1965 26' Owens Flagship restoration underway.

Sea18Horse

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Jun 1, 2008
Messages
626
Interesting, do you mean the nylon timing gears? Well that makes as much sense as anything. I'm sure less noise was a factor too but with the many nylon or fiber gears I've replaced with iron over the years I've never noticed a change in the sound.

We got the engine back in today. We just set the heads and intake manifold on for the weight. And so I could paint the bits that I'd missed when the block was upside down.
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Cheers..........................Todd
 

Sea18Horse

Chief Petty Officer
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Jun 1, 2008
Messages
626
Greetings all. Been working on the dash mostly this weekend. My partner in crime is out with the flu. I got the tachometer cleaned up and lubed. It cleaned up better than I expected.
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I got the multi function gauge disassembled. Can't wait to see how it turns out. I got some of that red tail light repair tape to repair the split and faded "OIL" and "AMP" indicators. I think that will work well. Over all it has always worked fine. The only problem is the gas gauge sometimes wouldn't work until you tapped on the gauge. There is enough corrosion in there around the studs and stuff to account for that so we'll see. The gauge units themselves are made by Stewart Warner. It'll be interesting to search the numbers on the back and see if they can be found. I'd like to figure out a way to make the "AMP" indicator work with the Prestolite voltage regulator that doesn't have that capability.

To round out the rest of the gauges I think I've settled on the Platinum series from Faria Beede.
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I think they'll be a pretty good match aesthetically. If I can find anybody that stocks them or can get them for me. My luck I'll need to buy them by the case of 24! I pulled the tach cable out and got it all lubed up.

I Also pulled the big ol' bronze Groco fuel filter assembly off and took it apart. And as usual I forgot to take pictures! Found a half inch of sludge in the bottom of it but no filter element. The p/o had put a little plastic in line filter in before the fuel pump at least. The Groco filter elements are kinda spendy at almost $40 but they seem to be readily available. Hard to believe they'd plug up faster than a cheap little plastic filter but we'll see.

Cheers..............................Todd
 

archbuilder

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Sep 12, 2009
Messages
5,697
I used Faria gauges in my sleekcraft and have been very happy with them. Which reminds me, I want to upgrade to the new GPS speedo. I always seem to crush the pito tube with the tilt trim......never have figured out how to keep it out of the way.
 

Sea18Horse

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jun 1, 2008
Messages
626
IT'S ALIVE!
We got it fired up Saturday. As usual forgot to take any video or pictures of the shake down cruise. It ran great. sounds great. No leaks. We connected a manual pressure gauge to one of the manifolds to see what the pressure was.. My plan was to put a water pressure gauge in the middle hole in the dash but the pressure showed essentially zero psi so that would be pointless. I wound up going with Sierra for the gauges. I could get them from Summit racing and I needed a few other things from there any way so.... I would have loved to go with Faria Beede. I too like the look of their GPS Speedometers and their tach. They are the only ones I could find that would fit in the 4 3/8 holes that my dash has. But I can't justify the cost.

It still runs too cold though. Next I might try rigging up a restrictor between the manifold outlet and the block inlet to force more water through the holes I drilled in the block off plates. I put a temp sender in each head so I could swap the sender wire back and forth to compare. No real difference so that's good.

It's nice to have it running on all 8 cylinders instead of 5. Exhaust doesn't burn the eyes anymore.

A few more small details to iron out but overall I'm pleased.

Cheers...................Todd 001 (3)_s.jpg001 (2)_s.jpg
 

mickyryan

Rear Admiral
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Apr 18, 2016
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i tried gps speedo in 2 boats, it never seemed to pick up gps correctly , now i just use a tablet with a program called gps speed, seems way more dependable .
 

Scott Danforth

Grumpy Vintage Moderator still playing with boats
Staff member
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Jul 23, 2011
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47,300
I wasnt impressed by most GPS speedos, mainly because the design life is so short for electronics vs a mechanical pitot tube, when I did my guages went pitot tube for the speedo and old-school air-core motors for the gauge movements on the others.
 

archbuilder

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Joined
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I think I am going to still try one out. Interesting comments, the company I was going to talk to about converting my mercury speedo specializes in converting airguide speedos to gps for competition skiing. Wonder if it is just the quality of some of the manufactures or just the technology that is the issue? seems like it would have to be the quality control.
 

