More challenge budget boating

I love cars and motorcycles and I swore I would never touch a boat, but with COVID quarantine happening and precious little else to do with my wife and three kids (11,12,14), I caved to the pressure and bought this old Starcraft for $1k. 
 

it ran decent on muffs and the floors felt solid which was the extent of my boat knowledge to check. I dragged it home and put it in the water where I quickly realized it needed some engine work. As soon as you throttled up it would die. I wrongly assumed it was a carb issue, so I pulled that off and rebuilt it (Rochester 2GC) 

After the carb rebuild, it ran better but still was really down on power. 
 

what is it they say about 90% of fuel issues being spark issues?

with some assistance from my 11 year old, we installed new points and condenser as well as plugs. 
 

Nice! I have a soft spot for old tri hulls. That spot is usually in the floor, lol. 

@ultraclyde, yes, we will get to the soft wood portion of the story soon....

after the ignition repairs, it ran like a champ! we had 4-5 fun water days with it after that, spending 3-6 hours at a time on the lake. the kids loved it, we skiied, wake boarded and the kids spent hours tubing behind it. All that abuse and i thought, hey, i should probably do an oil change in this thing....

for the uninitiated, most boats dont have a drain plug for the oil pan or if they do, you cant get a pan under it to drain it out. To change the oil, you are supposed to use a pump to suck the oil out the dipstick tube; well, i didnt have a suction pump so i got the bright idea to just pressurize the crank case thru the valve cover and push the oil out the dipstick tube. This worked fantastically to get the oil out, but the next time we took the boat out it was leaking oil like crazy from what looked like the front crank seal

as you can see in the above photo, i took the doghouse off to get better access to the front cover. i dont have a lot of photos of it, but i pulled the timing cover off and realized that it had rusted through like swiss cheese. When i pressurized the crank case to get the oil out, i blew out whatever bits of paint were keeping the oil in and caused a massive leak. In true GRM fashion, instead of getting a new timing cover, i welded up all the holes and coated the whole thing in Dirko to seal it up. Once it dried i put it back on the boat (with a new crank seal, im not that bad...) and no more leaks!

I didnt mention it in the beginning, but this saga started back in May. At this point, we are in a constant cycle of taking the boat out once or twice, then spending 2-3 days fixing what broke. BOAT = Bust Out Another Twenty is unfortunately true

The next thing to let go was the block. I had notice a small dribble of water coming from under the manifold for quite some time but it started getting worse. i pulled the manifold off and realized that the water jacket had cracked because the block hadnt been drained for the winter. Someone before me had lazily slathered JB weld over the crack but hadnt drilled the ends to make it stop propagating. I cleaned it up really good, drilled the ends and applied an epoxy called Marine Tex over the crack which is supposed to be the jam. Once it was cured i buttoned everything up and we hit the water again

we got some time in on the pump track as well

At this point, we had mostly just taken our family of 5 out on the boat. One of our friends brought his three boys so with my 2 boys we had 7 large people on the boat. While we were on the lake pulling 2 kids on the tube, something started skipping out of gear in the outdrive. I knew it had some kind of dog clutch and that was my guess. By the end of the day it was so bad that we barely limped back to the dock. I tore down the outdrive and confirmed my fear....

this boat had an OMC 3.0 with a cobra outdrive. OMC ceased to exist many years ago so you cant order parts from a normal boat supply place. Luckily, Ebay had a NOS drive clutch for $40!

While the part is cheap, this is literally at the very end of the darkest hole in the outdrive and you have to tear the whole thing down to get here as evidenced by my trail of destruction across the garage...

at some point here i also made an oil fill cap, when i got the boat it had two very poorly fitting breathers in the valve cover which were letting alot of oil blast out all over the place

i also got a grommet and a PCV valve to route the other breather at the spark arrestor which is how it would have come from the factory

more to come....

Old boats, yikes. I've owned six or seven, all of them crap. The effort and expense to fun ratio was always a challenge in my case.

Still, great choice for fun with the family. Enjoy!

You have three kids (11,12,14) and have extra time on your hands?

LOL

I was worried when you said you welded up the timing cover that we wouldn't see any JB weld (or alternatives) in this thread but you came through on the cracked block, truly GRM style (and exactly what I would have done!).

