'76 Holiday i/o 18' Fishing Rebuild (pic heavy!)

[italianstal27]

We hit a snag in work ethic... May have burned ourselves out at the finish line so took the last 2 days off. Wyatt's truck broke down so we're not getting that engine today. Sad. But maybe a couple days from now.
Really what we have left is buying antennas, speakers, etc. And doing final assembly. The boat floor paint has cured SUPER well and we added just enough grit. It doesn't take much! Looks much better than the gunnels...

Wire from gregsmarine wire arrives tomorrow for batteries, etc. So doing some final wiring up to the fuse box!

-John

 

[italianstal27]

Our dash got stolen last night.

We're pretty upset. It's basically $400 worth of gauges switches and gear. They also stole the wiring harness from the engine.

It's not going to break us but man does that suck

 

[Watermann]

Oh man I would be seriously ticked off, I hate thieves with a passion :mad-new:

If you have a local FB buy, sell and trade page watch it and of course CL for the gauges to show up. Not sure if a pawn shop would take them but maybe.

 

[italianstal27]

Here's the updates from the weekend (not including set backs)


Applying epoxy to the bowmost piece of the doghouse. You can see we used rivets to hold it together & 5200 to seal the plywood. We're expecting this doghouse to take some beating. We'll see what happens!



Bowmost support added for the second deck. Cleats installed to screw deck into. We felt the deck was fairly well secured, but more screws towards the edges would have been helpful.



Dog house also got "built" and constructed! Glorious success! We tried sealing the gaps between plywood with 5200 this time. We'll see how well it paints...



Bad pic of the second deck, but will send a better one. We didn't want to walk on it while epoxy + 5200 was drying.

More pics to come

 

[italianstal27]

The engine turned out to be a bust. Water on cylinder 4 and hadn't been fired up in 15 years. Passed on it.

Need to find a 9 conductor wiring harness to rebuild dash. All instruments reordered and here by Friday.

$630 hit.

Are this point we're now at $5800 total including purchase price of boat. Still not too bad?

Not sure what everyone else spent on their restoration projects

 

[Watermann]

Yeah that's about right for my SS, right at 6k. You won't find anything but garbage on CL for that much.

9 pin harness
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MERCRUISER-...ash=item238a96b03b:g:E4MAAOSw~qNZgzsi&vxp=mtr

 

[italianstal27]

We're in the process of rebuilding the dash.... went fairly easy. Everything is cut, tomorrow we'll epoxy!

We'll also do the gas tank cover epoxy!

Friday, we'll prime with paint. Saturday we'll put on the 2 top coats.

 

[italianstal27]

Doing things a second time isn't as hard as the first time...




Heading tot he boat graveyard today to look for a 9 pin plug... Ours has 2 big holes and 7 smaller. Seen some that have 3

GAUGES ARRIVED!


But the tach had fallen out of it's packaging during shipping :'(

Took a pic in case i need to call Faria for a replacement... but here's hoping it works!

 

[italianstal27]

Boat graveyard had the plug!!!

But only 2' of cable. So we'll be soldering one cable to the other cable :'(

Not the end of the world, but a break would have been nice. A mercruiser 1973 has 2 large pins, and 7 smaller pins, for anyone wondering.

There are MANY varieties of connectors out there, so I would really recommend disconnecting your entire harness and bringing it with you.

Regardless, we have a potentially viable solution, assuming that the wire isn't COMPLETELY oxidized...

 

[italianstal27]

Hour of discussion on how we're going to attach this 1/2" plywood under the gunnel to support it in the front.



Aaaaand done for the day. Paint on the second deck is cured! The cubby under Wyatt has an LED strip, so when we turn on the white interior lights, hopefully, that space will be lit up so we can find things.

 

[italianstal27]

Stern deck painted. We're definitely feeling like we've got the HVLP dialed in. The texture on this is near perfect and there's no visible imperfections. Sucks we can't put a clear coat on it. It'll probably be scuffed within the first month of use lol.



New dash painted, dog house painted, seat boxes got a second coat of paint. Bottom of picture is the gas tank cover. We'll show y'all how we're going to attach that maybe in the next couple days. The 1x6 pieces are the bow and stern deck beams. Those got a final coat of paint today as well. Looking fairly smooth!



Bow deck painted as well! Wiring is going to start imminently The sand pattern is magnificent right?



Wyatt messing around with the HVLP. HARBOR FREIGHT YO! 0 problems! Just make sure you clean the gun THOROUGHLY. Drop the needle out, clean the inline filter. Also, make sure you strain the paint into the gun!!!!!

 

[kcassells]

Glass it up both sides. Make a good paste of pb, clamp or screw it in. Upside down requires pb to be like hmmm very thick. Once set up, remove all da stuff. Go back in w/pb and flush it smooth.
No biggy... just upside down ya see.
KC

 

[italianstal27]

Purchased a 140 hp Merc today. 1974! Still had the leaded gasoline sticker on it lol. Fuel smelled SO bad.

As much fun as it would be to strip it down... We definitely gotta keep working on the actual boat.

Half the wiring is done on the dash -> ground and lights. Next is power, signal, and accessory out put.

Maybe another 5-6 hours of soldering + hear shrink. My fingers are pretty stripped bare. BUT! do it once do it right eh!?

 

[italianstal27]

Also, the electric is different on a '74 and a '73. Make sure you check your manuals!!!!

 

[italianstal27]

More bad news...

The Gimbal housing bellows connection is HEAVILY corroded. Pitted through, completely white and flaking. I think there might be enough actual metal to attach the bellows to, but at this point, we're considering not throwing any money into this stern drive assembly (other than oil etc.), and finding an alpha 1 or alpha 1 gen 2 assembly to rebuild with an SEI outdrive.

Finding parts for the "MC-1" drives seems to be more difficult than the alpha 1 assemblies. Plus the trim sender is less sketch.

Thoughts? See how many years we can get out of this assembly and then move on?

-John

 

[Watermann]

That's the reasons why I went to the A1 assembly for my Chief and sold off all the MC stuff. You have to reconfigure the keyhole and 2 bolt holes is all to convert to A1.

 

[italianstal27]

Ah nice. If you don't mind me asking what was the final price for your conversion?

 

[Watermann]

I bought the entire rotten 1988 donor boat and a great bunk trailer for 2k. For a healthy 4.3L V6 and assembly, poly belly tank, helm, controls and everything else that comes along with a donor like 100's of $s in SS hardware it was a steal of a deal. Of course I replaced all the bellows, gimbal bearing and picked up a few MC specialty tools too.

 

[italianstal27]

Well the gauges didn't get here in time and I'm missing some 10 gauge spade connectors. Ugh. So waiting for those to arrive Thursday, but otherwise the dash is 90% wired up.

 

[italianstal27]

GAUGES ARRIVED! DASH GETS FINISHED TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!