At the Headwaters

The first time I met John, the stranger informed me that he was dying. It wasn’t quite as morose as that, but as he showed me around the boat, he intermingled hull dimensions and engine specifications with details about his failing heart and weary soul, delivered in his slow but steady Kissinger-like enunciation (see “Chapter 1:  In Which an Idea is Born . . .”). At first I was unimpressed by this guy that I thought was looking for anyone as an audience to gripe to, but I soon learned this was a man staring into the face of the inevitable, attempting the impossible task of preparing for death. 

During my few visits with him, our chatting about the boat soon turned to his health, and then inexorably to John instructing me on the necessity of making the most out of life. He was never preachy, but certainly made clear the importance of the topic. Mostly, though I think he was searching his past and convincing himself that he had accomplished what he had wanted to. I never got the sense he had regrets, or was desperate for one last chance, rather, I think he was confronted with the fact that there is no such thing as opportunity, chance, risk or possibility when one ceases to exist.

He inevitably wasn’t able to appreciate the wonder and incomprehensibility of ceasing to exist when he passed away this last winter. Nor can I comprehend his experience. All I know is that, while he is no longer around, he’s left a lasting impression on me that has altered my life’s path in ways beyond measure.

The time came to take another crack at the windshield.  The plan, if you’ll remember, was to use Lexan, but polycarbonate is just too expensive, and I didn’t feel like hauling a 2 ft x 10 ft piece across town, so we went a different route:  We removed the cracked windshield, cut it down to an 8 ft piece, and re-installed it.  For the corners, I picked up a couple pieces of galvanized steel, cut them to fit the bends and screwed them in.  We riveted aluminum channeling onto the steel pieces for the windshield to fit into.  So it’s not real pretty, but it looks decent . . . but more importantly, the windshield is done. 

It is quite satisfying, actually:  not only was this a never-ending and painful task, but it is one of the main reasons the boat was originally pulled out of the water years ago in the first place. 

All the engine preparation, speculation, tinkering and procrastination cumulated with the introduction of one gallon of gasoline and my father and I each holding our own personal fire extinguishers.  On the first Sunday of Summer 2005 — two and a half years since we acquired the boat — we were finally going to try and start the sucker.  We probably could have tried months ago, but the combination of getting things (seemingly) in order along with pure feet dragging out of fear of the outcome brought us to the present time.

Oh, we still had more preparations to make, starting with running a hose from the old farm house, through the barn and into the engine — a couple hundred feet worth, plus homemade splices to boot — for water-cooling the engine.  Of course, the water was going to come back out of the engine, along with exhaust, so we hooked up a 2.5 inch metal hose to the exhaust pipe using metal tape, and then connected another 20 feet of landscape hose to the end of that to run out of the barn.

Rather than putting gas into the boat tank, we cut our nice, new fuel line (which had to be anyway for the addition of a fuel filter) and stuck the end into a portable gallon tank that I kept in my sort-of-working-fuel-gauged El Camino.  Dad tried to prime the engine with a little hand lever connected to the sediment bowl on the engine, but this did not work at all.  This was the first delay of the day, as, while getting fuel into the engine seemed to be a fairly important piece of the puzzle, it just wasn’t going.  Dad was hesitant to pour gas into the carburetor, but after a while, that’s about the only option we had.

While it felt as though there should have been a drum roll, it was without any fanfare that I turned the ignition.   The engine cranked, but nothing more.  After a few more tries we checked the electrical connections and found there was no charge getting to the coil.  After (minor) delay number two, I figured out that, for some reason, the coil and temperature sender wiring were switched.  This fix quickly lead to (substantial) delay number three, in which we tried to determine the firing order of the distributor and cylinders.

The manual for the engine nicely states the order of the cylinders:  1-3-4-2, but it says nothing about the order of connection to the distributor.  We figured the #1 was nearest to the engine, but it may also have been the one to the front of the engine — we just didn’t know.  We also didn’t know the direction it spun, but after reading the manual a bit further, learned that it was clock-wise.  After some good educated-guessing and lots of shoulder-shrugging, we came up with our order of things.

And then we were ready to roll, except now there was no voltage going to the spark plugs, even though there previously had been.  I think this may have been when I started having my doubts.  But we were already four hours into it, so we kept at it, dad adjusted the points, and we were back in the game.

I gave it a half a dozen cranks and we made a few more adjustments before there was a slight cough, a hiccup.  However slight it was, it was not to be mistaken, and I couldn’t help but crack a smile as thoughts of Frankenstein entered my mind.  I hit it again, and then engine began to start, but I got excited and let off the ignition too soon, and it sat inactive and flooded.  So we waited excitedly, and when we went back to it, the engine that had been sitting dormant for 14 years started with a roar, ran for a couple seconds and then went back to its usual state.  A few more tries and adjustments and we had the engine running in a manner that is my definition of success:  the smooth sounding engine didn’t stop until I turned it off with the key.

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The next week when I went out and checked the oil, it was milky white.  There is a split in the seam of the water-cooled oil filter housing.  We should be able to weld it shut . . .