Boat Projects

[_Kurt_]

scbababe - it all depends on if you go to US Boat or one of the other stick-it-to-you stores (because is says marine on it) or not.

Be careful when buying non-marine parts. Oil filters and spark plugs are pretty much OK. Alternators and starters MUST be marine grade or you can blow yourself up!

Reality is putting a motor in is really not that tough if you have the tools like the marina I'm doing the working on this project has. Once the transmission is put onto the motor (6 bolts I believe) we hoist the motor up on the lift, move the boat under it, the slowly lower the motor down into the motor well. After its aligned, its a whopping 6 bolts and thats done. The propshaft slips through from the outside and has a set pin and cotter pin to attach it to the transmission. The prop mount is pretty much the same thing. The 3 most time consuming bits to my boat are as follows: Sand/buff/wax of the gelcoat to give it that pretty shine again (I'm giving that 16hrs); tear down of the headers, take to shop for work over, then remount with new gaskets and some other stuff that I am electing to do on the motor (approx 5hrs); rewire of the navigation lights to the termination block and wiring of the guages to the new harness and mounting them in the new dash board (approx 6hrs).

Use marine grade tinned copper wire. Follow the advice of using liquid electrical tape or solder connections and then use liquid electrical tape. Replace all bilge pumps with new, large capacity pumps and heavier gauge wire. Your life may depend on it!

One thing I should point out is that I did get a 1967 model boat, which doesnt sound to old until you think about the environment this vessel has been in. In reality I picked up a steal because of the shape she's in! Personally though, I think boat prices are 3x to 4x what they are really worth though, blown way out of proportion, especially for newer ones! When you get down to it, there isn't much to them and they are pretty easy to work on if you dont complicate the situation.

A few good forums for you to read-
Trailer Boats Forum
Boating ABC
Boatdoctor

I have a 25' Maxum cruiser and it is not the greatest set-up for diving, but we love it. If you can, leave as much seating out of the cockpit as you can and keep it for gearing up. You can always buy folding boat chairs and bring them aboard if you need them, or you can sit on the cooler(s).

Make sure the helm chair is comfortable, and if it has a drop-down bolster so you can stand up in rough seas, so much the better.

Join BOAT/US and get the towing insurance or Sea-Tow.

Take a boating course.

Get a good GPS with a big enough screen that you can read it while underway. I have a Garmin.

Make sure you have a VHF radio and it works and you know proper protocol for use.

I am not trying to talk down to anyone here, I just want you to be safe and come back to post your dive stories here! Please don't be offended if you know this stuff, but if I can help one person be a safer boater, I've done something good today! :10:

Kurt

 

[_Kurt_]

Next coat EVERYTHING involved with any electrical connection with "Liquid Electrical tape". This stuff is a god send. It comes in several colors but I just use black. I coat all screw terminal connections -starters, breakers, fuse pannels, whatever. I also tape all slices (the ones with the silicon in them) the then paint the tape with the liquid tape. Is this overkill? Don't know but I never have to redo a connection, even if it is submerged.

Is this overkill? Nope. Its doing it the right way the first time. I've found I never had enough time to do it the right way the first time, but always had time to do it over! :11:

 

[Padipro]

Another good site is this MSN Group, Desert Dog Mechanical & Marine. The guy that runs the group is a marine mechanic and will answer any question you have. He helped me out a lot over the last year, just look in the messages section and see all the questions I posted. I've even called him on the phone to talk to him and he answered every question I had.

Good luck with the project and when you get it all put back together let me know. Maybe I'll bring mine over and you can show me what it's like to dive on the west coast.

 

[scubafool]

Padipro, like I've said before, you have one sweet looking boat. The difference between your before & after shots is striking. Im assuming the 230 means that it is a 23 footer, correct? If so, the layout seems to allow for a lot of outside room considering that you can sleep 4. You said that you rebuilt the transom, any pictures of that process?

Scubababe, if you buy used, have someone that KNOWS boats take a look before you buy. I am glad I didn't end up with a 27-28 foot version of my current project, 14 feet of major reconstruction is quite enough, thank you. If you buy new, you are looking at some serious money, so I'd talk to owners of boats of the same brand that you are considering buying & find out how many or few problems they are having with them several years down the road.

