1983 Wellcraft - American 180

[seikeinlemming]

Just picked up a 1983 Wellcraft American 180 today. I grew up on my grandfather's Wellcraft, so the similarities in design to his makes me flash back to 15 years ago when I was just getting into boats.

At 18' long, it features a 120 HP mercruiser engine with an alpha 1 outdrive. A lot of the outside has faded, but I did some test cleaning on it weeks before picking it up, and it looks like it will shine up nicely (whether it holds is another story). The motor/outdrive and all electrical parts are in working condition. I will be adding some toys like a GPS, but most of the rest will remain original.



The interior will pretty much be gutted as it needs a new floor (the stringers and transom are rock solid though!)



Due to the fact that my house is governed by a homeowner's association, all boats must be stored inside, so the Wellcraft shares half the garage with my 15' sailboat. It is a tight squeeze, but definitely worth it.



As with many new people on the forum, I have spent hours and hours reading and learning how to do different parts of this project. I will be posting pictures as things progress, and look forward to any insight that the iboats community has to offer!

 

[RIDEPATE]

Re: 1983 Wellcraft - American 180

Nice looking boat there sei!!!

 

[seikeinlemming]

Re: 1983 Wellcraft - American 180

Ok - I have all the new plywood cut for the deck (pics below), and have a quick question about float testing it. I know that the floor plays a vital role in the support structure of the boat. When I picked this boat up, I was told that it doesn't leak, but have not actually tested it for myself. That being said, is it bad on the hull if I launch it without the plywood being fastened to the stringers? The deck will physically be there, just not attached. I am looking to run it at a no-wake speed and most likely let it sit at a dock for the day to make sure that no leaking occurs.

Also, a second question. I am replacing all 16 rollers on the trailer that the boat sits on. I have access to a 10 ton crane, and intend to lift the hull with that, swap out the rollers, and drop the boat back on the trailer. Does anyone foresee any issues with this approach? I realize that I could launch the boat, swap out the rollers, and then retrieve it while accomplishing the same thing. However, some of the old rollers are cracked, and I can just see the boat sliding into one of those and gashing a hole in the hull.

Thanks for any insight the iboats community may have!

 

[ezmobee]

Re: 1983 Wellcraft - American 180

I see no problem with your plans. You could launch the boat with the trailer real deep to avoid any potential roller gouging issues.

 

[DuckHunterJon]

Re: 1983 Wellcraft - American 180

If you are used to rigging, go for the crane lift. If not, you'll be much better off launching the boat on the water and going off to fix the rollers. If you back in deep enough, the rollers won't roll against the hull. Personally, I'd think that would be safer than lifting the boat, but I'm not a rigger.

As for the sea trial with out the floor bolted down - just be careful with the statement "I am looking to run it at a no-wake speed". Just a quick story, I bought a Chrysler Conquest one time with a few issues. One of which was the hood latch cable was busted, a second was water pump was bad. I spend all day getting the hood open with out the release cable working, and to prevent it from locking on me, I removed the catch entirely while I was working on the water pump. After the waterpump was fixed, I figured I'd run it around the parking lot a bit just to make sure the pump was working. I closed the hood (remember, no latch) and proceeded to head around the parking lot half a dozen times. Driving around in circles gets boring, and for some reason I decided to head out on the road (how quickly one forgets). Funny thing is that hood stayed down until I was about 45 mph. Good news is the waterpump install was successful. Bad news was that the windshield, hood and hood hinges now needed to be replaced. :facepalm:

 

[seikeinlemming]

Re: 1983 Wellcraft - American 180

Thank you for your responses! It will actually be rigged by my father who uses this same crane to move locomotive parts, so there is about 10+ years of experience in rigging here. I do like the idea of backing the trailer in deep, but will probably stick with the lift for practice, since in 1 more month we will be unloading the hull of boat #4 in the same location. I'd rather drop a 30 year old boat than one that was just finished weeks prior. (hopefully we won't do any boat dropping at all!)

 

[seikeinlemming]

Re: 1983 Wellcraft - American 180

So it has been a while since I posted an update on this project. A lot has happened so here is an update!

As mentioned above, I ended up using the crane to get the boat off the trailer. Ultimately this was much better than floating the boat off because we needed some tools that would not have been able to be taken to a lake.


After the rollers were replaced I took it out on the lake to see how it performs. The boat ended up performing to my liking (with the exception of some slop in the steering. That will be a project for later once everything else is done.



One other thing that I noticed was oil leaking like crazy from around the belt on the engine. Over the winter I pulled the outdrive and engine to find that the timing cover was corroded out.(pic below) Replacing that should solve the oil leaking issue. I was so relieved to find such a simple problem. Was not looking forward to trying to troubleshoot where the oil was coming from.



Last weekend I built a new cover for the engine and epoxy/tabbed the entire deck. Fortunately my younger brother is a mechanical engineer and could do all the calculations to have all the angles correct while making the engine cover be strong.




I spent this weekend getting the carpet glued in and covering the other supports that were originally carpeted. This was fun as I got to see the boat go from "project" to "like new" in a matter of a few hours.




Purchased my first few orders from iboats this winter and was thrilled with the prices and how quickly they arrived. Looking forward to buying many more items from this website!

 

[Maclin]

Re: 1983 Wellcraft - American 180

I like your methodical approach and your do-it-right theme for sure! Thanks for the update, my feeling is you will really have something there when completed.

 

[Blasanch92]

How big was your dimension for the open bow area I'm about to do a simple fix for my open bow?

 

[southkogs]

This topic's been dormant for 8 years. We'll put it back to sleep.