1966 Starcraft Holiday Engine Repower

[66Holiday924]

That looks good BWR. What did you use to laminate? I think I'm definitely painting my transom wood. I'll probably use the tractor paint that Watermann used on his Chieftan because I'll have to buy it to paint the outboard side of my stern sheet anyway.

​You made up my mind for me Watermann. That was honestly the only argument I could make for the 5200 in my head. This is my first boat and I've never used any of these products before, so I have no experience, but I was thinking that the 5200 might not be so bad on bolts or screws where you apply torque. I will go with your experience on that and use the 5200. I am reading (and maybe I read to much) about electrolysis between the stainless hardware and the Aluminum Hull. Everything says to use Tef-gel and high quality 316 Stainless. I think Tef-Gel might be redundant if I'm using the 5200, especially if I do it the way you said and pre drill all my holes and get a nice bead of 5200 right between where the metals contact each other.

 

[Watermann]

Another tip when securing through the transom bolts is to also put 5200 around the hole on the outside and tighten the nut on the inside while holding the head still so the machine screw does't spin the 5200 out rather it sandwiches and squeezes out leaving a layer between the two surfaces. Sounds sort of anal but that's what I do.

 

[66Holiday924]

Watermann, what kind of rivets were on your transom?

 

[Watermann]

The only rivets are the solid rivets that secure the channel to the skin at the bottom of the transom that the wood transom sits in. We call it the Z brace. Everything else is attached with ether screw or machine bolts.

 

[66Holiday924]

If you replace blind rivets, you replace them with Aluminum rivets with an Aluminum mandrel?

 

[Watermann]

Take a look at this sticky in the SC section

Rivets, rivets and more rivets!

 

[66Holiday924]

Perfect!

 

[66Holiday924]

I just finished reading the entire restore thread for the Chief. Great work! Everything you did is top notch. It makes me want to go buy another Starcraft and completely restore/rebuild it, just for the fun of it. Maybe I will someday, but for now my plan is to fix Edward as the problems present themselves, and do quality work so we're safe, and the issues don't need to be frequently revisited. There was an enormous wealth of information to take in from your restore thread, sorry if I ask any questions that the answers may have been addressed but lost in the overwhelming amount of information.

​I looked up that cleat that you had, there is one like it on eBay right now. It is listed as a vintage dock/fender cleat. The one I saw looked identical but I don't know about the size.

​You got me considering a few things. How do you like the boat buckles? How are the smart tabs holding up? They seem like something that might wear and need to be changed somewhat regularly (every 5 years or so).

​You ended up having to replace your horse collar after you built your transom. What I take from that is to get the dimensions for the horse collar from the horse collar on the donor boat?

​Anyway, nice thread, awesome amount of information, and nice boat, thank you for sharing! I am getting ready to start dozer's Holiday restore thread next. It looked like more good reading.

 

[66Holiday924]

I went and checked on my boat that's been in storage since the beginning of October and took a couple hibernation pictures. The Thompson is my donor boat. It's in pretty sad shape. The trailer that the Thompson is on seems to be in pretty decent shape. I'm thinking I should be able to get about $500 back for it. I'm considering keeping it and giving up the custom built one that my boat is on.

 

[66Holiday924]

I did a little shopping last night. I just wanted to post, keep my thread alive, and show what I bought. While rebuilding this transom the one thing I figure that I absolutely can not run out of while using, is the glue. I was thinking I would need two bottles, was planning on buying three to be on the safe side and then I got to the store and saw that a gallon costs the same or less than three bottles, so that's my crazy logic for the gallon of Tite-Bond III in the picture. lol. I'll post as I get my materials together so this project is thoroughly documented for other amateurs like me who are thinking about taking on rebuilding their transom.

 

[BWR1953]

Always good to lay in supplies when you can't do much else! :encouragement:

 

[66Holiday924]

North Beach

Can you post a few pictures of your Holiday. I am going to be doing some work on mine and wanted to see more pictures of what you did with yours.

