It's that time again 2016 season

I pulled the boat up from storage yesterday, time to get it put back together for this year. This will be the 9th year for this setup. I'm not going to get the changes made so I'll be ordering a new Arrow prop to replace the worn one. No changes just putting the battery, gas tank and prop back on. The river is a bit high yet and it's been raining almost daily here so I have no real plans for getting on the river. I guess I'll have to start buying a newspaper every day so I don't get accused of posting the same fish photos over this year.

:-D

Papee the river is starting to look like a place you want to be...It's soon time to get the old mini out and get it down there...Here's a pic off the deck this morning...It's starting to look pretty inviting...The geese are coming in the yard with the little ones now..They like to float around the pond so the little ones can eat..In the second pic there's two ready to come up the bank this morning...

My wife and I have already been on two three-day camping excursions with our boat and have traveled through some really interesting back waters in search of fish to shoot with the bow. Unfortunately, it's been too cold here and the fish haven't come in to the shallows yet. Last weekend we stayed at Fayette State Park and did a scenic airboat cruise through the bay where there's a nineteenth century iron smelting village which has been preserved by the park. Really cool to see from the water! Our mini has developed a significant vibration recently which I have been unable to trace until yesterday when I noticed a small crack on the edge of the propellor hub. I took off the prop and discovered an open crack completely across the back plate of the hub! One more hour (or less) and I'm sure we would have had a disastrous high speed blade separation with untold consequences! I called Whirlwind and they are sending me a new, re-designed hub free of charge. If you're using a Whirlwind prop you might be well advised to check for cracks in your hub also as it could lead to serious injury or worse if you throw a blade.

Ted please keep me posted on the new whirlwind hub...If they have a redesigned hub there's definitely a problem with the old one that should be addressed...You've got some hours on your boat but certainly not enough for that type of hub failure...Glad you found it before disaster struck...Good catch...

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Originally Posted by Corky

Ted please keep me posted on the new whirlwind hub...If they have a redesigned hub there's definitely a problem with the old one that should be addressed...You've got some hours on your boat but certainly not enough for that type of hub failure...Glad you found it before disaster struck...Good catch...

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I'll post updates and pictures on the site when I receive my new hub. We ran over an hour trying to locate the source of the vibration before I finally found this crack ... not a good thing to do! We were lucky ...Here's the pics I sent to Whirlwind

Well, I have to tell you...I'm not feeling good about running my hub even the first hour knowing what's going to happen...

Maybe it's just something with that part. Just check it out good Corky, fit all the pieces of the hub to the blade end one at a time and check for any fitment issues. It looks like something putting pressure in the wrong place and causing stress rather than a design flaw. I'm sure if you call them they will make you feel better about it either replacing it or checking it out.

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Originally Posted by Papee

Maybe it's just something with that part. Just check it out good Corky, fit all the pieces of the hub to the blade end one at a time and check for any fitment issues. It looks like something putting pressure in the wrong place and causing stress rather than a design flaw. I'm sure if you call them they will make you feel better about it either replacing it or checking it out.

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The additional information that I gave to Whirlwind was; total time on prop 80 hrs, bolts torqued to 16ft/lbs (per specs). I asked if they had seen this type of failure before and they told me that they have and that originally the front and back plates were of different thicknesses but they have since re-designed the hubs. The only prop strike I've had was the 3/4" idler adjustment nut strike last year that put a minor nick into the leading edge metal of one blade but who knows, maybe that was enough to stress the hub or maybe it has something to do with harmonic vibration. Time will tell.

When I was a kid my grandfather and I were fishing the susquehanna at Millersburg Pa. in the same mini I have now {man do I feel old looking at it that way}... And as usual we floated into a rock and got hung up...So he fired it up and tried to move off the rock but we could'nt get free...Out came the push pole and launched us off the rock...Problem solved...The trouble came when he slid the pole back along the side of the boat...He missed the spot where the pole rested and sent the pole back into the prop!!! :-o The wooden prop exploded into a million slivers of wood !!! Wood went everywhere into the air,out the sides, into the boat bouncing all over the place !!! The pieces went into the air so high it rained down like confetti...Luckily we were both facing forward we were fine...I can't say the same for the prop it was a splintered hub...Man, did that engine rev when the prop came apart...

I could'nt imagine what a failure like the one you've avoided could have done...Metal and carbon fiber...is'nt anything like wood...Let alone the offset,unbalanced remains on the redrive reaking havoc for additional aftermath...WOW !!

After many trips on the river trying to figure out what was wrong with the new empi setup I finally found out what it was a few weeks ago. My pump ball is/was deteriorating and putting small pieces of it in the carb clogging the carb up. I put a second clear filter right at the carb to protect the whole fuel line. I went for a short trip today before rain, it's was supposed to start raining about noon today.

The purpose of the trip was to get some footage for youtube unloading and loading the boat.The water is very low and I had to get on the trailer, with my unstable legs it makes it very hard to do and yes, I fell in the water. I won't be posting that video on the web! Maybe next time. I'm going to put better walk boards on the trailer so this doesn't happen again. My trip was cut short because I banged my knee pretty hard and it start to be painful.

I did manage to catch this 17 incher though.

Nice fish.. Glad to see you've got the boat squared away and the fish are coming in over the boat...Yeah, the river is really low,consistantly for weeks...I was doing some maintenence on the red mini and did'nt put it back in the water because of the low water...

The trouble with the low waterline is the rocks get slippery from the algae and vegetation...Then you end up going for a swim like you did...And you know when you get old there's no graceful fall from any position like when you were young...:cool:...I'm on vacation all this coming week if you need or want any help let me know...

I was going to pm you but I'll just ask here. I need to get a wide band gauge for my turbo setup rather than guessing what is going on. What is the cheapest I can get away with that is complete? I don't need computer tuning just something that will tell me what's going on.

a simple gauge and O2 sensor would work fine...Type in "wide band air/fuel gauge" and a bunch of units will pop up...Here's an example from Ebay..http://www.ebay.com/itm/APSX-V2-Anti...BXd2o1&vxp=mtr