Hello all, I guess I'm part of the Tri-Hull world again. I have a MFG 14ft 1970 Gypsy with a "Force50" that someone has put on there. Price was right for it so i am not going to complain. It came with a tilt trailer so it was worth the bother. It will be run for a while till I get to wanting to do a restore. The floor was restored but they did a bad job, so the deck is just mounted to stringers without sides. Lots of water run off to the sides of this deck for sure. I have had tri hulls before so this one will be much easier than the last 16ft one I had that got destroyed in a tropical storm in the Keys.
Here are some photos. I would like if some on can identify the clasp feature to the tilt trailer, it is not correct, there is a chain locked into the upper section like the trigger mechanism is missing that pulls the slide bar in and out. I will get more photos for that part also.
"UPDATE SEPT22,2014" Well she is running and on the water, 44 year old boat is purring like she was new. There's lots more to do but a simple water pump change and couple other adjustments and she was ready to go. I'll figure out the photo thing here soon.
"Update" October 29, 2014. Finally got into my photobucket account with an outdated information and added these photos. I will probably do some really short videos and photos of basic things I have found during the maintenance part of this boat. We won't be doing a body restore for a while, we are still having fun running it just as it was.
These photos are when we bought the boat, untouched and not repairs done on the vessel.
Starboard side, notice they had undercoat for being in the water, but someone did a poor job of starting to restore the gelcoat, it will need to be completely sanded down and resprayed again. We will keep this one orange, just because its our UF Gators boat, orange and blue. We installed a blue top on it with blue dock ropes, ect.
Bow of the boat, the trailer was pretty nice but they had chained up the tilt on it so it was not usable. This weekend I replaced the safety chain, fixed the release clip and pin/spring assembly and almost broke the lighting wiring since it was so tight to the trailer. It is operational now with a 3/16 steel cable to the front of the trailer to release the tilt. Cost 19 dollars in parts and some time with bolt cutters and wrenches. The front bunker shoes had to go, I will add bunker shoes to the till section of the trailer instead of the fixed section, they almost put a hole in the hull when it came back down.
Stern of the 14 footer. Major corrosion on the outboard steering knuckle area, missing tilt locks, safety clips ect. They used a 1/2 breakbar for the tilt lock without strapping it down. Dead battery, and lots of mix oil drip, still have not fixed that yet, going to put a recovery pan in so that next time it starts it just absorbs the excess fuel instead of it dripping on the ground. Motor starts on the first try, so that's a good thing for everyone bashing FORCE, if your a mechanic they run great, if you can't fix the O/B stay away, it does take basic mechanical ability to not get into trouble, but its just like any other small engine a little TLC always keeps them going. They are the easiest motor to work on, but they are the economy of the class. I have lots of parts.
Port side, nothing much to add here, except there was a fast leaking tire on the trailer and so we used it one day, it leaked down that night. So we replaced the tires and rims also with adding spare. Front tire of the jack needs to be replaced, its a garbage plastic tire that shaved when I was on asphalt.
You can see the 1/2 breakbar in the photo, its the round thing in the transom jack area, there was a lot of corrosion on this area, with no safety clips, or even a tilt up clip. We recovered another motor that has some of the hardware so we are going to attempt to pull out some broken bolts and restore the hardware. A local OB repair shop had a manual tilt handle for us to use on the boat while in the water, got it for 10 dollars, great deal. Pitot tube was broken off, replaced that with normal vacuum line worked just fine. Have a new replacement for the spedo, but like I said we are going to keep this completely original and the spedo will stay that way also.
Here are my alive and well photos of the boat on the Suwannee River.
Stopped at Dowling Park and had ice cream and pie after the maiden run on the wild river. By the way original steel fuel tank with a vent release on the fuel cap, remember to unscrew the vent while putting down the river or you will be dead in the water once the vacuum sets in the fuel line GRIN found this out the hard way, forgot all about the old vent screw on those.
Has its new blue top installed, had a problem with the angled hull and the mounts, bought universals also and they did not work, so I made a angled bracket to mount the hardware.
South on the Suwannee River.
Haven't put my stickers on yet Red but I will.
This is a very interesting RR bridge.
Got to have the flag,
Here is the FORCE in action. At full throttle we do about 24 with a current of 4-7 up the river.
Thanks for checking us out, we will update when we do work on the vessel. Happy I-Boating.
Here's a video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=mmKcI1iEJkA
What, You're not buyin that!!! Well ok... Here ya go...
