my new old 1988 ss20v

[ab59]

Well I been stuck in neutral for a couple of days as we have had our first storm of the season for the last few days . Had two nice days but I had to cut and split wood for the house so no work on the boat. I stuck the gimbal housing through the transom and could not get the rope gasket to stay in the groove the other day and I really screwed up ! I had been using some 1/2" bolts to hold a board over the outdrive hole and got the bright idea to use the nuts from those bolts to draw the housing in to about a half an inch from the stern so I could poke the gasket into the groove and it would hold itself in place . I had the wife in the boat and handed her the nuts which would not go on freely. When I told her I would climb in and see what the problem was she simply said that there was " goop " on the threads and it was ok and began threading the nuts onto the studs with a socket and wrench so I did not check. BIG MISTAKE . We drew the gimbal housing to the gap that I wanted and then one of the nuts acted like it was stripped out and of course it was the last one she tightened . I reached inside the boat and was able to just pull the nut off the stud and then it dawned on me. You probably guessed , the nuts were course threads and the studs are fine threads , damn I can be a jackass sometimes. I should have checked the nuts and studs at the first sigh of trouble but took the word of someone who , although they were doing their best to help , really did not know about such things and I should have NEVER continued on until I inspected the problem myself .
I have been able to screw the original nuts back onto the studs with no problems and I am hoping that I will not be buying another gimbal housing because of this mistake .
I tell you guys this only so you don't do something similar on your projects .

 

[bchaney]

That stinks man. It rarely goes according to plan, does it?

 

[ab59]

boy bchaney you can sure say that again. this one has been a real tester strung out over what is now going on a year and a half for something that should have only taken 3 months. Now it's more of a challenge of finishing the job that I started , but I will finish it soon I hope. :joyous:

 

[bchaney]

You're doing good, keep making progress and it'll all get done eventually. I have a lot of projects going on where I feel similar to you. It's hard to realistically estimate how long things will take because you can't predict all the issues that will come up. Just be persistent and try not to stress out about it. Now if I could only take my own advice...

 

[ab59]

Waterman if you see this steer me to your rivet sticky or just tell me if there is a good misc. rivet kit that you know of with the most common solid and blind rivets for boats. I need to put the stern cover back on and it had some solid rivets holding it on and don't really know what size the need to be so a kit with various kinds and sizes should cover me , if anyone sells a good one.

 

[Decker83]

Watermann has a sticky note at the top of this forum. rivets, rivets, and more rivets.

 

[Watermann]

I don't know of any rivet kits, transom covers on IO boats are not structural in the sense that they would need solids, I used blinds on my Chief, 3/16ths.

 

[ab59]

ok guys , had a look through the rivets and more rivets and at least identified the size rivets that i will order. I have and have access to buying pop or blind rivets locally but for the transom cover area i am going to put back what i took out , being the solid rivets. They seem to sit much shorter beneath the joining area and I wonder if the pop rivets would not be too long and interfere with the rub strip upon re installation . The solid rivets just barley stuck out from the bottom of the mating surface and allowed the easy installation of the strips of rub rail .
I will head to bay and see what I can find.

thanks--Bruce

 

[Watermann]

I'm thinking that SC had some special type of bucking bar to be able to apply enough pressure to the bucktail in that skinny groove. Be interested in seeing how you go about bucking the solids inside the rubrail channel.

 

[ab59]

I hope to be able to make something that would fit in the groove , if they did it then I should be able to do it , I hope .
I have a plan to cut and or grind my hammer bit to fit the angle. Since they don't need to be water tight and perfect I should be able to figure out something . Maybe . Gonna give it a try anyway. Can always go back to a pop rivet if it don't work.
took a while to respond , my mouse cratered , wonder if it's because i keep banging them on the top of my desk .

