TOPIC: lake n sea project for a newbe

thought I responded to your boat and paint job earlier . WOW looks great i will give the rustoleum a try. i did just start to paint the inside hull and floor with the craigs list epoxy i bought cheep, just to clean it up the inside some. I'm not sure what to do with the floor non skid paint or something ?? And I have been sanding the top and fiber glassing a few small spots on the seats getting ready for the paint.

Sabre, i got the rustoleum for the white and blue and i am using it, pictures soon, MY QUESTION; how many coats did you use and how is it holding up?

I'm not going to go the the extra fine polishing you did, I want to get it in the water this summer lol

late june using Rustoleum for the white and blue starting to get in on. I like the way it is working so far and MUCH cheaper.

But now im thinking about conecting things back up. LOL, looked at a few wireing vid. Now look at how it was done when i bought it. Unbelievable. I am going to go with a prewired plug it harness I found, for a small boat basic wiring

You are way ahead of me. Now you have me thinking. I never even thought about a small pre-wire harness. Just figured I should look under a few dashboards and then just individually wire all components I chose to add. I don't want a mess, so maybe I need to rethink the best approach. Any nice wiring examples, techniques, or prewire harnesses or terminal blocks would be appreciated by anyone chiming in. Wasn't this far, so didn't even start thinking likely there needs to be a fuse block for safety. Your boat and paint job look nice!

I've never had a problem with the Rustoleum peeling off or chipping. I do add a hardening agent to it. Google "roll and tip painting" and there are numerous sites explaining the process.

As far as basic wiring goes I like to keep it as simple as possible. A safe way is to run a single red and a single black # 12 or 14 wire from your battery to a spot under the dash and connect it to a terminal block. Walmart or any auto store. Then run the black wires from your navigation lights/horn etc. to the black (ground) side of the terminal block. Then it's a simple matter of connecting the + side to the red wire on the block, of course with the switch in there. If it's just lights I don't bother fusing them, the bulb will blow before any wire melts.

i watched a few vids on wiring small boats worrisome lol so I found ezacdc.com makes things very simple and safe it looks like. charts instructions for basic setup. compared to how it was wired

Well I did not know about adding a hardening agent, I did not read it anywhere on the instructions ???? I guess i will do three coats, i read about roll and tip , but im just using a brush then a little sanding between coats. not going after a restoration award.

I went to ezacdc.com for wiring

more or less finished with the paint job. might try to polish up the chrome strip. need to get the wire harness and start to put on the hardware . lights, cleats etc. And i may splurge and look for a 50ish style steering wheel that plastic one just is not very nice i think

looks great! if you want to bring that trim up nicely pick up a tube of autosol works wonders with minimal effort

ok i will , thank you for the suggestion. extream heat and daughter getting married has side tracked my progress

small update , i'm seeing why some of these boats take a long time to get restored , lol, heat, wedding, did i mention a tree leaned on the house after a storm . Then after the wedding, the slush funds for payingfor boat stuff have dried up fpr a bit .
I put on some of the chrome accessories for now. still need the wiring harness and outboard looked at

trying to see if i can revive this post

Chuck from Cincinnati helped me search it out, thanks again

I did buy the wire harness from ezacdc , It may have been over kill on what I needed for the boat but I am learning I will do some pictures of it, if it ever stops raining around here, as I have to work out in the open

sadly all it has done this summer is rain and I do not have a enclosed or even roof cover for the boat. Add on a few family issues and it all equals me not doing anything yet with getting this boat finished BUT i'm not giving up.

Glad you are not giving up! Had 2 vehicle motors blow last year and took me a year to fix both and also repared a major deer hit. Sometimes life happens. So I just did little labor things on the boat when I could spare an hour or so. He has helped the boat get further along. Less to do in the future. Things have to turn around on your weather and time. Good luck.

