Last night, Merlin and I were aboard fitting a pin to the setee table to fix it in place when it was in the down for sleeping position. The installation was successful, but during the final stages we had a thunder boomer. Man did the rain come down. Merlin has grown sensitive to the thunder, so we cuddled on his lower bunk bed through the worst of it.
When I got up I noticed rainwater coming in through the rear door and profusely around the front windows. This wasn't a boat, it was a sieve! I put a couple cups out to catch the incomming rain, but by that time the worst was over.
Tonight I was going to do some plumbing work in preparation for the Labor Day Weekend outing, but the mosquitoes were so bad I decided to work in the shop. I heard a subdued 'pop' and then a grumble. I thought it was my 40 year old air compressor pumping back up, but as the noise continued I realised that wasn't it.
The loaping growl became ever so familiar, but I just couldn't place it. Holy Shit! that's Big Duck coming alive!
I dashed out of the shop (it's not far to the boat) and up on the deck, noticing the exhaust flap vibrating as I went.
Then on to the helm where I noticed the red light - signaling that the outdrive wasn't fully down, was on. I grabbed the key only to find it was in the off position.
I then dashed back and turned the main battery switch to off. The mill then went to sleep. Tomorrow I'll need to see if the impeller is still good and whether or not I blew the diodes in the alternator, then try to figure what kind of gremlins started up the motor in Big Duck.
If this had happened when I wasn't around, the engine would have overheated and been toast, so I'm assuming it's a sign that she's really anxious to get out there and go.
Can anyone explain this spontaneous ignition? There was no starter cranking, I would have noticed that sound as she wouldn't start and I needed to manually prime the carb after doing the plumbing for the Floscan. She didn't light up again on her own when I turned the battery back on after the incident, and she properly responded to a brief key on/start. Suzy reminded me that The Duck should have run the blower for 5 minutes before she lit herself up.
Can anyone provide an explanation?
Here's what I found.
EMP--electromagnetic pulse from the storm. I've read that they can do crazy things. Or, a wiring problem. But no starter sound is really weird. I've never heard of an engine starting spontaneously. Maybe water from you leaks got somewhere it didn't belong. The fact that the engine could run with the key in the off position says to me there had to be a short somewhere closing that circuit. Maybe water got around the ignition switch and shorted things out, and the starter did activate, but some other sound masked it.
ReplyDeleteThat FloScan sure looks familiar.
ReplyDelete