Tugboat Ruby. Tours of Hells Canyon

04/27/2026

It’s like Christmas today. I finally received my oil filter housing! I’ve searched countless hours for this filter housing. They don’t make a filter housing for the B 99 oil filters with a remote base. The engine had a sock filter setup that was over 3 feet long and 6 inch diameter. Every time the engine shut off all the oil would run back to the oil pan. I wanted to upgrade the filtration setup on the Old Murphy ,and make it so it’ll start right when I turn the key over! So I upgraded to this system and finally found a guy at Baldwin filters who told me about High Plains filtration, and the part number for the exact application I was working on! It’s exactly what I wanted! If you know somebody or are working on a filtration system that needs a custom base you might call them! That’s why I left their information in the photo!

04/17/2026

Another beautiful sunset on Granite Lake! That’s what they call this pool of water above the low granite dam on the Snake River!
So I received my gearboxes yesterday! They are all used high-quality made in the USA 90° 1 to 1 gear ratio gear boxes. I ordered four but one broke out of the box during shipping. I’m hoping the post office finds it or the guy send me another one. I don’t know if you could see my diagram, The big gearbox on the stand is the one that the Captain will control the throttle and direction of the transmission all in one. I bought that one a while ago . The one on top of that is one of the set of four! So there will be a coupling and a shaft going down through the column. A gearbox at the bottom, which will face port side. The gear box on the port side will face aft or the rear of the boat. The aft gearbox will face the gearbox that will be in the middle above the transmission. The gear box will have a chain that goes down to a little control mechanism that controls the throttle and the direction of the transmission all in one unit. All of these gear boxes will be connected by a 5/8 inch steel cold roll shaft with couplings. They also have pillow Bearings to support them. I think this should be a pretty fail safe design! I’ll be working on this today and some other projects!

04/15/2026

https://youtube.com/shorts/uMMZvorWAw0?si=f2dcyEZWquBCvwfE
Ruby and her Washington iron works engine

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04/15/2026

We removed the deck winch also! I weighed 9500 pounds with the gearbox under the deck! I felt kind of bad, but it was worn out, it makes more deck space and the winch was a spider Haven! Besides all the rust under it that you couldn’t get to ,to take care of the boat!
The new engine is a 4 cylinder Murphy diesel engine weighing 6000 pounds ! I’m hoping to have a huge improvement and fuel economy! I have much more room for a galley our kitchen, a head or bathroom and a salon or living room! Removed the Machinery like generators and anything else that we didn’t need. In all we removed 20 tons but it’s still very stable! The vessel still weighs 50 tons!
I got the Murphy in Eugene, Oregon! The new Twin disc 514 C Transmission with 4.5 to 1 gear ratio came from a tugboat up in Coeur d’Alene at the Harrison boat works Yard! 

04/15/2026

The engine is a Washington ironworks diesel. 300 hp.. 300 RPM max! It weighed 31,500 pounds! A collector bought it in Olympia Washington!

04/15/2026

Been working hard on Ruby to make her safe and more useful! The engine is so unique and sounds so cool but if you can’t safely maneuver the vessel it’s not worth keeping.
I spent two months getting the engine ready to pull! The engine was so large I had to cut the engine house and some deck to get it out!

04/13/2026

https://youtube.com/shorts/k3pJTEmfxho?si=SqAFtWorafDzPXmb

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