1966 Alumacraft Maracaibo Restoration

[acex008]

My 82 year old grandfather purchased this boat brand new in 1966 here in Maine and used it exclusively on Thompson Lake. I found it abandoned in the woods at his farm, uncovered. It was last registered (used) in 1987. I asked him if I could restore it and with much delight he began searching for the paperwork. I now have the original folder the dealer gave him with the original owners manual tucked inside, however he couldn't find the registration. I pulled the boat out of its tomb and started tearing into the restoration. Pulled the seats and the floor boards. Since the 40 horse Big Twin is seized I found a good running 1962 Lark IV that you see in the pictures. I've never worked on an outboard so this forum has and will provide major help along with parts! Going to get a service manual too. I'll be giving the carbs a rebuild and tuning it up and anything else I should find faulty. This restoration will involve a new floor, paint, new seats, rewiring and various other items. The trailer will also be wire wheeled, repainted, new bearings and tires.







I also found the water ski's that my mother, aunts and uncles used to use behind this boat!





When I asked my grandfather if he had a shop vac to suck out the 20+ years of dirt and leaves he went into his garage and took out a shop vac as old as the boat itself! It worked flawlessly and you can tell it was built when things were built to work and last!



Now this is where the story gets really interesting! So while I was at his house cleaning up the boat he asked if I could help him with his VCR. So we went inside and he said there's a tape in the player already and he's not sure what's on it but it says on the label that it's from when my mom was a baby. So I showed him how to hook it up and what buttons to push so he can watch it. After a few minutes of various old film from the early 60's and even a short segment of the family clearing the land for the camp they built, a clip started of the boat being put in the water for the first time!!! I've recorded it on my cell phone and will be posting it here!

I hope this will turn out to be a fun and rewarding project and I can't wait to see the look on my grandfather's face when I take him for a ride!

[acex008]

Here are the youtube videos!

First launch in 1966!

Heading out.

[bear_69cuda]

Welcome to iboats!

What a great story... All this history, the video, and the fact your Grandfather is here to see, and assist, will make restoring this great boat so special. I love the lines it has! And the paint scheme is classically awesome!

Your story and pics made my morning... I wish my grandfather was alive to share more moments like this!

Thanks!

PS, Sandblasting the trailer will save you many hours of hell, wire wheeling the rust off...

[danond]

That's one bitchin' looking boat. I wish there were more like it on the water where I live.

Take the boat off the trailer and drag the trailer to a sandblaster. $150 or so and you're down to bare metal. Wire wheel takes forever!

[halas]

Awesome story so far. Wishing you well with the restoration. It is going to be fun.
I am also working on two aluminum boats this spring: 1970 14' Mirrocraft, and 1969 18' starcraft.
Having a lot of fun with them will post pictures when I have more time. Right now I am pretty much working 7 days/week 12Hrs/day between the boats and my jobs.
Looking forward to seeing more photos on the progress of your boat.

[Bob_VT]

What a great story and video. You should NEVER part with that boat.

Please re-size the pictures to 640 x 480 for the forum.

Thanks.

[matthewp]

Wow. Just plain... wow. Good luck with your rebuild. There's a lot experienced guys on this forum. How many other guys have the first launch of their restoration project on tape? what an inspiration. Love the shop vac, too. You gonna tweak that baby out when you're done with the boat?

[slbri]

What a project! And what great motivation to get that thing done for your grandpa. Actually brought tears to my eyes tbh, thinking of my grandpa and what I would give or do to be able to spend an afternoon boating with him again.

I am sure that is why most of us are here and so interested in boating. I know the reason I am doing my restore project is for my 4 1/2 year old girl and my 18 month old boy. There is not a lot that compares to spending a lazy day under the sun, being gently rocked to sleep by the rolling waves and watching some young ones real in a few memories. I will definitely be watching this one with interest!

[betayv]

what great history and good luck with your project, just to let you know maracaibo is the name of a city in Venezuela.

[ezmobee]

Cool looking boat. You'll want to check out this thread of a similar restore.

http://forums.iboats.com/boat-restoration-building-hull-repair/can-not-figure-age-boat-restoration-project-250569.html

[acex008]

Bob, I resized the pics. And I will keep this boat in the family. The wife has been mentioning the word "baby" lately...

Thanks for all the great comments! My grandad is not going to be around for much longer, he's now in his 80's and has a pacemaker. He has a farm and was raking leaves when I showed up to ask about the boat! It didn't take any convincing to get him to drop the rake and tell me stories about the lake and the boat. He paid $2,500 for it complete back in '66.

I filled the boat with water to check for leaks and there was none but I will be stripping the inside and then applying some Gluvit to the seams and then repainting the inside. I'm not going to repaint the outside since it is in decent shape and I want to retain as much of the original as possible. I have a small sandblaster I bought from Sears to clean up the trailer. Still need to check compression on the motor and then buy the tune up parts.

[acex008]

Well I'm back at it on this resto! Built a stand and mounted the Lark on it, have the flywheel pulled and I'm currently giving it a tuneup. I couldn't get it to produce any spark so hopefully a tune up will do the trick. Once I get it running I'll be tackling the hull clean up and sand blasting the trailer!

[leadpencil2]

Glad to see you back. Wanted to send you some photos of my Maracaibo for motivation. Did I read that you have the original boat manual, if so could I get a copy? Let me know if you need any photo's for reference.

Leadpencil2

[acex008]

Wow! Thanks for the pics. Nice looking boat! I'll scan the owners manual but it's actually a photocopy of the original. That's all he had. Email me and I'll reply with the scans.