Cool boat

Marine Tech is great.

Datsun310Guy said:

You have three kids (11,12,14) and have extra time on your hands?

LOL

yes i have a bit of spare time, usually at 7am after my wife leaves for work but before the kids get up...

Ok, where were we? oh yeah, bodge repairs....

So, one of our runs on the boat pulling the tube the kids "submarined" it pretty hard, hard enough that it yanked the stern around. when we got the boat back on the trailer, i realized that one of the stern eyes looked a bit loose... the load from the tube being under the water tried to yank that eye right out of the back of the boat. I pulled the covers at the transom and lo and behold, the transom was getting pretty soft and the nuts/washers on the stern eyes had been pulled right up to the back layer of fiberglass on the hull. I cut out some big chunks of 1/4" plate to spread the load and sandwiched the somewhat soft transom with those. At the same time, we added a ski tow attachment so you would have a higher point to ski or wakeboard from

we took the boat out a few more times without too much drama but after one incident involving date night on the water and us drifting thru the marina while i shirtlessly tried to reattach the choke linkage with a scavenged key ring and my wife said "lets get a nicer boat"

on the way home from the unfortunate date, luckily it was all good after the choke repair

enter boat number two, a 1995 Chaparral 180SLC with a Mercruiser 3.0. If i learned anything from the Starcraft, it was that i dont want any more OMC (or volvo penta for that matter) drivelines in my boats. 

the Chaparral (aka Chappy) came in about 100 pieces but the price was right ($1600). The story is that the motor let go and the guy took it to a shop that was supposed to pull it from the boat and rebuild it. 18 months later, the longblock was rebuilt but it wasnt in the boat and they had managed to lose half the required parts (manifold, riser, carb, starter etc). the PO was losing his shorts on it but he just wanted it gone so i got a deal.

Pick up day:

Now, I knew this was going to be equivalent to a jigsaw puzzle with all white pieces because i didnt know what it was supposed to look like assembled so i tried to take inventory at the guys house before we struck a deal. Long block - check, manifold - check, PS pump - check, starter - check, alternator - check and the list goes on.

however, when i started putting things back together some things became apparent. For instance, the manifold fit the head just fine but it didnt line up with the alternator support bracket and the cooling hoses were in the wrong place. I tried in vain for a few days to figure out what it was from but i ended up just buying another manifold off ebay. Same with the starter, it looked right but the bolts didnt line up. Also figured out i was missing the engine coupler that connects to the outdrive. I had told the wife that i would need to spend another $1k on parts to get it back in the boat and that ended up being spot on. After many hours of puzzle work and ebay searching i had the motor ready to go back in the boat. I recruited a buddy to help me and we swung it over the stern with an engine hoist and lined it up with the outdrive input shaft (this will come back to haunt me later)

empty engine bay

boxes of parts...

so, engine is back in, ive connected everything up and i head to the ramp for the maiden voyage. 

it starts at the first hit of the key! i was very paranoid about cam break in so i quickly pushed off from the trailer and started doing laps around the little inlet near the ramp to keep the revs constantly shifting and above 1500rpm. 

This thing is great! The power steering was an amazing upgrade over the starcraft, it turns really sharp and handles the chop really well. 

after a glorious 20 minutes, i start smelling burning rubber and i see some smoke. I turn to head toward the ramp and i suddenly lose all forward propulsion. Engine is still running great, just not turning the prop. I look back behind the motor and the engine coupler has separated itself from reality, the engine is turning but the outdrive is not....

great, what now? im 400 yards from the dock and its 730AM so no one is on the water and of course i forgot my paddle...i ended up unscrewing the lid from the integrated cooler and laying over the bow to paddle back to the dock. it took me a solid hour and my hands were pretty blistered. when the water got down to 5', i jumped out and walked on the bottom pulling the boat. 

time for the motor to come back out...

back at Metty HQ, i quickly unhooked everything i had just done and snatched that bad boy out. Now, i will say that pulling this motor is by far the easiest engine i have ever done. all the wiring is on one single large connector and there is no fuel return line so its all pretty simple. 

pulling the motor out 

wrecked engine coupler

as you can see in my last post, something was off with the engine alignment. after i did some reading, i realized that putting the motor in without pulling the outdrive is a recipe for disaster because you cant check the alignment. the engine coupler that lasted 20 minutes was a $180 learning experience.

the alignment bar is only about $50 but i thought hey, i have a lathe, how about i use a $10 piece of 1.5" aluminum bar since my time is free right?