 

[ab59]

Finally got the fine thread nuts for the transom plate in the mail and the plate and gimbal housing are torqued down . I have torqued them several times in the last two days and each time the wood had compressed and I had to tighten them a little more . Will do it again until it stays torqued or until I get the engine back in. Never would have thought that I could not find fine thread stainless steel nuts within 60 miles of where I live but that's podunkville for ya i guess. It's all good now though.
We have another storm rolling in on us so may be delayed again but if i can get the outdrive installed and test my transom replacement this week i will be happy.
I've got the walls torn out of the front bathroom to convert a tub only to tub and shower so guess I can work on that during the storm . If i can get that done maybe i can focus on the boat and finish the mechanicals on her after the storm passes.

 

[ab59]

Hot dang i actually got a little work done today ! Gimbal bearing is in , the bellows are attached to the gimbal housing and the pivot is hung , waiting to be torqued up. Had to give it up as a little 10 mph wind along with dropping temps ran me back inside. Funny , 15 years ago I would have just put a thicker coat on and got er dun but now i don't seem to be that driven , gettin layzy I guess.
Tomorrow ( if it doesn't start raining again ) i hope to get the bellows , pivot and outdrive back together and if I'm real lucky i can take her to the ramp down the street and test my new transom job for leaks . That is if I don't get sidetracked looking for another state to move to , just can't stay here anymore but then again I do digress .
Here's hope'n .

 

[Watermann]

Keep plugging away and don't forget any steps between :lol:

 

[ab59]

It may be politically incorrect ( like me ) but MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL !!!!!

 

[Decker83]

Merry Christmas to you and your family..

 

[ab59]

Hope everyone had good holidays and a happy new year !
I have the outdrive installed in the boat and installed the Y pipe . I took some 100 mile an hour tape and taped up the open ends on the Y pipe hoping that it will stop any siphoning of water into the boat when I dunk it in the water .
My current chore is figuring out how to use my trim to raise the outdrive without an engine in the boat .I plugged the pump back into the harness then ran the heavy red wire that comes out of the trim and tilt solenoids to the positive on my battery and ran the ground from the battery to a bolt coming through the transom . I thought that this should work but there is no power to the pump. Have I got the wiring wrong ?
Any ideas ?

 

[ab59]

After perusing what seems like a million posts I came across a post that included jumping the UP DOWN solenoids . I got the pump to kick in and raised the outdrive enough to get to the ramp and put her in the water to test the new transom work but I still have not identified the problem. Without input , and discounting any information that may change my mind , the plan is to test the transom if no leaks bring er home and install the engine and all the harness etc.
I'm hoping that since I had no problems with the trim before that after re assembly and the wiring being installed in it's entirety that there will not be any further problems. Will see.

 

[Watermann]

On man, here's hoping for no leaks, I can't see why there would be any, your work looks solid to me. :thumb:

 

[ab59]

Don't know what's going on around here but most of my saved activity posts have been deleted and I could not even my own post !?
I got the boat down to the ramp this morning and dunked her in the water. The river is low right now and I had to back so far out that I would have had to go wading up to my knees to get in the boat so I backed her in and just sat in the truck for about 10 min then pulled out to check for water in the bilge.
Found several gallons of water in the bilge so I yanked the drain plug and ran home for my tall rubber boots and then back to the ramp I went . This time I waded out and got in the boat . I had observed that both the lower shift cable tube and the oil cooler line were laying in the bilge when I had first tested the transom so I tied them up high and after a second test the bilge was dry . Wheeeeewwwwweee , thought I really screwed up there for a few minutes but it's all good now . don't think that i'll get the engine landed today but may still give it a try . Need to find my brother and law to stab the engine on the mount bolts for me as I lower it into place . Going to try and stab the exhaust rubbers at the same time , should be ok we managed to do it the first time.
Will be a good feeling to get this job done , never had so many problems putting something back together again as this project but at least it's done right .

 

[ab59]

S l o w progress but we got the engine in the boat ! Tried to get it lined up with the gimbal but could not seem to make them line up , somehow no matter what I did would not work . Up did no good , down did no good . The first time I did this I got it lined up with just a little adjustment and a day of letting the new wood settle in the front mounts. This time no new wood and can't get it close enough to get the alignment tool started in the splines .
Will start again tomorrow if I have time but a storm is coming and I need to get a cord of wood split so will see I guess.