T&T: positive feedback

[Larry N. Brown]

In the list, we frequently get reviews of equipment and/or services that are
less than satisfactory so I'd like to comment on some good'uns.

I hope that in some distant point in my life I'll be able to quit fooling
around with hose clamps. I hope, but until I do, there is a tool which has
saved me a lot of cursing and bleeding fingers. It's a hose clamp driver. It
is a socket which firmly grips the screw head --so that it doesn't slide off
under pressure like a straight slot-- and a tough flex shaft so you don't have
to get exactly square on the nut. There are two types,
http://store.hamiltonmarine.com/browse.cfm/4,2144.htm  is for AWAB clamps and
http://www.drillspot.com/products/335999/Ideal_9999V_Hose_Clamp_Driver has a
reversible socket for 5/16"  and the 1/4" mini clamps. Stick'em both in your
pocket as you go into the engine room if, as I do, you have different size
hose clamps.

A few years ago I installed a Snake River Electronics Ultra 8 tank monitor and
sensors for 4 fuel, 2 water and 1 waste. Although I liked it at first, It
wasn't intuitive and the readout left a lot to be desired. I heard on the list
of Ferriello Sales, a company that produces a far superior model monitor that
can read the old SRE senders. I bought it and installed it and it does exactly
as advertised. They gave me a "trade-in" price. That's part of the good part.
The really good part of the good part came when my aft tank-- which I knew to
be half full of fuel-- started indicating full. Oh my, must have some kind of
siphoning, I thought. How's that possible?

Then I looked at all the other tanks and they were unchanged, so I suspected
the unit. Called FS and Dennis, the owner, answered the phone. He answered it
several more times as we went through the troubleshooting process. Once he
patched me in with engineer who had designed the system and we deduced the SRE
sender was bad. Bought a new one from WEMA  http://www.wemausa.com/ Just
installed it yesterday, turned on the monitor and it read a half tank, no
calibration needed.

I highly recommend the tools and the tank monitor.

Regards,

Larry and Teri
M/V Cigano, 47' Prairie Sundeck Cruiser
Lying: 64 Cypress Road
          Covington, LA