Rare Chris Craft? (lots of pics)

chargerboy

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
362
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

oops sorry I had double posted above post.
 

chargerboy

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
362
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Well I managed to get the trailer from the guy I bought the boat from, he wanted to keep it for his other boat. Arranged for rental of a U-Haul truck to tow it to my place, after dark tomorrow night, when the cops won't care about me taking up half the road. I can't wait to see what the neighbors think of a 28 foot boat in the driveway :D I was originally going to tow it home with this: decided against :D

008.jpg

I'll be starting the work hopefully this weekend, and keep you guys updated
 

chargerboy

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
362
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Well it's almost 3 in the morning here, I just got the boat home! Showed up at the fellows house, he had the boat "ready" to go on the trailer. Not the case, there was a flat tire, so we tried filling it with my little 1 gallon compressor. Found out the bead was off the rim. So we had to take the boat down the road with a flat tire to the shop he works at to fix it there, but nobody was there to let him in.

We waited for 2 hours for the guy to come home, and when he did we went in the shop to get the bigger compressor to fix the tire, and the shop had gotten broken into and there were no hoses anywhere to use. So we spent 2 hours making a hose out of spare bits to fill the tire, and then another hour fighting with it to get the tire back on the rim and filled. After all that we finally got it, and realized the tire had a hole in it. So F$@# the tire, I took it right off, rim and all, and threw it in the back of the truck.

Pulling out of the laneway, realized the trailer lights weren't working. By now it's 1 in the morning, and there's no stores open, so we had to cut the wires on the rental truck to splice the trailer wires on because the connector was bad. Finally got moving, on the road at last with the boat bouncing all over the road and scaring the crap out of me, passed a couple of cops but fortunately they didn't bother me at all. This thing takes up the entire roadway, with maybe 3 inches to spare. Fun night!

Here's some photos:
boat1.jpg

boat2.jpg

boat3.jpg
 

captmello

Captain
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
3,829
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Great story, I think this boat is going to be a memorable one!

Great looking boat. I'll be watching.:)
 

83vert

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
Messages
394
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Good luck with the resto, that boat has some great details.
 

redfury

Commander
Joined
Jul 16, 2006
Messages
2,655
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

thank god for solid axle trailers, huh? I don't think that trailer was designed to travel very fast down the road anyway!
 

chargerboy

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
362
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Yes, I'm lucky to have a solid trailer. I was surprised it made the 70km trip back to my house, it's really only meant for a marina yard I think. I only drove 30km/h with it behind the truck, and that was scary enough.
 

chargerboy

Petty Officer 1st Class
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Apr 28, 2010
Messages
362
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Well, started ripping the interior of the cabin apart today. Found some frightening wiring issues that will have to be dealt with, and some hidden wood rot. Looks like I'll be rebuilding the window frames, along with replacing the entire deck. I'll get some photos of the damage later on.
 

chargerboy

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
362
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Bare wires in the bilge? This should be safe, right?

025.jpg



More wiring mess at the helm

026.jpg



Started gutting the interior

030.jpg


And I found this:

029.jpg


Some burned looking wiring

032.jpg


And a little rot to fix where some wood wasn't sealed properly.

033.jpg
 

chargerboy

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
362
Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Re: Rare Chris Craft?

Can anybody guess what I'm up to today? I'll give you some hints with these photos :rolleyes:


005.jpg



Previous owner thought it would be a good idea to fix rotten wood with untreated pine, and bondo.

004.jpg



003.jpg


Also need to work on the decks, this plywood will also have to be taken up and replaced

002.jpg


001.jpg
 

micks110

Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Sep 14, 2009
Messages
879
Re: Rare Chris Craft? (lots of pics)

Looks like you got your hands full with this one:eek: Should be an awesome resto though!!!
 

redfury

Commander
Joined
Jul 16, 2006
Messages
2,655
Re: Rare Chris Craft? (lots of pics)

Well, at least you should have good templates and not have to make a bunch of stuff from scratch! that would suck.
 

chargerboy

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
362
Re: Rare Chris Craft? (lots of pics)

Yes, I am lucky that there are good templates. I could just repair the old wood with epoxy, but I would rather re-frame everything brand new. I don't want to have to touch this boat for another 40 years.

Feels good to have made some progress, got the entire swim platform and outer skin of the transom off today. I am happy to report the rot is not as severe as I had thought at first, but I will still be replacing the framing of the transom to be safer than sorry. I would like to engineer it to be stronger to support a larger swim platform and possibly a small outboard dingy.

Here's how it looks now:

001-1.jpg
 

25thmustang

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
1,849
Re: Rare Chris Craft? (lots of pics)

Loving this resto.

There's an older CC at my club that has been sitting unused for a while. Makes me think everytime I see it, that I could turn it into something worthwhile.

For now I will live my dream through your build, lol.
 

dbkerley

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
443
Re: Rare Chris Craft? (lots of pics)

I look forward to seeing your progress. The older lines have always held me much more that the newer ones.

This was a '79 model that was on Clist in Arkansas if I remember correctly.
 

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