1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Hey guys and gals. I just wanted to share our year-long project that is coming to an end. My two best friends and I are co-owners of the boat and we've been working pretty steadily over the last year to get the boat on the water this summer. We are all car guys and know next to nothing about the inner workings of boats so this is a first for all of us. We are, however, well versed in mechanical, metal work, body work, painting, fiberglass construction, and engine work. We learned a lot during this project and I can say we had a ton of fun too.

What we have here is a 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 with the Volvo-Penta AQ130C engine and 270 outdrive. Behind every restoration is a good story and here's ours... A friend of ours bought this boat for an unknown sum and took it out on the water only a couple of times and lost interest. He had big plans for it that only amounted to hastily mounting a pair of speakers. That was about it. He then parked it at the corner lot of my friend's shop for a few months to bake in the Mississippi sun. We thought nothing of it and really didn't pay attention to the boat until we were kicking back with a beer one afternoon and the subject of buying a boat came up. "Well, there's that old boat in the corner. We can probably buy it for little to nothing". We went to scrutinize it and it was pretty rough, but most of it was still there. Straight out of the 70's orange and cream exterior, orange upholstery, old teleflex gauges, crappy brittle plastic bits, and at some point orange carpet. It was rough around the edges, but I'll be damned if it wasn't cool. We struck up a deal to paint the owner's car in exchange for the boat. He bought the materials for the paintjob, we did the labor and ended up with a boat.

This is the day we brought her home.


We got straight to work water sanding, buffing, vacuuming, polishing, and cleaning...and cleaning...and cleaning..

A little #0000 steel wool goes a long ways to bringing life back into these tired gauges.


Wiring schematic for the v179 gauge cluster I made before disassembling the old cluster. If anyone needs some help wiring, let me know.


The old gauge cluster was shot, so we wanted to fabricate one and here's what we came up with. It started out as two planks of cedar beveled and glued together. We drilled the holes for the gauges and routed the whole thing for smooth edges and so the gauges could sit a bit further in. We then stained it and put on 3 coats of poly.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

I finally get to use my new workshop. I'm pretty proud of it.


We wanted an old vintage look to the boat and we were not putting those old crusty black plastic switches back into our new crown jewel of a gauge cluster. So new marine push-pull buttons were sourced, led's were wired for indicator lights, and I went to work putting this mess back together.


We also cut out some switch panels out of aluminum sheet to frame the gauges and make a nice solid surface for the new hardware. By the way, we had some stickers cutout to emulate the old starflite logo and put in on the corner between stains. That's how we got the ghost effect on the emblem.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Looks pretty good. That'll do, pig.






Now for the wiring. :faint2: Many a beer was had that day. Only made one mistake too.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

More wiring. A proper fuse panel being put in.


I had to finish up at my buddy's house because I ran out of ring terminals.


Another view of our ghost logo


Our boat was missing a glovebox lid so we made one of those too.


We ghosted our own logo on the glovebox. It's a 'J', 'T' , and another 'J' (our first initials) in the shape of an anchor.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Then we got a kick in the stomach. We have been walking around on the floor for quite a while and noticed a couple of soft spots. We pulled the floor up which turned out to be plywood over the original floor. I say the term 'original floor' in the loosest sense of the term because there was basically nothing there but a thin layer of fiberglass. Once the fiberglass sheet was cut out, we literally vacuumed the original floor out. It was wet mulch. The stringers were deteriorated from the gas tank back to the engine compartment bulkhead. The stringers on either side of that were about gone as well. We left the boat alone for a couple of months while we just thought about what we were going to do. We were already this far in, so we decided to press forward.

Shot of the main stringer and our new stringers being grafted onto the old ones.




Note: I'm pretty sure this is not the correct way to make this repair, but it works for us. We put so much fiberglass on the stringers by the end of the project the wood is just a filler at that point. I'm certain that rotting stringers will not be a problem in our lifetime.

At this point it we decided that we needed to make use of all that dead space in the floor and install an in-board icechest. Hell, we're already this far down, might as well. So the middle stringer was cut down and we added a 2x4 on either side of it and went to glassing.




Protip: hanging an old florescent light fixture off your bimini top makes for good lighting for working at night, but it sure does attract a lot of moths. Needless to say, there are tons of moth bodies embedded in the upper layers of resin on our boat a-la Jurrasic Park.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Every new piece of wood that was put in was glued in with fiber-reinforced filler and then glassed in individually and tied into the glassed wood around it and to the floor. That way, there is no exposed wood. We placed bulkheads fore and aft of the new ice chest cavity. Then braces were put in between the front bulkhead and the existing stringer under the gas tank. Another brace was put in between the rear bulkhead and the engine compartment bulkhead. The original floor had horizontal cross braces installed to fill the space between the hull and bottom of the floor. We used cedar strips coated in fiberglass to perform the same function as the originals.









We had also accounted for water drainage between the bulkheads and through the icechest by installing lengths of pvc pipe between the front and rear bulkheads. This will allow any water that makes it into the hull to drain out to the back so it can be emptied by pulling the rear plug. This also allowed us to put a couple of pvc t's in that will drain water out of the icechest and to the back of the boat. The t's are the perfect size to use a 3/4" boat plug in.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Dried flotation foam going back into place




Back in with the floor!


