Hard top question

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May 31, 2020
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I recently came into possession of a pontoon boat. I have a bowrider and know nothing about toons. It has a stern drive setup which is different. My question is about the hard top, it is folded down, if you try and raise it, it will not stay up...I see some welds on the uprights but nothing is there.....how does this thing work?

thanks
 

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HotTommy

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This is a wild guess because I can't see enough in the photo to know for sure. But it appears the top is supported by a two-strut parallogram at each corner. Each pair is likely attached to fence rail either individually or with a bottom plate with pins that allows them to pivot as the top is raised or lowered. In addition I would expect the plate to have a pivot hinge on one end (I'd guess the front) and some kind of latch on the other (the rear). As most of the push on the top when moving on the water will be toward the rear, having the front of each plate secured with a pivot hinge would prvent the struts from rotating as far back as in your photo. My guess is that the top is supposed to be toward the front of the boat when it is down, not toward the back as in your photo. I'm guessing it is either broken at the plates or it was installed backwards at some point.
 

ahicks

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I'm just going to leave it at the fact normally it's pretty simple. For any help, going to need better pictures.
 
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Hopefully these are better pics....I circled what appear to be welds
 

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HotTommy

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I don't think the welds matter. If the two square tubes are welded together, they will not pivot at all. ... I see nothing intended to stop the square tubes from pivoting from all the way back to all the way forward, so unless there is some mechanism on one of the other set of tubes, that top will not stay up. That tells me this was a homemade effort by someone.

The simplest way to make it functional would be to install two braces made from something like 1/4" x 3/4" aluminum about 20" long. Each brace would be bolted to the fence rail and the nearest vertical tube forming a triangle. One would connect one of the rear vertical supports to the fence forward of it to prevent the top from pivoting toward the rear. The other would connect one fo the forward vertical tubes to the frame rail aft of it. That would prevent the top from pivoting toward the front. I'd put the braces on opposite sides. You'll need a helper to hold the top vertical while you position, drill and bolt the braces into place.
 
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ahicks

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First, Congrats on the new boat!
Those welds are where the bars going between the 2 main supports used to be. The owner has modified the original design (for some reason) where one of the lower bolts was removed to lower the top, and one upper. Now you'll need to use some braces to hold it up, maybe just one on each side.

Keep the mounting bolts tight while the boat is in use. Otherwise the mounting holes get all wallowed out quickly, creating a mess only a welder can clean up.

One other thing, just meant to plant an idea. If that I/O proves too difficult to get serviceable, for any reason, it may not be too difficult to remove it entirely and install a standard engine pod that's used for outboards. Those big tubes make this a pretty desirable project if they aren't too jacked up.
 
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It was kept in covered storage, some rats ate a couple of feet of wiring harness, that is repaired, engine ran when parked, has good compression but no spark, the condenser in the distributor is bad.....couldn’t beat the price
 

ahicks

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I don't know how old the boat is, but if that's one of the old GM 120/140 hp engines, they were well known for a bushing that liked to wear out at the top of the distributor shaft. This made the dwell jump all over the place - meaning consistent point gap impossible to maintain. Some were so bad you could pull the cap and grab the rotor and rattle it from side to side.
 

Scott Danforth

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Napa has distributor bushings for about $5
 

ahicks

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Right, not expensive or particularly hard to repair - after you figure out what the heck is going on. I couldn't believe that GM would use such a mickey mouse arrangement in a distrubutor. The 6 cylinder/165 hp has the same arrangement....
 
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