into the threads of the nut and make matters worse once it starts to turn.
Nice to hear you say tie-wrap. We always used tie wraps in my career job. I had never heard the term zip tie until I got on the forum.