78 Century 4000 gut and rebuild

[2boatsinMI]

So my saga starts with wanting to fish the great lakes.After looking for a while, friend mentioned she had one for sale.1500 dollars later brought home my 78 Century. Fast forward several years many trips to both lakes Michigan and Huron and she is starting to show her age.After numerous repairs, including the notorious 470 cam sleeve, I noticed the deck starting to sag in front of the dog house. Further inspection revealed that a po had covered the original rotted deck with 3/4 pressure treated screwed down with drywall screws.More poking around showed nearly all wood structure was compost.

 

[2boatsinMI]

Here's how she looked before the gut. .
9

 

[2boatsinMI]

 

[2boatsinMI]

Engine coming out.

 

[jbcurt00]

You can post more then 1 pix per post

 

[2boatsinMI]

Engine out.

 

[2boatsinMI]

Thanks jb, still getting the hang of the whole upload process.

 

[jbcurt00]

You got it, just thought it might go quicker on your end w more then 1 pix per

 

[jbcurt00]

Nice work on the gantry

Just for reference, whats boat #2?

 

[2boatsinMI]

Second boat is an 88 Rinker 18' bowrider. This one was my father in laws boat he gave to me before he passed.

 

[2boatsinMI]

The gantry was built entirely from cull lumber from HD, total cost of materials was app. $20.00.

 

[2boatsinMI]

So after removing the interior and " deck repair", the full extent of the decay became apparent. Both sides of the aft deck, most bulkheads , motor mounts and nearly every other piece of wood in the boat was compromised. All of the foam in the aft end was saturated. After reading other threads on this forum I shouldn't have been surprised at by the shoddy construction of the structure, but this seemed worse than most. None of the wood was encpsulated, merely tabbed in and painted. Also what I guess were drains drilled through the stringers and bulkheads simply provided more points for water ingress.
Now the fun begins. Cue the sawzall, circular saw, crowbar, wrecking bar, angle grinder and nearly every other implement of destruction I have. This phase of the project took longer than it should have because I found out water soaked foam when frozen becomes hard as a rock and is impossible to remove.

 

[Vintage Rider]

As the proud owner of a (new to me) 1979 Century 4000, I am most interested in your project. I, to my complete suprise considering how little I bid, won mine sight unseen except for a few pictures through an EBay auction. After dragging it home in the middle of Detroit's first snowstorm of the season, I threw a tarp over the cockpit area (with provision for ventilation) planning to let it set until Spring. Since I am a complete novice regarding the care and feeding of boats, I decided to do some research about what I now owned and discovered IBoats. Now that I have a fair idea of what I'm likely to find I suspect that you're going to be my pathfinder on the specific trail that I'm probably going to be going down myself, so as I said, I am most interested in your project! Work fast! Take lots of pictures! Don't be shy about sharing costs and sources of supplys. I'll need all the information I can get and I'm sure others would like to know as well.

Having said all that, where in Michigan are you? I live in China Township (between Saint Clair and Marine City) about 20 miles south of Lake Huron and 2 miles west of the Saint Clair River. I doubt that I can be of much help to you yet other than being a local cheerleader but if we're close enough I might be able to lend a hand should you need one.

 

[kcassells]

On board, Cool boat. Keep pics coming.

 

[trevskidoo]

This thread is 3 years old.... Please check the dates before posting in them.

 

[kcassells]

Well might be old but it's active again by the originator. No soup for you!

 

[2boatsinMI]

Hey Rider, sorry I took so long to get back to you, been kinda busy.I'm up in Gaylord, pretty far from your neck of the woods.Nice to hear someone else has one of these old tubs. Which power plant does yours have?

 

[Vintage Rider]

Yes, Gaylord is a bit of the drive but I'll still be your bestest cheerleader.

My tub has the less than desirable (according to what I've read here) 250 HP 351 Ford Winsor attached to the even less desirable OMC Stringer outdrive. Apparently, the only good thing to be said for my powertrain is the propeller is new and it only has 268 total hours. Hopefully, it will last awhile longer. On the other hand, I once had an old Ford pick-up with a flathead '48 Merc engine. My biggest desire at the time was to replace it with a 312 OHV. Now, I wish I still had that truck with the flathead. Novelty is good too.

By the way, there's another 4000 listed on Detroit Cragslist. That makes three. Maybe we should start a club.

 

[jbcurt00]

Vintage rider, start a topic about your boat. Makes it a resource too, esp w pix

Hows the demo and complete tear down going 2boats?

 

[2boatsinMI]