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Friday, 07 September 2007

Servicing the Miragedrive

With all this wind and rain proving to be a real show stopped as far as the kayak fishing is concerned, I've had a fair bit of time up my sleeve... more than I'd normally want. I've been staying productive though, pulling apart my reels and giving them a good clean, sharpening hooks, practicing new knots, experimenting with various manual settings on my camera, doing some 3D graphic design work (building deathmatch arenas for Quake 3) and even finding time to write a short story. One task I have been putting off is to service my Hobie Miragedrive. I figure that after all the punishment I've put it through over time, I really should dismantle it, inspect all parts and give it a thorough servicing.

There's two reasons I've been procrastinating on this one - partly because I haven't really needed to until recently, but more so because it just looked like it would be a rather challenging task. Two things surprised me when I actually got around to doing it. One being that I was impressed with how well each of it's components have held up. The other being how easy it was to pull apart and put back together again.

I was expecting to find a bit of inadvertant rust here and there, but surprisingly there was very little at all (only surface rust on a couple of grub screws). I did note, however, that a few of them did need to be tightened into place again. Putting it back together was a simpler exercise than I anticipated, with everything fitting back into place with ease. As I did so I took care to ensure all screws and nuts were suitably secured, as well as ensuring that both chains and cable were at the right tension, which is firm, but not overly tight. After doing the deed it felt as good as new and despite the overhanging clouds, inspired me to get out into the water ASAP. So as soon as the job was done I packed the car and took off to the boat ramp at Snapper creek near the coast guard at Tin Can Bay and took to the water... er, I mean mud.

I'm really glad I took the time to do that and I think I'll do so with much more frequency from now on. Prevention is better than cure, after all.