Kurt, thanks for posting. Now understand that I am asking from an ignorant perspective, but what is the problem with automotive starters & alternators that would be so dangerous in a boat?

 

[CBulla]

Good advice to the newbies to boating (I've got a few years and classes under my belt ), cool leads for the forums too - I didn't know about the liquid electrical tape before, but I think I'm going to add that to my "fix-it" box!

Maybe, if there is enough interest, we can get a boaters restoration forum that us divers are working on and have a "good practices" thread - some of this is worthy of FWSC!

A few good forums for you to read-
Trailer Boats Forum
Boating ABC
Boatdoctor

I have a 25' Maxum cruiser and it is not the greatest set-up for diving, but we love it. If you can, leave as much seating out of the cockpit as you can and keep it for gearing up. You can always buy folding boat chairs and bring them aboard if you need them, or you can sit on the cooler(s).

Make sure the helm chair is comfortable, and if it has a drop-down bolster so you can stand up in rough seas, so much the better.

Join BOAT/US and get the towing insurance or Sea-Tow.

Take a boating course.

Get a good GPS with a big enough screen that you can read it while underway. I have a Garmin.

Make sure you have a VHF radio and it works and you know proper protocol for use.

I am not trying to talk down to anyone here, I just want you to be safe and come back to post your dive stories here! Please don't be offended if you know this stuff, but if I can help one person be a safer boater, I've done something good today! :10:

Kurt

 

[CBulla]

Nice looking boat Padipro! There is definitely some TLC put into it!!

 

[Padipro]

Thanks guys for that pat on the back. Kinda makes all the blood, sweat and tears worth while. I get the detailing stuff from my Dad. He could take something that looked like junk and make it shine like new again.

I'm an aircraft mechanic by trade so the mechanical stuff came easy it was the parts that I had trouble with. I couldn't believe how many different types, sizes and kinds of outdrives Merc made and of course everything goes by engine serial number, which of course was missing on my boat. So trying to make sure I was buying the right stuff was confusing to say the least.

Another good tip I have for all of us with project boats is Ebay. I bought darn near everything I needed, some stuff new and some stuff used, from there and it saved me a bundle. If you know exactly what you need there are 15 to 20 pages of parts listed in Ebay Motors for every kind of make and model boat and power package.

Sorry but no pictures of the transom rebuild. All I did was pull the bell housing off the gimbal and replace all the boots and gimble bearing. I found a crack in the bell housing so I had to have that welded. I stripped all the paint off most of the gimble and bell housing, primed it with zink chromate and then repainted it. If you have a Merc Merc Stuff.com is a good site for information on how to's, tools, parts and questions.

It is a 23 footer and there seems to be quite a bit of deck space. I've had 6 onboard before and it wasn't to crowded although I'd only carry 4 divers and someone to stay onboard and keep an eye on things while we were away. Any more then that and I think I'd be over loaded with all the tanks and gear.

 

[Padipro]

Kurt, thanks for posting. Now understand that I am asking from an ignorant perspective, but what is the problem with automotive starters & alternators that would be so dangerous in a boat?

Marine starters and alternators are equiped with spark arrester screens to prevent an explosion, automotive ones are not. In a car fuel fumes are able to exit the engine compartment out the bottom of the car but in a boat the fumes build up and if there is any kind of spark from either the starter or the alternator, BOOM! That's why you should ALWAYS run the bilge blower for at least 4 minutes before starting any gasoline powered boat.

 

[_Kurt_]

Marine starters and alternators are equiped with spark arrester screens to prevent an explosion, automotive ones are not. In a car fuel fumes are able to exit the engine compartment out the bottom of the car but in a boat the fumes build up and if there is any kind of spark from either the starter or the alternator, BOOM! That's why you should ALWAYS run the bilge blower for at least 4 minutes before starting any gasoline powered boat.

Exactly. Don't take the cheap road here. Also, if you get stopped, you WILL get fined.
Kurt

 

[Stone]

CBulla,

And I thought my Chris-Craft was old (1984). Pictures of my boat and some comments can be found by clicking the website link in my signature block (look for "Dive Boat" in my scuba pages. Here are some links I used when fixing up my boat:

http://www.boatingsolutions.com/chriscraft.htm
http://www.californiaclassicboats.com/chris.htm
http://www.stemtostern.com/Parts/chriscraft.asp
http://www.chrisparts.com/