Just got done going over my 15 foot 1967 Pere Marquette Cyclone. My dad bought it new, used it for a few years but then sat after he bought a 1976 Glastron GT-150 Bi-Centennial edition. He got it running again when so I could run it around 1992, and it was out just about every nice day from then until 2002. The boat had a number of engines on it over the years, and had a late sixties Mercury 65hp with power trim on it when I started running it, ending up with a 1976 Mercury 85hp.
From '02 until 2018 when I inherited it, the boat saw water exactly 3 times. Once it became mine, I knew it was unfit for use with a bowed transom and floors that caved and creaked. If I sold it I knew that most likely the engine would be yanked and the boat scrapped. So that was out. So if I couldn't use it and I couldn't bring myself to sell it, I guess I had to fix it.
Started working on it last fall during shutdown. Thought about keeping the old engine, maybe rebuilding it but at the end of the day an old two-smoke stinkin' away back there just wasn't very appealing anymore. So I sold the old motor and controls and started the teardown.
It came apart fairly easy, split the hull and deck and scraped all the wood out of it. Everything was thin and light enough that my son and I could handle it. I knew it wasn't in good shape, but it was so bad I'm honestly not sure how the motor didn't fall off. Once I got to the (rotted) transom wood, I was able to scoop it out like bark chips. I had the floor, stringers, transom replaced locally with marine plywood. Lack of experience & tools regarding a fiberglass project of this size plus an unheated garage made this an easy decision. Though it didn't get done until early this spring, it was back within a week or so of dropping it off. New carpet was installed too.
Over the winter I rewired the deck, upgraded the steering, added interior lighting and added a two-speaker stereo. Even with keeping the old Airguide speedometer, there are no incandescent lights anymore. All LED's, even the trailer.
By summer the new seats were in, the deck was reattached and a new Mercury 60hp was installed. And so far, I've used it exactly once for 30 minutes. (only 25% done with break-in).
I'll post a few pictures soon.
From '02 until 2018 when I inherited it, the boat saw water exactly 3 times. Once it became mine, I knew it was unfit for use with a bowed transom and floors that caved and creaked. If I sold it I knew that most likely the engine would be yanked and the boat scrapped. So that was out. So if I couldn't use it and I couldn't bring myself to sell it, I guess I had to fix it.
Started working on it last fall during shutdown. Thought about keeping the old engine, maybe rebuilding it but at the end of the day an old two-smoke stinkin' away back there just wasn't very appealing anymore. So I sold the old motor and controls and started the teardown.
It came apart fairly easy, split the hull and deck and scraped all the wood out of it. Everything was thin and light enough that my son and I could handle it. I knew it wasn't in good shape, but it was so bad I'm honestly not sure how the motor didn't fall off. Once I got to the (rotted) transom wood, I was able to scoop it out like bark chips. I had the floor, stringers, transom replaced locally with marine plywood. Lack of experience & tools regarding a fiberglass project of this size plus an unheated garage made this an easy decision. Though it didn't get done until early this spring, it was back within a week or so of dropping it off. New carpet was installed too.
Over the winter I rewired the deck, upgraded the steering, added interior lighting and added a two-speaker stereo. Even with keeping the old Airguide speedometer, there are no incandescent lights anymore. All LED's, even the trailer.
By summer the new seats were in, the deck was reattached and a new Mercury 60hp was installed. And so far, I've used it exactly once for 30 minutes. (only 25% done with break-in).
I'll post a few pictures soon.
