At 11:56 AM 11/26/2012, Stuart MacMillan wrote:
>I'm sure David's experienced all of these, including the last one!  Probably
>all on the same day.

Well, I'll admit to having a Bendix-gear starter run undiscovered for
twenty minutes or so until someone went below and the cabin was full
of smoke.  Big mistake shutting down the engine at that point since
we didn't have a hand crank for it.  But after cooling down for the
rest of the night we did get one more start out of it, just.  Sailed
with no motor for four days while the replacement came, and then
years later suffered with chronic jamming of the pinion because it
turned out that Universal used two different starters and they took
different ring gears, so the new starter tore up the original ring
gear.  We got very handy at nipping below and loosening one of the
starter mounting bolts when it jammed, until we figured out the reason.

The LGM made me promise not to tell about the other, so I
won't.  Don't want to make the LBM jealous.

RVC - my present van is named after that boat (Scamp).  And I don't
have a hand crank for it either, which scares me.  I hate automagic
transmissions.

Yours,
David
ps - It was on that occasion that I discovered that the words "All
hands on deck, fire in the cabin" uttered slightly above normal
speaking volume will bring sound sleepers instantly vertical and
moving purposefully.  A reminder that people in coma or general
anesthesia hear a lot more than you'd expect.