PDQ OWNERS FORUM

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Hi, all. When we get back from the second half of our grand adventure of the Great Loop, we will need to replace the 12 year old wood pilings at our home dock. I am pretty sure I want to remove the outboard pilings and use a slidemoor system. My questions are for anyone who has a slidemoor on our MV...

I had an opportunity to view a new JH3 engine sitting on a rolling dolly not long. It is amazing how easy they are to work on when they are not closely surrounded by boat structure! Due to a failure of the end of the camshaft driving the raw water pump on my sailboat engine years ago, I had to jury-...

Ray, you are correct about mpg vs gph, BUT how does one ever know how many hours one will be underway? If conditions are favorable, perhaps it is a 10 hour passage. Into a nasty head sea, perhaps it is a 15 hour passage. Whether you work in mpg or gph, you as the Captain must always make the appropr...

Dick, with far less experience on a PDQ 34 than you, I can still concur with your detailed reply. I do question one thing, however. How do you figure a 700 mile range (I assume nautical miles) for slow speed operation? From the 4,000 plus mile cruise we just completed, I have a very close estimate o...

I can't answer your question completely, but I recently had to replace one entire wiper motor assembly. Getting the arm off was difficult because of corrosion on the fine-splined shaft and socket on the arm. With the arm off, I used a small triangular file to carefully clean out the splines of the s...

Hi, John. Yes, I am wiping the stick and slowly reinserting it fully. Our engines were installed in 2006 so just maybe Yanmar made a change to the markings on the dipstick since your model year. I got that info from Dick Tuschick, by the way. Another owner with my same year stated he has the same is...

OK, all it took was a lot more time for the PB Blaster to work and then using the nut as a crew jack worked fine. As expected, the finely knurled end of the shaft was somewhat corroded. Now, it appears obvious that the motor assembly is bad with a burned up motor. Yes, I could consider trying to fin...

Well, here we are, fixing things on the boat as we move from place to place, otherwise known as cruising. The latest problem is the stbd windshield wiper stopped working. The plastic motor housing is deformed to where it looks like it could have excessive heat and been melted from the inside. In any...

Long overdue for a report; sorry. We started our Loop/Down East Circle cruise on 28 Mar from SW FL and crossed the Okeechobee waterway. We stopped at Stuart Yacht for 1.5 days and had two things looked at, with the port engine cooling problem being the only one solved, unfortunately. They ran Barnac...

Thanks, John. Guess I should have done more homework before this purchase. As for just running at 3300/3400, right now I can only get 3500/3600 out of the port and stbd engines at full power (as opposed to 3700/3800 during the sea trails when the boat was very light), so I am not comfortable running...

Thanks very much, John, for all that detail. I just looked at the spray rails and they are 2 inches above the immersion line at rest. The stern has the waterline painted up to the rubber cap over the curved portion of the transom, and the immersion line is about 3 inches below that. So, at rest we t...

Thanks, Terry. I understand that in an ideal world we concentrate the weight amidships and leave the bow and stern light, but boat design doesn't often let that happen. The dinghy davits are as far aft as you can go, and as I said before the only place to stow large objects is in the bow lockers. In...

Well, Terry, I understand what you are saying, but our bow is 5 feet above the waterline, certainly much higher than the sailing cat, so hopefully that will help prevent stuffing a wave. There is practically no place to stow large, heavy items except for the bow. I already have all the canned goods ...

Well, after more grueling repairs and upgrades than I expected to make, we are ready to shove off for the Great Loop/Down East Circle this Fri. I have only had the opportunity to make a handful of short sea trials in between engine repairs, and I am learning first-hand that as you increase RPM, ther...