 

[66Holiday924]

Watermann

I was reading through the Chief rebuild again this morning. I know I am going to have to fill some holes on my transom. Did you use JB or Marine Tex for that? When you reinstalled your Z bracket did you use 5200 with the rivets in addition to Gluvit on the seam?

 

[Watermann]

I find the JB Water Weld 2 part epoxy stick is the easiest way to fill unwanted holes. I used 5200 to seal the new rivets on the Z bracket. I used gluvit on all the rivet seams and rivets 'in the field' but not on the Z.

 

[SHSU]

Stopping in and you have a nice little project. As promised, reading what you are looking at and sounds like you only have a handful of rivets that you need to redo. You planning on using solids and if so do you have the equipment (True Rivet Gun, Bucking Bar, rivet head setter, rivets)?

 

[66Holiday924]

SHSU thanks for stopping by! It will be a fun project when the weather breaks and I can start actually getting something done. Until then, I have to rely on reading threads on iboats to manage the "fever".

I'm considering removing the z-bar on my transom to clean up underneath it. I'm hoping my transom job will be good enough to last 2 or 3 decades. I figure if that's the case I should probably be thorough and address any corrosion that might be under there. Watermann posted a link to his very helpful sticky note about rivets, so I'm feeling good about what needs to happen. I will have to buy all of the tools involved. I will replace solid rivets where there were solid rivets, as Bondo suggested I do.

In your thread I was just asking how it went for you. I assume you're just some "dude" like me who doesn't rivet every day and was wondering how it went, especially with recruiting the Admiral to do the bucking.

 

[BWR1953]

That looks good BWR. What did you use to laminate? I think I'm definitely painting my transom wood. I'll probably use the tractor paint that Watermann used on his Chieftan because I'll have to buy it to paint the outboard side of my stern sheet anyway...

Whoops! I just now saw that you asked me a question. My bad.

I also used Titebond 3. Clamped it good and tight too. :lol:

 

[66Holiday924]

That's nice that you got your son involved. I ended up going with the TiteBond III too.

I'm going to say something about the glue that might cause a little uproar: In my amateur opinion I don't think it is extremely important which glue is used.

Whatever you do, just needs to hold the boards together until installation and maintain a waterproof barrier. I know it can be easy to get caught up in all the different opinions and methods of laminating the boards. My $.02 is that the two dozen or so through bolts around the perimeter, gimbal assembly, and padeyes are going to be what holds it together. So, whatever glue you choose needs to hold it together until the through bolts are in, and help waterproof. If you don't do this everyday, it's easy to read around about the glue and forget you're going to have through bolts everywhere. It was a "duh" moment for me when I was thinking about the glue and how this thing is actually going to be held together... oh yeah, the two dozen 36ksi steel bolts... lol.

 

[66Holiday924]

It's slow moving because of the weather but I had a couple developments with the Holiday today. I don't have a garage to work on my boat, so I feel like it is necessary for me to be able to button it up really nice when I'm not working on it. I will have to open and close it everyday I work on it, and I don't want to keep paying to have it shrink wrapped every winter, so I invested in a custom winter cover today. It was pricey, but I plan on keeping the boat long enough for it to pay for itself and it's worth the peace of mind. I went with, black heavy duty, top gun material. It will keep my boat protected in the winter and it's rated for traveling. While traveling, in addition to the weather, it's going to keep the windshield safe from pebbles. I gather that it can be a PITA to replace windshield glass on these old boats, so I definitely want to try to avoid that. They are going to rivet my snaps on, no steal screws through the aluminum. I have a few boats ahead of me, so it's going to be a couple weeks but I'll post pictures when it's done. I'm feeling kind of bad about putting holes in the boat for the snaps. It's 52 years old and doesn't have any holes in the hull except the transom.

Other than that I've got somebody seriously interested in the Merc 110 that is currently installed on my boat.

Not very exciting stuff, but I'll take it during the winter drought.​

 

[Watermann]

Winter is a good time to be shopping for boat parts, it's nice to have a stock pile of parts ready to go.