Re: 1975 Rebel Sprucing Up-Pic Heavy
Just about 3 months from the original post...I didn't do everything proper, but that's simply because the wife wants to take it completely apart and take the crown off and redo everything around April or May of next year. So I made the floor easy to get back out.
And tomorrow afternoon she'll go on her maiden voyage with me.
I got all the wood floor out and the stringers were still in good shape. I don't figure I'll have to replace them for a couple of years.
This being a 'see how much value I can squeeze out of a buck' build, I figure I would list some of the thriftyness.
I went with 1/2" untreated plywood for the floor. I did this simply because the way this floor is made I can change it again in no time. I bought 2 sheets of 1/2" for 21 bucks because one had a broken corner. Just for a little added protection, I painted both sides of the wood with a dark green rubberized paint. I'm not sure what rubberized means, but I figured the paint would help a little bit. I plan on changing it to 3/4" plywood in the next year or so, whenever I pull the crown and replace the transom and stringers. It doesn't need it yet, so I'm not worrying about it right now.
I kept the original pedestals for the seats. They're built pretty darn tough and nothing was wrong with them. The seats that are on them were found of Craigslist, new in box with swivels for 10 bucks each. Saved me about 60 bucks for those two.
A buddy from work had his wife on his butt about getting rid of his old boat since she bought him a newer basstracker. He asked me if I wanted it a few time for 500 bucks. I told him I didn't really need it. After a couple of weeks of him asking, he finally asked me if I'd just come pick it up before she beat him to death.
The boat wasn't in real good shape, but had a Force 50 on the back of it. After several offers and attempts I found a man that wanted the Force and would fix my Mercury that was on the boat.
If you saw the classified's, you saw both of these motors listed there.
This guy meant well, but admitted he got in over his head on the Mercury. So about 2 weeks were wasted that I couldn't work on the boat because it was at his house.
I picked the boat up and listed the Force for sale again.
A man that lives about 15 minutes away emailed me and we talked on the phone for a little while. He said he'd been tinkering on boats for several years and would check out the Mercury.
When we met him at my dad's house, where the Force was, my wife recognized him immediately. Evidently her and his daughter used to be best friends when they were kids and she used to stay the night at his house just about every weekend.
So good deal, I feel better already about letting him tinker on my boat.
He came by and checked both motors out on Friday. That night I found a Suzuki 65hp motor listed here in the classifieds. It was in Baird. I pm'd stickfishangler then and all day Saturday. We left the house Saturday afternoon around 5p and left his house around 11p and made it back home about 4:30a with the Suzuki in the trunk of an 06 Malibu.
I woke up around 10a Sunday morning and we took the boat, and new motor to Mark's, the fellow my wife's known forever.
About 2p, the suzuki was mounted and ready to go.
Whilst perusing his pasture, we ended up doing a little horsetrading. He ended up with the Force(which we swapped for his help on putting on the Suzuki and running all the wires and cables and whatnot) and the Mercury 850 just for extra parts. A friend of his has the same motor on his boat and parts are hard to find for it.
Out of the deal I got a little 7hp sears motor that I just thought was neat and a set of 16.5 aluminum wheels for my truck, but I'm probably going to scrap them because tires are scarce. And I got my boat dang near water ready.
We got back to the house Sunday afternoon and put the new seats on the pedestals, and crashed about 9p or so.
Woke up this morning to go to Waco TPWD and get my stupid little registration card because I misplaced it and put the suzuki motor in my name, but forgot the title for the suzuki, so it has to wait until later in the week.
The cushy seats that were on it were all rotten. I had contemplated rebuilding them with new wood. During this contemplation I ended up buying a high back seat at a garage sale for 3.00 with the new style pedestal on it and my bud had left a good seat on the donor boat his wife made him give up.
So I took both of those and some of the krylon plastic paint and primer and made them both a nifty royal blue. Reasons being it was cheap, now they're both the same color, and there are a few of us in our circle that had been wanting to know if that paint really worked and would hold up.
We haven't recarpeted the whole boat yet. Slowly but surely we'll get there. But we got carpet from home depot for 24 bucks in a blue that is real close to the original blue and put on the floor. I'll get it on the decks soon enough, but that's not something that I'm worried about right away.
My Sgt at work had been on my rear because I told him I was going to put his bbq pit together for him and hadn't been able to make time. I went to his house Thursday to put it together and we shot the bull for a while. I noticed by his patio that he had a set of four chrome 4 lug wheels off his miata. After haggling a bit, he gave me two of them(with brand new tires on them) under the condition that if they don't fit, bring them back. I haven't put them on yet, but I will in the morning. According to the tape measure, they should fit.
For the cliff notes
New floor
New motor
No more tilt/trim
A lot less wiring
New trolling motor
several nicks and cuts
pretty decent looking boat
Total investment thus far
500 for the boat
90 for the titles for the boat and merc
35 for the suzuki title(sometime this week)
20 for new seats
15 for plastic paint
24 for carpet
11 for a lost registration card
6 for an inline fuel filter
10 for 16ga wire for the lights and accessories
200+trade fodder worth about 150 for the Suzuki motor
So just about 1,000 bucks tied up in it and we'll be on the water tomorrow afternoon. I just have to put the lights back in the boat, run the fish finder cable, put the locks on the storage compartments, rebuild the trailer winch, put on the new wheels and tires, build a transom saver(the storebought ones won't work the way they built this trailer) and that's about it.
I did utilize a bit of jb marine weld on the hull in a couple of spots. Nothing to bad, one spot was a hairline stress crack in the paint/coating on the bottom and a couple of spots on the keel where the paint/coating had actually chipped off.
On the old holes where we took off the mercury, we filled those in with liquid nails heavy duty. We both figure it would be better than silicone. If it leaks, it's not too hard to sand and epoxy over the holes.
So, I'm tired of typing, that's been my vacation so far. Hopefully we don't sink tomorrow. I've got one 750gph bilge pump hooked up and working and a 500gph backup that will take about a minute to plumb in to the same circuit.
Thought ya'll would like an update