[thompson thomboy]

hey man, nice looking boat, i have an identical one, and i live only about a half hour from you if you live near thomson lake... i picked my boat up in manchester, maine from an older gentleman.

[sprintst]

Great story. It'll make him happy to have the boat around for another generation or two.

[acex008]

This project sat stagnant for a long time. I had sold off the Lark in need of some quick cash. I've since had a baby (he's 2 years old now) and grandad is still alive and relatively well! He's had a pace maker put in but is still out and about. I think I need to hurry up and get this boat finished though because he's now 85 and the clock is ticking for him...

With all that said, I've posted a craiglist ad looking for a decent 35-50HP motor. I'm rather short on cash but have a few things to trade. Anyhow, once the weather clears up here in Maine I'm going to bring the boat from his house to mine so I can start working on it again. Hopefully the hull is still water tight. We hadn't covered it very well so there may (most likely) have been standing water that froze over the past few winters. I think I'm going to inspect it and seal it up from the inside to make it water tight. I don't want to get it on the water to find out it leaks!

Stay tuned!

[TruckDrivingFool]

Started reading this and thought with a story like that how have I missed this. Then I looked at the date of the original post and thought no wonder I missed it its an old thread. Kept reading thinking I'll get to see how it turned out and low and behold it's the OP that brought it back up.

Glad to see you're back on it and looking forward to following along.

[Daniel75]

This project sat stagnant for a long time. I had sold off the Lark in need of some quick cash. I've since had a baby (he's 2 years old now) and grandad is still alive and relatively well! He's had a pace maker put in but is still out and about. I think I need to hurry up and get this boat finished though because he's now 85 and the clock is ticking for him...

With all that said, I've posted a craiglist ad looking for a decent 35-50HP motor. I'm rather short on cash but have a few things to trade. Anyhow, once the weather clears up here in Maine I'm going to bring the boat from his house to mine so I can start working on it again. Hopefully the hull is still water tight. We hadn't covered it very well so there may (most likely) have been standing water that froze over the past few winters. I think I'm going to inspect it and seal it up from the inside to make it water tight. I don't want to get it on the water to find out it leaks!

Stay tuned!

Glad to see you back on this project. I found this story about 2 years ago when my wife's great aunt told me I could get her 65 Alumacraft Maracaibo out of the boat house and fix it back up. I finally went Sunday and brought it home. I got on the forum and noticed you started back on yours. Good Luck with the restore.

[Untame]

I've started restoring a 1966 Bel Mara. I'd appreciate those owner's manual scans also (if still available). I'll send you a PM with my e-mail address. How's progress?

[Nick_n_Jnsvl]

Hello everyone. New guy here also and I found this thread since I;m thinking of either restoring or selling my 1964 Maracaibo. I am the 3rd owner as it was used exclusively on Lake Beulah here in Wisconsin since it was new in '64 till about 1978 when my dad bought it. The trailer was junk and bent up from getting turned over in a ditch (while it was empty) on it's way to pick up the boat one Fall day we were told. My dad bought a brand new Sportsman trailer in '78 for it. The boat has the original Johnson 40HP Electroshift on it, and even the white vinyl seats are in fair shape. I remember when my dad bought it in '77, my mom said it was the fanciest boat they ever had and commenced cleaning the interior and treating the seats with vinyl conditioner.

Well, mom and dad had to move out of their house so I got the boat in '81 and cleaned it up some more as well as polished the windshield to look like new. My wife and I used it with the kids for many years up to about 1997 for fishing and even tubing! That 'ol Johnson 40 has some power let me tell you. Anyways, it has pretty much sat covered and inside stored for the past 12 years or so and now not sure what I want to do. I have some home remodel underway and I also restore 70's electronics silver faced receivers. So... another project with the Alumacraft? I don't know if I am up for it or even if the motor will start. I have turned it over every year by hand without running to keep the cylinders free and sprayed oil down the spark plug holes. Also, I remember back in about '89 I took it in because of starting problems and had a tune up with brand new coils, plugs, wires, points, etc. If I recall, the epoxy coil covering got cracked with age.

The good news is, I have some sales brochures from back in the day, maybe an owners manual, and some documentation my dad had from Alumacraft including a pair of brand new rear decals for the back sides. My idea was to try a restore, starting with a tear off of the now kind of worn transom board (?). Don't know a lot of boat terminology. I have no clue what material would be good for that. Something better than just multi layer plywood that gets chewed up? I thought about using a good grade of marine plywood, but also fasten a layer of tough polypropylene or something over it where the motor clamps on? But that might be too slippery for the motor to grip.

As I say, I don't know if I really have the time or knowledge to undertake this. I DO remember how nice of a ride this little boat is though. It just speeds right along and the good part is that it will cruise at darn near 25mph or so on a plane without "getting into the carb" and get amazing gas mileage. I recall using it up on a large northern lake ( Lake Namakagon) which is about 6 miles long or so and has many bays. You could cruise for 30 to 45 minutes at a time easily. Well, we cruised and fished all day on a fresh 6 gallons and had over 2 gallons left at the end of the day. At the same time, we could take the kids (and a few adults) tubing for 1 1/2 to 2 hours and maybe use 4 to 5 gallons.

Well, I'm writing this because I have to decide since I would like some garage space and don't want to go back to paying for indoor storage for the boat like I did for some 10 years or so. What's a boat like this worth anymore anyway?

[jigngrub]

You really should start your own thread Nick_N_Jnsvl.

It's a lot easier to keep up with any information given to you if you have your own thread.

[Nick_n_Jnsvl]

Ok! Will Do!