our project

[piquet95971]

I own up I sent him the photos.
So now the secret is out as to what the finished boat will look like
Nice HUH!!
plenty of work to get to that stage. Plenty more to finish when we get some warm weather

[piquet95971]

So I haven't been round for a while
Have you missed me?
Probably not

Its been too cold to do much of anything at all let alone get out into a cold carport and work on a frigging boat. Over the last couple of weekends I have been doing other things making bookshelves for daughter and general crap like that. Not that it was really enthralling.
I spent some time on the end of a sander today gave the whole deck a final sand then while the dust settled cleaned out and reorganised the carport so that the bow of the boat was not hanging out in the weather. Hung a tarp at the end of the carport to keep a bit of warmth in and turned on the outdoor heater to take the chill off.
The boat is still sitting on my home made fitting out cradle which is a a nice working height for doing most things. After the dust settled I gave the deck a couple of 10% thinned coats of varnish. I applied it by a sponge roller, wet on wet. If I get home early from family stuff tomorrow I will see if its dry enough to apply an non thinned coat of varnish. The spec sheet says to apply 3 coats before any sanding is done. Seems to be a bit counter intuitive but that's what it says so I will go with the flow.
I have just had a look and it seems to be drying OK and I can see some gloss coming through already. Looks good so far.

Next will be doing the trailer which won't be too hard. I figure that it was OK for the trip home 3 years ago so it should be OK now. That doesn't mean that I won't check the bearings etc. But they should be OK as they were new hubs before the trip from Bundanoon. The runners need recarpeting and the trailer needs a coat of better paint than the redoxide colour that it is now. The springs and shackles are OK but the guards need to be reattached as they have broken off. I will have to make a bracket that holds the top onto the top flange of the trailer so that they don't flex about too much. Then register the trailer. I might have a problem with that as there is no chassis number on it anywhere. It would have been built before chassis numbers for trailers were invented. Vicroads will tell me what I have to do. No doubt!!!!!
any way thats where we are

Then I can put the boat back on the trailer and go and look at seeing if it is going to sink.

Cheers
Peter

[NPeth]

Hi Peter,
if the trailer has no number you can put one on it before you go to vicroads and they will accept it. If not they will issue a 20 digit Vin that you will need to stamp on. You are right about the cold- it sucks
Regards
Nick

[piquet95971]

Too damp and windy to do any varnishing so decided to start on the engine.

Well we may have some good luck with the engine.
Before I stripped it to do a full rebuild I have decided to have a look at the internals.
I was told when I bought the whole package that the engine was OK but there is always the chance that I was fibbed to along the way. As I was also told that the boat was a Lewis!! Well it aint.
I have decided that I will start it on the ground before I put it in the boat and if it sounds ok it a short run. Then I will go ahead and put it in the boat and decide what to do at a later date.
I have pulled the sump off after draining the oil out. Yuk, it looked more like Crude oil or FFO than lubricating oil. Quite surprised to find that this thing holds about 6 -6.5 litres of oil. It seems ok with no signs of water in there so head gaskets may also be OK. There are no shiny bits that I can see in the sump and no sludge of any real consequence.
Tomorrow I will get some spray degreaser and give it a really good clean out and go to the car wash to hit it with the hot water blaster.
They have the gear for catching all the grotty oil better than I do so at least that way it doesn't go down into the storm water.
We have to consider the environment after all.
I have also removed the oil filter and will tear the old one apart and have a look to see if there are any bearing bits in there. A look at the filter housing indicates that the bottom end seems OK too. A quick clean of the housing and a new filter will not go astray.

[piquet95971]

Inside the oil filter is Ok. Shorter spark plug socket did the trick for getting under the exhaust manifold. I have removed a couple of plugs and apart from being black they appear to be OK no sign of any oilyness so hopefully that means the rings could be OK.

I might change the inlet manifold gaskets as it would appear that the manifold may just be held inplace with Red Silastic. Same as a couple of other gaskets look like they are only sealed with red silastic as well. I may have to make a couple myself as they dont look like they are over the counter ones. Thats not hard.

One of the mottos in the Navy was " Just make a bastard".

Although I don't think that I would want to change the spark plugs too often once the engine is in the boat. I reckon that it would almost be an all day effort.
Sump cleaned up really nice and clean. I have to change the washer for the oil pickup and then I can look at bolting it back in place.

Tomorrow I will get the bolts for the engine mounts and can the look at how these are mounted. It looks like they are held down with some coach screws and then a through bolt from the side.
I know Cassels have the kits that are the same as my mounts so I will look at their pictures and then just get the bolts and screws that are in their kit
cheers
peter

[screwit]

Peter , In some conversions, The spark plugs are a pain but if you get some flanges [ extractor plates]made to space them away from the head 8mm or 10mm, it means that you need two gaskets but may give you the clearance you need to make plug changes not so hard.
Ross

[piquet95971]

Thanks Ross.

I am off on Thursday to Kincaid/Rolco to get a couple of things such as the prop shaft coupling and exhaust tips.

[screwit]

Peter have you tried Tawco marine in Barry rd Bayswater it is closer to you

[piquet95971]

I didn't know that they were there.
I only looked for rolco because the exhaust manifolds are Rolco.
I didn't know that Tawco were still in business.

I'll give them a call and see what they have available
Thank you
Peter

[piquet95971]

Just rang Tawco and they have what I need in stock. And you are right Bayswater is closer than Broadmeadows. Thankyou.

Now another question for all the Y-block people. My Y block has the canister type oil filter on the side of the block which uses a Ryco R2006P oil filter.
Is it worthwhile getting the adaptor for using a spin on type oil filter or even going for a remote oil filter with hoses that connect to the block and a filter mounting bracket bolted to a bulkhead some where. It would mean less chance of an oil spill in the bilge when doing an oil change as the filter is mounted vertically.