Re: cowling decals for 1964 Evinrude
Wow, it's a small world. I've just finished painting and mounting a 64 Sportfour 60 hp on my old tinny. After I repainted it, I decided to not mess with the decals. I like the cleaner look of the big white hood, with just the Evinrude E's on the back of both sides. Be sure you use self-etching primer when you paint it, this ensures that your color coat will stick and stay stuck...you can just rough up the old paint with steel wool, but be sure to use that primer. Using the old color coat paint as a base after roughing up the surface will mean repeating the job later on...modern color paints just don't stick like the old toxic paints used back in the day.
Before you paint that hood/cowl, set up a table that will let you have access to all sides when painting. Lots of complex curves. At the very least, you need a space/table big enough to turn it upside down. I put a piece plywood on the side of a sawhorse, so I could hang the cowl and get good access to the top of the cowl...otherwise you run the risk of having runs in the paint.
Be careful with the front metal plates, too. They are held on with flimsy tabs and very stout adhesive tape. I wanted to take mine off to paint them separately, but decided to leave them on and just mask over them. I masked mine off so I could paint the white first, then the bottom (blue), then the front plates (last). It takes a lot of white to cover the top in white, so buy more than you need.
If we get some sunshine here next week, I'll roll the boat out of the garage, put the cowl on and snap a pix or two to show you how mine came out. The tough part for me was mounting that beast on the transom all alone...good thing I have an engine hoist. The old wiring harness was toast, so I had to rewire everything from the dash start switch back to the junction box...check your wiring in the harness, I found lots of old, toasty, brittle wires in mine. Good luck and post some pix when you can.
Oh yeah, almost forgot to add this...a good, local sign/graphics shop can make you some real good peel-n-stick vinyl decals in any style or color if you can provide a photo example of what you want...shoot a pix or two of your old decals if they're still visible, with a tape measure in the shot to show the dimensions for the graphics guy/gal.