Not that everone here is holding their breath about my project but .... OHHH it is going so slow to get this moving along . I put in a wiring harness which has way more features than i needed but..... and i dont have a picture of that, not everything is connected anyway.
I bought a used merc 35 hp ( old 70's or 80's ) "as is" I'm not even sure it would do anything and after watching some vids I did get it to crank. I had to get a gas line and connections that fit that motor I also bought a impeller, battery gas tank. It is very hard to find a Mechanic that works on motors, on the side at your house. SO, I broke down and took it to a local boat repair shop. It was the first time I had ever towed a boat on a trailer. I also bought a rear view camera on amazon to help with seeing the boat and trailer, as my truck has a tool camper in the bed. I had to get the boat on the trailer and the motor on the boat as he said thats the way they like to have then come in for work, just leave the boat and motor with them. I hope they don't take the rest of the summer to get to it.

My eyes aren’t the best, but zooming in on your motor, the lower decals look like maybe 1967 or possibly 66. I couldn’t remember what year had the 2 hashes on the bracket rail. Seems like I am seeing the chrome foil look. Didn’t have that in 65 or earlier and I believe red color was introduced in 1968. The real Merc experts can tell you for sure and a serial number will tell the story.

thanks for the info. I wish i knew how to check and test it myself. I loaded it onto the boat and towed the boat to a guy that works on outboard motors. I could not get a good answer on how long it would for him to look at it .

long in coming but a little update. found a 50.00 motor did not know if it even worked. 35hp mercury I found out it's a 1966. I posted some comments about it in the mercury forum
titled: outboard merc350 35hp mid 1960's need fuel lines
short vid after some tinkering ( new impeller) of the motor runing
it had control box and cables, cables need to be longer the control box needed a few parts found joe Poole at www.fergusonpoolemarine.com very very helpful and with lots of unique insights to repairs etc.
I'm still going to try and get this in the water at least once to see if it floats lol

making progress on the motor . I'm just very lucky too, it seems to run pretty good. I only paid $50.00 for motor cables and control box ( did not know if it would even run ) and needed a few parts which I got from Ferguson -Poole Inc.
1. i did have to buy longer control box cables and one of the leavers ( cleaned and lubed the box) got lots of good help form Joe Poole
2. the steering cable was too long so i reversed the side of the boat it ran along to the back and that took up the slack, also had to spend a lot of time freeing up the sliding arm at the end of the cable
3. the tube on the motor was too small for the sliding arm on the cable, so i found a tube attachment that screws onto the transom
4. had a guy help me take of the lower unit and replace the impeller
5. bought a battery
Now, the engine is cranking up and running and the lights and horn work
here is a you tube vid of the engine running

how do you guys think the engine sounds?????
Very close to getting in the water, i think

Joe, Where are you from? Your mention of the heat makes me think youre from lower Alabama where i am! Ive been working all year on my resto...when i get frustrated, a friend reminds me that its the journey/process to be appreciated. Hes right. Just keep making baby steps. It looks fantastic!
Hope to see you on the water soon...that beer/glass of wine, or whatever....is waiting.

richmond VA heat/ humidity,
yes the fun is in the journey............. and not letting the neighbors see me give up lol

FINALY a test run....... got it in......It Floats........ motor works ( did not leave us stranded for the short test run)...got it back on the trailer. A couple of pics and videos
I could not get the videos to post but here is a link to view them in dropbox.com

www.dropbox.com/sh/tn9vxwcrtfddbrd/AAA6vgqIEHDWnLbDClvYNnZLa?dl=0

Looking great. Worth all the effort. Good job.
Problem keeping my laptop keyboard dry....all the water kept draining out from the sideways pics

Excellent, she looks great!

Bob

thanks i liked working on it as much as getting it on the water

have to remember which way to hold the phone when doing a video lol

I'm going to have to fess up............................ as I barley can say I got the lake n sea in the water

I bought another boat already lmao

A wood one this time found it right here in Richmond, VA so I will start posting that, mostly for myself as a forced way of keeping a little record of what i did with it.
Your comments tips hints etc. welcomed.

Oh oh. You caught the disease! Forever to suffer with the "look what followed me home" syndrome. You got the virus that's carried by this site.

yes hopefully it stays at just stage 1 ( small runabouts) and not spread throughout my system lol