I also made a mount for the power steering cooler since in the first iteration i just had it zip tied to the back of the motor. this is a piece of 20ga stainless that i put a couple of bends in with my press brake

ok, so new coupler is on, PS cooler attached, outdrive is off and i get the motor set back in. With my shiny new alignment bar i see how far off the engine alignment is and i shamefully adjust it until its correct. At this point i noticed the gimbal bearing isnt feeling super great but i just pump the zerk full of grease and hope for the best (Mistake!)

i head out for another test drive and of course that gimbal bearing sounds AWFUL. Back to the house, pull the outdrive back off (mercruiser Alpha is wayyyyy easier than the OMC cobra from boat #1). Install a new gimbal bearing and stick it back together and head out for a sunset cruise. 

I should mention that during this time, my kids were in florida with their grandma for 2 weeks so i was getting major work done. My parents came in town and the 4 of us took the boat out for a day of cruising.

we had a great day, so when we got home my wife said "time to sell George" - George was the starcraft if i didnt mention it. I put it up for $3k on CL and i was absolutely innundated with emails about it. I guess there are not a ton of lake ready boats for $3k. Two mid twenties guys that live up the road from me in a waterfront apartment bought it. Neither of them had anything to tow it with but their apartment comes with a dock so their plan was to have a friend tow it to the ramp and they would just keep it in the water. I told them repeatedly that they needed to be ready to do work on the boat, anything that old and at that price point is GOING to break and keeping it in the water 24/7 doesnt help either. 

bye bye george

New boat is nice looking, did I miss what engine's in it?

I haven't seen a painted trailer in a long time. They pretty much dissolve pretty quickly here, but they're fine in fresh water. Since the block had cracked in the StarCraft, I figured you were somewhere with seasons.

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

New boat is nice looking, did I miss what engine's in it?

I haven't seen a painted trailer in a long time. They pretty much dissolve pretty quickly here, but they're fine in fresh water. Since the block had cracked in the StarCraft, I figured you were somewhere with seasons.

 

yes, the painted trailer under the Chaparral is corroding away even though its always been in fresh water. Oh well.

Yeah, the Chap has a Mercruiser 3.0LX in it. 

So thursday this past week, my kids return from FL and of course the first thing they want to do is go out on the new/old boat. Since it was in pieces when they left, this is the first time they have seen it in the water. We headed out after work thursday and had a great evening of swimming a skiing. a big storm started blowing in so we made a run for the boat ramp.

we got within 1/2 mile of the ramp and all the sudden it just lost power hard, sounded like it was down a cylinder or two. it was still running and the lightning was coming so we just chugged along at 5mph until we got back to the dock. 

i did a compression test when we got back, #1 - 160psi, #2 - 0psi, #3 - 0psi, #4 -160psi. I was fearing the worst since i had advanced the timing a bit by ear and i feared that i might have melted down a couple of pistons. I put a borescope down the plug holes and the pistons looked fine so i guessed maybe the head gasket had let go between 2-3. 

My son and i pulled the head and yes, the head gasket had let go in spectacular fashion. the center two head bolts were not super tight and the block didnt look very clean which explains why it blew its guts out

so thats where we are at now, the head is off awaiting a new gasket. 

what will blow up next?!?!

Pistons look good, hopefully that's all for a while. 

One of the reasons I like outboards is cause if one is messed up I can just swap it for another that's in the bed of the truck.

You guys are getting more enjoyment out of your boat than I am mine at this point in time!

Another North Carolinian! Nice work on the boat, it looks like even with all the work you've been doing you've managed to get your boats out way more than I have this year.

Mr_Asa said:

One of the reasons I like outboards is cause if one is messed up I can just swap it for another that's in the bed of the truck.

You guys are getting more enjoyment out of your boat than I am mine at this point in time!

You can easily swap an outboard but they are a pain in the butt to work on. I/O setups like this, especially with an I4 are very easy to access