Things have been hectic with graduate classes and I've slacked off on posting, but from last weekend and this weekend so far...
Glassed (one layer of CSM) both sides of the bow seating panels. Sealed all the edges with a couple coats resin and peanut butter.
Built the engine cover base
Installed the new Sierra coupler
Embrace the danger
Engine bolted back in and aligned. I haven't bolted the sterndrive back on but I made sure the coupler and driveshaft interfaced with each other fine before I bolted the coupler to the flywheel
Gelcoated the bow seating panels. The ones with the holes (for speakers) are the bulkheads under the consoles. Gelcoated the edges as well. I should have acetoned the Sharpie marks before gelcoating but they went away with a couple more coats.
We tested a seat pedestal and bucket seat but my father in law felt it was a little too high and his head would be over the windshield (he's 6' 9''). We ordered pedestals which go under the deck a bit and will be lower but this one got a little damaged in shipment. For some reason they ship in single wall boxes with no packing at all. He said this was acceptable. I'm going to try polishing it out a bit and install it facing the hull side. I'm gonna try a wire brush in my Dremel first. Or emery cloth.
Picked up 12'x5' worth of outdoor carpet from Home Depot for the hull sides.
Engine cover base is now glassed inside and out.
We took a trip to West Marine and they happened to have these Attwood vents which fit the old cutouts perfectly. I also replaced the bilge pump thru-hull with the chrome one pictured. Was like $5.99 on ebay. The old plastic one had a lot of UV damage and was gonna get crumbly.
Ran the bilge blower hose ($1.99/foot at West Marine, which isn't bad I suppose). This is how it was originally ran but after I installed it I realized that it would have been easier to run it to the port side vent. Why Thompson didn't do that, I don't know.
I 5200-ed the float switch (new addition) and the bilge pump down last weekend and hooked up the wiring for it today. Rest assured, I'm going to tidy up the wiring.
West Marine also had this old-stock Bimini top for $54!. The gunwhales measure 82' (center to center) but we're gonna make it work. We have a $256 make it work-budget with this one.
Installed the fuel filter/separator and hooked up the gas lines.
Trim pump mounted and hooked up (I connected the wiring after this photo)
In addition to what isn't pictured, I hooked up the tank sender wiring, drilled the holes back out for the depth sounder and speedometer pitot, hooked up the engine wiring, tested the battery while at West Marine (still decent), poured about 7 gallons of gas into the tank for testing, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember at the moment. Will be back on it this Sunday and Monday. I was hoping to have it done for this weekend but my father in law was saying that they wouldn't be looking to take it out this Memorial Day weekend yet and I still have a lot of small stuff to do.