Mad Props

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Jul 8, 2016
Messages
1,766
A lot of GPS issues may stem from where you boat most of the time. One of the nicer lakes I go to is a dammed river in the appalachian mountains, so its very narrow with mountains on both sides so it has a hard time picking up enough satellites.

If i recall correctly, 4 satellite locks are needed for an accurate position/speed reference. I probably won't get a GPS speedo for that reason, but if I was on the ocean or a geographically flat area, I think they would probably work pretty well.

This is all just based on what I know about GPS, I don't have any personal experience with gps speedos lol, but I'm assuming this is where the issues might come from.
 

archbuilder

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Hmm might work well for me then, the lake I go to has hills around it, but that is it. Thanks for the info.
 

Sea18Horse

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jun 1, 2008
Messages
626
I was down working on the boat this afternoon and due to a thread about fire extinguishers on another forum I decided to finally check mine a little closer. It is a white 4lb Kiddie. Dated 1994! Hehe..... Oops, a little expired! Check those fire extinguishers folks! Also not one of the recalled one's dang it!

Cheers.....................Todd
 

Ned L

Commander
Joined
Sep 17, 2008
Messages
2,266
Wow! The engine looks great, and I’m glad it runs as well as it looks.
 

Sea18Horse

Chief Petty Officer
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Jun 1, 2008
Messages
626
Thanks Ned!
I got the twin pack of fire extinguishers from **** Marine today. They are ABC extinguishers, the original one was only BC So I feel good about that. Also got a new length of bilge blower hose so I can finally replace that. And a blank gauge hole cover to block off the hole on the far right of the panel. I've decided I think to get a temp. gauge for the middle hole since a water pressure gauge isn't going to work. That way I can have a gauge for each bank since I have a sender in each head anyway. Also I had wired in a power lead for that gauge position before I remembered that the gauge I'd planned for it was fully manual :facepalm: . Nice when a screw-up works out in the end.

Cheers..............................Todd
 

Sea18Horse

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Jun 1, 2008
Messages
626
On to more cosmetic stuff! We got the combings and the aft railing off. 002_s.jpg
And the outside the cockpit areas of the boat mostly
stripped of old varnished and partly sanded.
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The wood seems to be evening out pretty well all things considered. My plan is once it's sanded out reasonably well (I don't want to sand so much that bungs start falling out). I'll give it one coat of Benite. then stain it with a mahogany stain Interlux Interstain or their paste stain, if I can find one that's not too red, then another coat of Benite. And then evaluate how it might look. If we decide it's just going to look like crap even from 10' away then we'll sand it out and paint it white. Does any one see a fatal flaw in this plan? Thanks.

Cheers...........................Todd
 

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archbuilder

Vice Admiral
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Sep 12, 2009
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I bet you can get it to clean up nicely. I am not familiar with Benite, but it looks like an interesting product, I looked it up. Looking forward to seeing your progress.
 

Sea18Horse

Chief Petty Officer
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Jun 1, 2008
Messages
626
Thanks guys, Went down to the boat yesterday after work and found I had no power. They are doing an extensive re-decking on the finger dock next door. Apparently forgetting that the boat house is plugged into the first receptacle on that dock. A heads up would have been nice! I would have shut off my radio that's tuned to the jazz station in hopes that the otters are not huge jazz fans. Which means the house battery is now down to 50%. So now I have to scramble around and find a way to get power. This after paying a $25 a month electricity charge that they added this year on top of the $380.00 rent I already pay. Grrrrrrr!

Thanks for the opportunity to vent folks! :)

Cheers................................Todd
 

Sea18Horse

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Jun 1, 2008
Messages
626
Ok while I'm in the ranting mood I might as well continue. I got my new fire extinguishers so I went down to the boat to install them tonight. I found that they had decided in the ensuing years to change the spacing of the screw holes for the bracket. Why? So ok, I need to drill another hole in the side of my instrument console. Fine. I get it drilled and the bracket installed. I go to mount the extinguisher on the bracket and discover that they also changed the arrangement of the pull pin. So now it won't clear my aluminum instrument panel. (Ok that's technically my fault since I didn't check. But still). I had to move it downward about an inch. So now instead of 2 holes in the side of my console I now have 5. Aaarrgggghh! Sorry! :)

Cheers........................Todd
 
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