Bagatelle bearing straight
March was ending I wanted to go sailing and I wanted to meet a prospective crew member, Ram. Ram lives in Houston. There's no water or not much water in the lakes around Austin, so I thought it would be a good idea to go down to Clear Lake to go sailing.
I spent the week finishing up the composting toilet, when I should have been spending the week preparing the boat for the trip to Clear Lake. On Wednesday evening after work I had the boat hooked up to the truck and I pulled it out into the street to air up the tires. I was going to take Ellen Nunley back to Houston, so I asked Ellen and my wife to come out and inspect the lights. When I tried the turn signals and the brake signals. I discovered that the lights in the trailer did not work. It was already 6:00 when I made this discovery so I thought that I would have to forgo going to Clear Lake until I had the lights fixed.
Instead I took the lights that I used on Frimi off. I installed them on Bagatelle's trailer. I discovered that the wires for Frimi, we're too short to reach from the truck to the rear of the trailer. Frimi is only 19 ft long, whereas Bagatelle is 26 ft long.
I ran over to AutoZone to get an extension cable. When I arrived at AutoZone I discovered that they only had one foot extensions. I bought a one foot extension. They only had one. I installed it on the trailer. With this extension I could run the lights to the back of the trailer not the top of the boat like I wanted.
I got some rope off of Bagatelle's cockpit to tie the lights to the trailer. Once when I used the lights on the trailer on Frimi and while driving from Port Mansfield to Magnolia Beach the lights had fallen off the trailer and I had no more lights.
Now that I had a working set of lights on the trailer I thought that it was time to begin my journey. Later, I discovered to my sorrow that I wasn't ready to start my journey. I had failed to Greace all the wheels on the trailer before I left.
So Ellen and I got in the truck and started driving to Houston it was an uneventful trip all in all we had a good time talking. I got to her house about midnight. I drove on to West Marine in in Kemah to sleep when I got to West Marine I found it all the lights in the parking lot were off so it was a pretty peaceful quiet place to sleep.
In the morning I decided I wanted to have breakfast so I drove over to Randall's to get an egg sandwich and coffee.
I discovered that the Kemah West Marine opens at 8:00 a.m. so I went back to West Marine to try and find shackles for my roller Furler.
I tried every brand of shackle that they carry until I discovered that the Furler on Bagatelle uses Harken shackles.
The roller furling swivel uses Harken 2111 and the Harken 2112.
After this I drove out to the Kemah boardwalk parking lot to look over the boat ramp under the highway 147 bridge. I have used it once before, after I had sailed from Offat's Bayou, to retrieve Frimi.
I found the ramp secured due to construction I mean longer higher bridge over the Clear Lake Channel. Then I drove over to the ramp at Clear Lake to inspect it. And I realize that if I launched on the day that I was there it would have been a rolling time as there was a strong wind of the southeast and they were about 1 ft waves washing up on the ramp.
I drove down to Eloise's house. Came in and finished my day at work with a meeting on planning the installation at caci.
On Thursday I worked all day and then at the end of my work day I went out to try to get the sails ready. I had just gotten new sails. They were not mounted to the masts yet.
I wasted about an hour trying to make the Jib Sail fit on the main boom.
I discovered that a cleat had broken on the boom. The cleats are made by Sea dog and I have found from experience that the cleats at West Marine are not Sea dog cleats and do not fit the holes made to hold the cleats I found that black burn Marine and Kemah had the cleats but since it was already 8:00 p.m. I thought I would turn in and go and get the cleats on Friday.
On Friday I went down to Kemah to Blackburn Marine to get the cleats.
Friday night I put the spanker sale on the spanker mast.
The speaker sale cover is pretty ratty looking so I called up Stephanie suser to ask if she could make another one for me using denim and she said she could.
Saturday morning I got up to go sailing after breakfast I walked out to the boat. My heart sank when I saw that the left rear bearing had disintegrated.
I called Ram to inform him that we probably were not going to go sailing that day since I was going to spend the day repairing my bearing. I knew I had bearings in the glove compartment of the truck I thought it would just take those out put them on the spindle and replace the wheel when I looked in the truck and I looked at the bearings I realized that they were for Frimi has a smaller axle and smaller wheels so that would not work.
I pulled off though wheel and what was left of the bearing and went to look for replacement parts. Taking off the wheel was hard because the caliper is around the wheel disc and you must remove it to get the wheel off and removing the caliper which is bolted on a plate behind the wheel is difficult at least for me.
Wasted the morning looking around Texas city League city for a trailer parts supply. But realized after much searching and stopping at several places and fighting traffic that the place I needed to go to get parts was in East Houston on i-10 and they closed at noon and I found this out right about noon so I knew I would not go sailing if at all this week.
Ram and his son arrived in Texas city and looked at the boat but Ron was unimpressed since the boat was full of mass and sales and the gin Pole he encouraged me to have the boat clean for the trip and I assured him when we started the trip the boat would be clean and seaworthy.
Ram his son and Eloise and I had a nice lunch at the fish spot on Moses lake in Texas city even Ron's son was enthusiastic about possibly joining the cruise.
I thought I had blown it I figured Ram would not consider going with me however later that day Ram gave me a call and said that he wanted to go on the Texas 200 so I have crew for the Texas 200 Vance Harrison and Ram.
