New '93 For the M3Fan family

The medallion is almost like a little hat for the knob.

OK, so a buddy of mine re-did his pinstriping on his '91 last year, said removal was horrible. Because of that I got THIS baby, can't wait to "unleash the Krakken" on the pinstripes:



Thank goodness for google on that one, just hoping it works as good as they say.

Also, took a moment to get the dash plaque updated. Nice to pretend that we're actually the rich people who the boat was performance engineered for. Pretty sure when they thought of the PEF plaque they weren't thinking "Performance engineered for the non-wealthy, zero generational wealth, 1st world family who bought this boat 22 years later". That would be too long to fit on the plaque anyway I suppose:

Yeah what Steve said. If you do end up using the eraser wheel, be careful- it can burn the gel if you're too aggressive.

So this is cool. The boat came with 3 brochures- the full 1993 brochure, the 1993 short brochure, and the 1993 "Pro Boss" brochure for the engine.

What I thought was really neat is that they circled options they wanted with the boat. Really cool to imagine someone back in 1993 circling options for actually ordering the boat and still having that with the boat itself.

SHAKEDOWN CRUISE was today, Easter Sunday. For the listeners at home, that means that I did buy the boat with no test drive. Gotta strike while the iron is hot sometimes.

The boat is terrific. Instant start (barely 1 revolution before it fired), very smooth running. Very powerful and quick with the Pro-Boss and the ACME 654 which is on there now. I figure that prop, being a 15 vs. a 15.5 dia like a 422 probably gives it some pep. In that case I may switch it with my 00's 422 to give the 00 some more acceleration in our very tight course setup. This boat will be doing open water duty and won't need any extra pep from a smaller prop.

The NWZ hull is so terrific, and paired with the Pro Boss powerplant it's just a very nimble and terrific platform. Keep in mind I had the 1990 for 3 years but that was a LONG time ago so I've long forgotten how these drive. Drives just like a modern boat. CC had this thing nailed back then, it must have been a huge deal when NWZ came out.

I'm getting a full 14V at the dash, unheard of (seemingly) on these boats. I had proactively swapped out the Ignition breaker right when I got it because the old one was sticky anyway. I know that helped considerably on the old '90.

I had messed with the dip switches a bit on the VDO tach and it's reading a bit better, about 1000 RPM low now. Much better.

One Airguide was leaking water. I've disassembled it and sure enough it's a diaphragm seam very obviously cracked. Seems like it would be very straightforward to either solder the seam closed.

This trailer loads and unloads so poorly it's nearly a deal breaker and un-useable on a steep ramp. The ramp I used is fairly steep and the nose of the boat hit both the rubber v-bumper and the V-pads on the way down, hard. The guide poles have no floating pads on them so submerged they are only about 8" out of the water which accounts for the scratched up stickers. Loading this trailer on a steep ramp- forget about it. it was a mess and it's still not all the way loaded. Took a lot of winching and phased up and down the ramp action to try to get it on, terrible.

8122pbrainard wrote: Joel, It's great news you are enjoying the boat. Sorry the trailer is such a PITA. Where did you put the boat in? Looks like the cal-sag channel!

My ski club, it's a tiny pond just big enough for the course and a jump.

I'm also currently stripping the varnish off the platform. The PO sealed it, figuring it looked great. Unfortunately I'm familiar with the varnish removal process- my MC has it and by a the 00 was inadvertently sealed do-gooder friend a while back.

Looks really sharp on the water!

What do you plan to change on the trailer? Get rid of the angled winch arm and put vertical crash pads?

when I had my '93 Joel it was on a Ramlin trailer and it loaded terrible too...

I have not talked to The Lake (Chuck Arney) for quite awhile Pete. But he went thru some 'life changing' stuff awhile back.


john

John, curious to hear more about your problems with the Ramlin? Seems like they have the closest design to what CC produced for years and load so well.

Joel, good thing you won't be trailering that boat often! Steep ramps and tall bunks don't mix well.

Correct craft was still in the trailer business in '93... Ram-Lin wasn't born until 95 or so, if memory serves. There is literally no difference in the product either way, the trailers were the same. Only minor tweaks between our '92 cc and '03 ramlin. I've always loved the way they load, we've encountered ramps of varying steepness.

Joel, I could probably accept that homely looking trailer if it loaded nice and wasn't used often... It sure doesn't have much going for it though. Such a cherry boat deserves better. Maybe keep an eye out for another cc/ramlin on the cheap and sell that thing to a Malibu owner? Ha.

Lol, good plan. Longer PVC over those guides for the short term to protect the decals!

I'm a little late to the party, Joel, but great looking boat!

storm34 wrote: John, curious to hear more about your problems with the Ramlin?

Maybe John had other issues but The Ramlin under the 93' Paragon was a PITA, and Chuck who bought it felt the same way as he ended up dumping the Ramlin and getting a brand new Boatmate a couple years ago.

Unless you leave the tops of the fenders out of the water and powerload the hull would often end up on top of the fenders because it was such a tight fit between them.

When Timmy jumps in and says "that's how you load it, blah, blah, blah" good luck when you need to float on because powerloading is illegal as it should be and when you have a colored hull that gets and shows all the scratches created from power loading.

Would imagine Chris that your colored hull will show scratches if you powerload, the Blue 206 always gets floated on for that reason.

Completed what has been one of my favorite boat repairs to date, and that is taking this crusty old broken Airguide and refurbishing it to like-new operational status. This Airguide had been leaking for some time, as evidenced by corroded internals and a stained faceplate. It blows my mind that a PO would not consider this a more urgent repair. Hell, after 1 single ride in the boat I had to fix it immediately.

I was able to grab a basic silver solder coil (from researching old posts here) and flux right from Ace Hardware. I scraped the surface of the bellows seam clean with a razor, very gently, then brushed the flux on liberally. Then I used my tiny 23W soldering iron to heat the seam, about 1/8" at a time, slowly applying the solder to the joint and iron, allowing it to fill the gap, then inching the iron down the seam and repeating. Looks pretty good, IMO. This literally took 5 minutes to do.

I also had to clean up and lubricate the internal pivot points inside the gauge, as well as the dial, lens, etc. It went from crusty and barely moving to moving effortlessly.

After repairing the bellows I blew into the gauge with a little length of hose and sure enough, no leaks and the needle moved. As a human being I could only get the gauge to indicate 14mph so I very carefully used my air compressor w/blow gun (just barely cracking the valve, carefully). The gauge takes quite a bit of pressure, as Pete indicated in a couple older Airguide posts. 45mph is certainly a decent amount of PSI but the gauge took it and held it repeatedly.

I am so happy about this repair. Taking such a basic, old, mechanical item and getting it to function like new again with minimal fuss is about as good as it gets. Being a homeowner who maintains a fleet of our own land and water vehicles, I've fixed a lot of things. However, something about bringing this little device to life really put a smile on my face.

Great job Joel. I admire you just going at projects even when you have never done it before. Yup, pretty easy and now you have added to your skill level.