AmSkier Construction

Looking good Eddie - stainless lock nuts are sent straight from the depths of hell to cause us to question our faith in a benevolent god.

Looking good Eddie!

you opened a can of worms with this repair! but light is ahead!
looking forward to see you in the water again!

Bri892001 wrote: lewy2001 wrote: ... Most aussie ski boats use the same type of rudder port with seals. Infact they use the same seal type setup on the log. After having both types I like the simplicity of the packing gland and nut. Would this setup be the same for all factory Zerk equipped rudder ports?

Excellent question Brian. I can't say for sure but I would probably think no. It's dependent on the port manufacturer. I seem to remember that some of you guys have stated that you have a packing gland (similar to the prop shaft packing) and still have a zerk fitting. I could certainly be mistaken and I never had a CC rudder port disassembled.

In my discussion with Ron, he stated that all AmSkiers used underwater hardware from a company called SouthEastern Foundry (a quick search on their website doesn't give any detail. It just says what they make with no detail about each item.)
In fact, look at the right side of the flange face on my rudder port. You can barely make out an upside down "SEF" and then "101". The "0" in the 101 is hard to read but it's definitely there. SEF stamped their part number like this on every port they made. The "SEF 101" is NLA according to Ron but is still a newer version of a port that they used for years.




The older rudder ports they used usually had a big nut on top of the port that was secured with one or even two set screws and guys usually didn't remove the set screws before turning off the nut. This obviously could cause pretty substantial issues when forcing the nut off. My understanding is that this older port did still use the same grease seals and O-ring like mine did. I plan on confirming that after the holidays with Ron.
He also said that the older port was used up until about '89 or '90. In fact he just finished restoring an '88 and is working on an '89 now. Neither one had the newer style port so he was really confused how my '86 had a newer style port. He speculated that SEF maybe sent a few of the newer style ports for testing before they actually released them and my boat was possibly a test mule for these new ports. Even more ironic is that John's '86 also has the exact same newer style port. So now we're thinking that only the Barefoot boats got these ports as test mules.

But, I digress. Sorry for the AmSkier history lesson. So, whoever CC got their ports from would determine the construction but I find it hard to believe that any port with a zerk uses seals and an O-Ring. Maybe Godfather or Art would have that info.

I finally got healed enough from my second surgery to get stuff put together and fire this bad boy up.
If you go way back to the start of this thread you'll see what the pylon looked like before the disassembly and now the "after". So much better now....


Before I put all the flooring and engine cover back on I took a few pics to show the fruits of my labor. After all I'll be the only one that sees it after that and I'm sure it'll never look like this again.






I fired it up in the driveway to make sure everything was OK and then headed to the lake to get it wet.
I set the shift/throttle linkages, tweaked the idle mixture and RPM, adjusted the shaft packing gland and made sure that nothing was leaking that wasn't supposed to be leaking (like the rudder port????). I was pretty stoked.


I still have to relocate the bilge blower to just underneath the center floor. Then I need to terminate the extended pylon cables to finally finish this off. I'll keep you guys updated.

Eddie,
Fantastic repair. Of course, I never had any doubts!

Nice work! I do like Gregs idea of bring boats down south for tinkering.. How do I sign up for that?

I'm glad your feeling better Eddie. The boat looks great. Do me a favor though.. If the deck is still off please double clamp those exhaust connections.
Thanks,

Cam and I will be up to see you this spring after the tourists go home and the water warms up.

baitkiller wrote: I'm glad your feeling better Eddie. The boat looks great. Do me a favor though.. If the deck is still off please double clamp those exhaust connections..

Hey John, if you look at the pics the rigid corrugated hose on the elbows is double clamped at each end. The softwall hose is single clamped which has worked perfectly fine for several years.

JPASS wrote: Let's hear that thing running. Post a video if you can.

Hey John,
Go back up and double click on the thumbnail after my last pic for the video. I'm not sure why my videos come out like this. I'll have to experiment with this technology stuff.

Eddie, looks superb, as always. You're welcome to come north and clean my bilge anytime!

So here we are, back for the final installment of this nightmare. I have to say that I'm glad for that. It seems like it's been a long road. Hell, it's been almost a full year since it happened now.
I’ve always wanted to relocate the blower. It has always been mounted to a bracket that was bolted to the starter. There was an inlet hose that dropped into the bilge. An outlet hose then ran to a 3” PVC pipe that was glassed into the hull which ran to the transom. It seemed like every time I did anything on the back end of the engine the blower or the hoses were in the way and I had to remove it which was a PITA. Hell, checking the tranny fluid could be a lesson in futility.
This is an old engine pic showing the blower location.


You can see the PVC pipe between the exhaust and the shaft log. Every time I had to remove the center floor section you can’t help but step all over it which caused twisted ankles, bruised knees and bloodied knuckles.


Ron Tanis knew exactly what I’m talking about and he relocates them underneath the rear floor access between the stringers in his restorations right where that PVC pipe was. I wanted to do the same thing so I removed it and ground out the final remnants of it before painting the bilge.
But how do you put it back in the same place that was a known issue and eliminate the previously mentioned problems? It has to be removable….No, it has to be easily removable. So I can get it out of my way before working back there.


The aluminum flat stock uses wing nuts to bolt it to small aluminum angle brackets that are screwed to the stringers. The blower wiring has quick disconnects right at the stringer so I can remove the whole thing and lay it off to the side with the flex hose still attached in a minute or two. It’s still very functional like this.

So now we’re finally down to what caused this whole mess in the first place. You remember this thing:




When the pylon hit the bridge, the top cable was cut clean up near the pylon. The lower cable of the pylon snapped at the loop down at the cable clamp and that broken cable then pulled through the clamp block. The clean cut shown here is what I did to remove the cable clamp from the turnbuckle. The frayed end is where the lower cable snapped.


I had Rob Bemman put new cables on this. They were 3/16” like the old cable but the sheath was much thicker. I mistakenly thought the factory cables were only 1/4” but they aren't. I wanted to get rid of that POS clamp block. They work but they’re virtually impossible to get adjusted properly and if you’re working with one that was used on another boat the problem is only exacerbated with kinked cable and scathed sheathes from previously clamped cables. Just not a good alternative. I decided to use the same terminations that I used when Steve Kutch broke my boom cables….LOL. (Just kidding Steve). SS turnbuckles, cable thimbles and ferrules properly terminated and plasti-dipped and a couple of quick links. It's so much cleaner this way and it just has to be stronger.











Now the new ones are red sheath too to match my boom cables…bonus.


So all I have to do yet is slide a new shock tube over the turnbuckles to cover up all my work again and this sucker is done. Put an end to this snowballed, out of control repair. I’m out boys. See you on the water…LOL

Looks great. Nice work

Eddie,
You sure get my approval. You can work on my boat anytime!

8122pbrainard wrote: Eddie, You sure get my approval. You can work on my boat anytime!

Come on Pete, that's not the original construction method for the blower, and therefore it's junk.

I guess I'm just gonna have to come down there again and give you a reason to start over.

Eddie what did you use for the exhaust pipe and what dia and wall thickness?

Eddie can I ask where you got the SS tube from? Been looking but not much luck. Is it 316 grade or? Thanks Pat