Down Under 89 Project

My SN2001 project is finally taking shape. Got the hull back on rebuilt trailer last weekend.

The only parts I used from original trailer were the axle, cross beams & the prop guard. The original trailer had a bad case of cancer.

I used this site as a great reference for the trailer mods and wet sanding.

My goal was to lower the trailer so that it would be easier to launch from the banks of our local dams (lakes) but keeping the original simplicity of the CC trailer design. I initially went a bit low and had problems with trailer bottoming out. Have that sorted now.
I just hope it launches easier than the 87 SN2001 that I imported at the same time as my 89. It had a type 3 trailer also with extremely high profile truck tires. I called them semi trailer tyres as they must have had a huge weight loading.

I can now attack the list of things to do inside the boat now. I hope to water test the weekend but I have a bad habit of under estimating the time required to do specific jobs on the boat.

As your season is coming to a end ours down under is getting into full swing the hot weather has been slow in arriving but it hit 31C today. This helps with my motivation.

lewy2001 wrote: And to think I work in IT and still get frustrated by these damn things.

Well this makes me feel a little better....

john

Photos fixed. Try to avoid characters like the number sign (#) in file names.

-Keith

jbear wrote: lewy2001 wrote: And to think I work in IT and still get frustrated by these damn things. Well this makes me feel a little better.... john

I agree John but I've found out practice makes perfect.

As I suspected did not get through all the little things to water test the boat.

The alignment took much longer than I estimated. I had to remove the rear engine mounts to get the lock nuts undone. This was ok as I wanted to clean them up anyway.

Now that I have them back in and aligned how do you tighten the lock nuts back up. It's impossible to get a large shifter in there. The nuts measure 37mm about 1.46 inchs. I don't think even purcashing a 37mm open ended spanner will help as it is very hard to get access with the design of the mounts on the 89.

Is there a special tool for this? Or just tap it tight with chisel/punch.

Lewy - I made a special wrench for this (it is pretty ugly so I don't want to post a pic) by welding some tabs onto a old 1" wrench.    The tabs act like a fork to reach down & grab 2 flats.

As an alternative to building your own wrench, I would say that it would be OK to chisel against the flats to tighten it up. You might want to mark the locknuts with a line so you can see if they start to slip over time - I did.

Lewy My boat seems to like to drain in the factory (mid-ship) drain. It would take alot to tilt it enough to drain to the rear. But I have a CC trailer, maybe yours will tilt farther. If you seal up your floor & stringers well, you shouldn't have a rot issue even if you do get water back in your foam. Besides supposedly the new foam doesn't absorb water like the old foam did (closed cell vs. open cell).

I did some experiments with the boat today. I filled the bilge with water up to bottom of tranny. This was to check if I had any leaks.

I then drained from center bung with boat level.
When the water had completely drained. I raised the front of the trailer as high as it would go the limiting factor was the prop guard.

There was a fair bit of extra water that now drained from infront of the motor area. I have now decided to put a bung in the transom and store boat between uses with the jockey wheel raised as I believe this test proved there is a bit more trapped forward of the engine that does not drain as well as it should.

lewy2001 wrote: There was a fair bit of extra water that now drained from infront of the motor area. I have now decided to put a bung in the transom and store boat between uses with the jockey wheel raised as I believe this test proved there is a bit more trapped forward of the engine that does not drain as well as it should.

If the water is already in front of the center bung a transom one isn't going to help. Raise up the jockey lift enough for that water to drain out the center bung, no need for another hole in the transom.

Lewy... That's one sweet looking rig!!
Congratulations mate!

The front wheel is crooked?!!?   

Just kidding, very nice! Clearly an unloved boat.   

Well it looks real sharp but I must admit I think the regestration letters are a little small on the bow maybe you need to replace them with something the water patrol can read from 10000 Km out enstead of just 5000 km out.

Just messing they do look pretty large though but the boat and trailer are top notch.

Lewy, the first boats I saw with the metal flake pinstripe were the Masters Edition schemes in '97, I believe. I dont *think* they used it back in '89, but I could be wrong.

3" is the standard height for reg letters in the U.S. Most people dont go to the trouble of doing anything fancy with them- but I bet many of us on here have. All of my boats have decent looking numbers.

79nautique wrote: Well it looks real sharp but I must admit I think the regestration letters are a little small on the bow maybe you need to replace them with something the water patrol can read from 10000 Km out enstead of just 5000 km out. Just messing they do look pretty large though but the boat and trailer are top notch.

Haha, first thing I thought too...."why didn't you buy the big ones?" Looks real nice though I like it.

How did you get the decals made? I understand there are tiff files in the reference section, but do the graphic shops still need dimensions? If I'm thinking right, they would at least need 1 dimension to scale everything to. Has anyone used a graphic shop to make some that they could recommend, I'm wanting to replace mine as they are in need of some TLC.

...threadjack over. Sorry