On Monday morning I drove up to McLane trailer supply on i-10 in East Houston to buy the wheel and the bearings to replace the one that was damaged when the bearing failed on my boat. Trailer.
The wheel had to be replaced because when the bearing failed the wheel wobbled on the axle and broke the outside bearing Crown so it wouldn't hold a bearing on me outside of the wheel. McLean had two brands of wheel that would work they had the decks and the Kodiak the decks wheel cost half as much as a Kodiak I didn't realize this until I paid the bill however I feel confident that my wheel will last a while since it's a Kodiak and the trailer is a Kodiak. if I behave appropriately then I will have a good wheel and bearing for the rest of the time that Bagatelle, the trailer and I are together.
Tuesday I walked out to the trailer to put on the wheel. I found it would not fit. Close inspect revealed that the old bearing race and seal had been melted on to the axle. Actually they were so tight on the axle as to appear to be of the same piece.
Thinking I just needed to file it down I bought a file at Walmart and started filing. I borrowed a grinder from my uncle Ronald. I could not get the grinder to work. I found that the front outlets at Eloise's house were inoperative. I was still at it at 5:00 when Eloise's neighbor arrived home. When I asked him for help, he suggested I ask Greg across the street who had plenty of tools.
Eloise called Gregg to introduce me.
Gregg came out. When I showed him the problem he came out with his battery operated grinder .
After sometime we realized we didn't need to grind, but to cut the old bearing race off. Gregg went to get his Dremel. I ran an extension cord from Eloise's.
Just a few minutes of cutting and we had the old bearing race off and we're ready to install the new rear bearing but when we tried we found that the bearing would not go over the spindle cuz it was just the right size. He was getting dark so Greg and I went in to sleep.
Over the night I thought about it and I thought well I if I just put the bearing in the oven and heat it up and it will fit over the spindle just fine. So I put the bearing in the oven at 400° for 15 minutes took it out with a hot pad and ran out to the trailer and it slid right on the spindle no problem.
When I went to tell Greg what I had done he asked me if I had put on the grease seal behind the bearing and I asked the grease seal? So then I realized that I had not put the grease seal on behind the bearing and I decided that I had to pull the bearing back off to put the grease seal on but now that it was cool it wouldn't slide off the spindle anymore.
Greg had a polar he had two polars so I borrowed his pullers and then I got in the truck and I ran down to AutoZone to get a bearing seal set. When I got back it was lunch time I proceeded to try to pull off the bearing by myself but the puller is that Greg gave me were hard to manage alone so I went and rang Greg's doorbell to see if he was available and he was and so he and I went out and pulled the bearing off and then I put the seal on. I took that the bearing back inside put it back in the oven and heated it up at 400 degrees for 15 minutes came back outside slid the bearing on slid the wheel on so the interior bearing on and then I had a problem I'm not having a crown nut to keep the axle nut from spinning off when I was backing the trailer.
I checked all the auto parts places in Texas City and Lamarque to see if they had crown nuts and they don't so I returned to the trailer and I asked Greg if he had a washer without half inch hole in it and he said he didn't but he did have a washer and a half inch punch. So Greg punched a hole and his washer and gave it to me and I placed that on the axle with a cotter pin and thought I was ready to go.
I had failed however to put the bolts in the bracket that holds the bracket that holds the caliper over the wheel. And you cannot put the bolts in the bracket once the wheel is on. I spent a couple hours trying to rectify this situation the next morning but realized I was running short of time and so I decided I would just tie the break up and instead of going in and getting wire coat hanger from Eloise's house I used zip ties which were not up to the task of writing 200 miles back to my house over rough roads. So I lost my brake caliper in route.
It took me 3 weeks or nearly a month to install the brake in caliper properly with the bracket since each time I would order a part it was missing apart and I have to order the next part and that would be missing and then I was still parts and so it it just took a long time cuz I'd have to order each part as I discovered what I needed. At this time I still don't have the brake on waiting for the bracket to mount the caliper to the axle.
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A few days after I wrote that last paragraph I got the bracket for the wheel when I put the bracket on I found that the caliper wouldn't fit.
There were two fingers in the back of the bracket that were supposed to bracket the caliper which were too close together for the caliper that I had on hand. So I decided to cut them off I have a grinder wheel that I use for cutting steel and they use that to cut these fingers off so then I was able to put the caliper on I had to mess with it some to figure out whether it was going to behind or in front of the bracket on the axle.
I figured that out I put the bracket on I put the caliper on the bracket but first I put the wheel on the axle so the problem is that you have to press the wheel on with the caliper install ed sitting on the caliper to actually get it all in place and once the caliper was in place I put the bolts in that hold the caliper on the bracket.
The problem was in the midst of all this I lost a bolt. I searched all over Austin to find a replacement bolt. But since the bolt is 7/16 and you cannot get a 7/16 inch Bolt in Austin unless you special order it, I was unsuccessful
Fortunately I found the boat and so I was able to put the thing put it all together.
A new problem was that the brake was so tight you couldn't easily turn the wheel and I was concerned about that. So yesterday Saturday May 6th I took the boat for a drive I drove up to West Marine and back and on the ones I was at West Marine 4 miles away I touch the wheel and it was hot.
When I ride back home I touched the wheel and it was hot. Not so hot as to burn your finger but hot.
Today I remove the tire again and I found that I could easily spin the wheel. With tire on the wheels spun freely so perhaps my problem is no more.