We laid a heavy bead of silicone to eliminate any potential squeaking and to seal the screw holes up.




After that, the edges of the floor received a couple layers of CSM and then the floor got one good coat of resin and cloth mat.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Here, we made new wood side rails to match the cluster and glove box. We attached them with polished stainless bolts. The new carpet has made it's way in as well. Now it's time to clean up those horribly discolored, awesome orange accents in the shelf thingies.


Here you can see left is dirty, right is clean. We tried just about everything in the shop to clean these. Purple power, simple green, TSP, Dawn, baking soda...you name it, we tried it. Then we started getting into the chemicals. Alcohol and lacquer thinner had no effect. Out of desperation, we tried automotive paint reducer and it worked like a charm. That old nasty black crap wiped right off.


We made a matching wood lower rail, rebuilt the rear jump seats and installed them.


It's starting to look like a vintage boat now!

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

We also lined the icechest with foam to insulate it from the heat of the hull. We also put in aluminum air duct tape to seal it around the junctions. Afterwards, the interior of the icechest got two layers of fiberglass for strength and to seal it up tight.


We ditched the old plastic steering wheel for something more stylish. Luckily, we knew a guy with an old boat with a sweet steering wheel that fit our steering shaft. Before polishing:




After:

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Nice work. Been a Glastron fan since I was kid.

I like the ice chest implementation with PVC pipe drain.

Not to rain on your progress but did you check the transom for rot? Rotted stringers often mean rotted transom.

Going to subscribe to your thread to see the progress. I am just starting the same project on mine. You can see my thread below on my sig.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Now, we need an icechest lid. John took that over and knocked it out of the park. The frame is made from angle iron and flat bar. The lid is two more planks of cedar stained and poly'd screwed to a piece of marine ply. He also routed 'V' groves in the surface for traction.


crappy night pic of it installed.


Better. The lid frame was painted in House of Kolor Cocoa Pearl (my buddy has been saving this paint for years).


Next up was the nasty seats. They were each cleaned up, hinges replaced, new vinyl installed on the bases, and a matching decorative wood piece was bolted to the sides with more polished hardware. Left is spring fresh, Right is how we pulled them out of the boat.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.





We also pulled the tank, cleaned it up inside and out, filled a couple of pinholes and coated the whole thing with POR 15. This whole tank could rust and there would still be a shell of POR 15 that would hold gas. haha. This stuff is that good.


We also left a little easter-egg for someone to find later. I'm not saying this boat is old or anything, but....


A little hint at the sound system that is going in the boat. We already have two batteries installed with an isolator between them so we don't drain the cranking battery while sitting stationary listening to the radio. Did I mention that my buddy works at a sound shop? Well, he does.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

We found a used control set on ebay with integrated trim buttons. The factory trim switch was on the dash and inconvenient. Plus, the old throttle lever's chrome was pitted and it looked ugly. We couldn't leave this alone either so it came apart and prepped for paint.


A new throttle bracket was cut out and covered in vinyl that matches what we put on the seat bases and what will eventually be put on the speaker pods.


The throttle is too close to the seat in this pic, but we were able to move it up a bit more.




MMmmm... I don't know why House of Kolor would ever discontinue this paint.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Welp this is kind of an overview of how she sits now. Windows tinted, windshield frames polished, and dirty from working on it. The trailer really needs some attention too.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.













That's pretty much it for now. The motor is going to get a spring cleaning, tune up, and oil change. Accessories and audio equipment is being wired up. There's not much left to make this baby party worthy. We're steadily working on it every afternoon and all weekend until it's finished.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

4Winns2 said:

Nice work. Been a Glastron fan since I was kid.

I like the ice chest implementation with PVC pipe drain.

Not to rain on your progress but did you check the transom for rot? Rotted stringers often mean rotted transom.

Going to subscribe to your thread to see the progress. I am just starting the same project on mine. You can see my thread below on my sig.

Click to expand...

Have not yet checked it. All of the water damage that we have found was about 8" rearward of the gastank to the engine compartment bulkhead. We know for a fact that bulkhead is solid. We had to drill through it to relocate our drain holes farther over. Since the stringers stopped there, I'm hoping the rot stopped there as well. I will check the transom this afternoon for good measure. If the engine/outdrive have to come out, so be it. We would like to steam clean the whole system anyway. But here's hoping it stays dirty.

I love your boat. Good luck on your project.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Thanks, I'm excited about the day I can call it complete. Grab a 12 pack and sit inside on the trailer and gaze for 12 long beers. May your beer be cold (and it will be) and transom hard. Have a nice weekend.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

Haha. Thanks man! You too.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

The accessory battery has found a home in the port side under the front seat along with the isolator that disconnects it from the cranking battery when the key is off.


These are the rear speaker pods we made earlier. They are going to mount to the jump seat bases.


A thin wipe of filler


Sanded and shaped


Wrapped.

Re: 1975 Glastron Starflite V179 resto-mod in progress.

This is the middle speaker pod we fab'd up from what was left of the old trim panel that covered the gas tank below the step-up to the bow. It will house 2 component sets.



And a thin wipe of body filler. After a little sanding, it'll be ready to wrap with vinyl.