Yet another thing I need to have tattooed on myself.
Just the other day Rebecca and I re-watched the movie Memento. For those not familiar with the film, it revolves around a man who, due to a brain injury, can no longer create new memories. In fact, if he talks to you long enough, he won’t even remember who you are. So, to combat this, he writes himself notes, lots of notes, and takes Polaroid photos. For the really important stuff though, the things he must remember, he has them tattooed on his body. Perhaps that is a system that might serve me well too, at least for the important things. For example, how would this look as a tattoo?
Beware the last bit of torque… it’ll bite you in the @ss!
It’s true, I bet more projects have been wrecked by the application of just a bit more torque than by any other single cause. I have personally witnessed 3 situations where projects have gone south for this reason in as many days. Two of them involved a makeshift repair job on our friend George’s outboard engine. The third occurred just yesterday here on ZTC.
In my quest to make sense of my battery conundrum, I took the time to clean off all of the battery terminals to make sure they were making excellent contact. Because half of our batteries live in the outboard engine wells, from time to time they are exposed to a bit of salt spray. The process of cleaning them off went fine but when I attempted to do the same job on the circuit breaker which resides between our port engine and the batteries, the torque thing bit me in the… you get the idea.
Anyone know of a good tattoo artist in Grenada?
A broken breaker.
Great movie but a few people don’t get it / like it.
Maintenance is just like Memento….sometimes you have to re-run things over and over, with mistakes, until it sticks in your mind.
Some of us may be like the guy in the movie where it will never stick!
I loved the movie, but don’t have any tattoos. I have the same torque problem, as well as hitting my head on overhead stuff which isn’t quite high enough to be in my clearance, nor low enough to be in my vision.
I have the same circuit breaker in my windlass circuit, so knew immediately what it was before seeing the identification :{))
You probably wouldn’t want to be on our boat, Skip. I hit my head frequently and you’re a lot taller than I am!
If it is not broke don’t fix it. I think that,s a great tattoo.
Agreed. Right beside the other one.
Now you know why there are supposed to be two sizes of spanner (wrench).
Smaller ones that allow you to apply the right amount of force (torque) to do things up.
And larger ones, only to be supplied to professionals, to undo things when perhaps a bit more force may be needed.
I have never seen this in practice since leaving University (a very long time ago). We ALL buy the big ones. And we ALL do what you did! And we ALL say we won’t do it again! 🙂
Mike
I assumed the shorter ones were simply to allow you to work in more confined spaces.
I think I see a need for a torque wrench being purchased now!
It wouldn’t have helped me in this situation. I assume the device was simply fatigued from the elements.
Grease. Always heavy grease, everytime you take a bolt (or clamp or anything metal-to metal that isn’t a loose fit and all-stainless) off and put it back. Make certain it lives at the top of the tool bag.
The lesson from the PS testing I did on connection and wire corrosion, without worrying over specific products, was that waterproof grease applied liberally was far more important than name brand or torque.
Vital on power conection posts and on slide-on quick conects.
I did have Lanacote on all the battery posts but just cleaned it off and replaced it with a liberal spraying of CorrosionX.
Ordinary waterproof trailer wheel bearing grease out performed both Corrosion-X and Lanicoat in salt spray, by a lot. No-Oxid was number one, but it’s a little hard to find.