72 Fiberform 18FT

[Madmax22]

So picked up my first boat, 1972 fiberform 18ft. It cost me about $70 to swap titles and register it and the trailer, other then that just getting it moved.

Previously my boating experience was going out on Dads company pantoon boat on Shasta Lake long time ago (80s).

Currently going to be living on the San Juans WA. I understand that a 18ft runabout is only going to be used for fair weather cruising around but gotta learn somewhere right. So thats the back story. I am looking at restoring this guy. Looked decent upon picking it up and the guy had it covered pretty well. That said the last time it was registered was 2006 and pretty sure thats the last it has scene the water. Pretty sure some stuff was done to it then.

What I know:

My first post about the sterndrive
https://forums.iboats.com/forum/eng...10764496-factory-flushing-connector-operation

Engine turns over, plugs look good, oil looks decent (no water, mildly used oil). Sterndrive gear oil looks new. Engine turns over however couldnt get it to start but didnt have time to do a tuneup or clean the carb or anything else.

Although the interior and deck looked decent I did find a soft spot and was able to poke thru the deck and found rotten wood and wet foam.

Transom sounds good on top 80% but bottom sounds dull.

Motor mount base has de-laminating fiberglass and assume wood underneath is starting to rot although feels pretty hard.

Electrical the bilge pump works when the actuator flips up, blower no go, lights no go, bilge pump on demand no go so assuming most of this is switches. Dash lights work. Engine turns over, sterndrive moves.

Stearing and throttle cables all seem to work nice and smooth and look good.

Paint the hull looks decent except few scrapes and what not up front, topside is ok except a bunch of tiny cracked blisters (probably from being under tarps for the last 12-14 years) so would need repainting all around.

 

[Madmax22]

So looking for input on restoration. Free boat so out nothing yet really. Prefer not to put it in a land fill if possible.

So say I go thru with redoing the stringers, transom, deck would in your guys's opinion repower with something else while I am redoing the transom any ways or fix what needs to be fixed and go with what Ive got? Would like to keep cost down obviously and dont have the funds to buy a new boat.

Or is this just a pipe dream and not bother or knock it out and have some summer fun eventually.

 

[archbuilder]

Welcome to Iboats Madmax. I love the boat very cool, hate to see the OMC in it. I usully run when I see one, but then I am a Mercury guy. I know zero about those drives, but I am sure you will find out what you need to know over on the stern drive thread. I think you can actually put a mercruser alpha drive on the gimble, I think someone makes a conversion kit, but I don't know much about that. Personally I would find a donor and put an apha drive in it with 4.3 if you can find one. That 4 banger is going to be pretty sluggish.

As for the hull, we can get you fixed up and on the water. I would focus on storting out the drive an power plant, once you have a plan on that get going on the hull. You can for sure do the demo and grinding while you are working through your drive options.

 

[Madmax22]

Thanks for the input Archbuilder, actually been looking thru your fuggly thread for the past hour. Great job on that guy and lots of excellent information/pics/videos.

Will definitely be buggin ya guys as I go thru with it but doing as much research as I can before hand to get a clue if you will.

See alot of random stuff up here in the PNW as far as engines and drives are concerned, will just have to focus on what to get and see if I can make it happen.

 

[sphelps]

Nice looking project !
Welcome aboard ! :welcome:

 

[matt167]

someone has done some work on it in the recent past but something made it sit.. You could test the engine/ outdrive to see if it's good. I bet it has a problem in the drive. If the drive is bad, you can rebuild the boat to use a Mercruiser setup. The stringer and transom arrangement will be different. I bet the 2.5/ 3.0L is still good so you could even buy a donor boat with a cracked block. The motor won't care it's connected to a Mercruiser.

 

[Madmax22]

Thanks Sphelps and Matt.

Matt you could very well be correct, that being said in conversations with the previous owner he gave the impression everything was working pretty well. Reason I got it the way I did was that a divorce was involved along with some other family difficulties and to top it off its on a island that is pretty much a part time living arrangement for many of the people on there. Most of the stuff on the property had been sitting for a long while. I think (just guessing) everything had been going good, kind of fixed up around 2006 then things went down hill (not just the boat) and finally well here I am lol.

I am going back out there in a week and will take things to do a quick tuneup and see if I can get it fired up and test everything out best I can.

Would be nice to maybe just change the outdrive and touch up the engine assuming it checks out ok. Heck even doing a rebuild on the engine wouldn't be too bad.

Looks like winter is going to be busy.

 

[VonFuchsen]

I'm curious about how this project went. At the same time this post was started, I bought a 72 Bowrider same GM110(153CID) with a Mercruiser pre-alpha. I got a good start to getting it going as the only major problem was that it wouldn't go into reverse. I figured out the shifting issue was at the point where the lower connects to the upper and the likely cause is a mismatched lower as there was a second damaged (Housing Only I think, haven't swapped to see yet) lower that came with it. But then I had my first son and got pulled away from working on it and hope to start working on it again in the spring. I still haven't had it on the water.