1972 SN Promo Project

I finally got home after a long stretch on the road followed by a wedding, As some of you have already seen, Dan posted here with the idea that he might sell his 72 Promo. I had a work trip in Oakland a few weeks ago so I got a hold of him and rented a car to come check it out.

I hope Dan can chime in here with the correct story of how he ended up owning it. As a remember it, some guy had a lot with a ton of different boats and other vehicles. This orange hull stuck out of the pack. Dan, being a Correct craft fan (he owns a 79 BFN and 91 SN), knew that it was something special and tried several times to get it.

When I came to see her, it sat in a lot 1hr west of Oakland, CA just like this.


As you can see, it's very very rough, but complete. The gel is in decent shape, the stringers are toast, the interior is gone (minus the frames), the trailer is not for an inboard, the rudder and tracking fins are bent, and 2 of the speedos are hooped.








The Chrysler 340 is in unknown condition. I didn't have a breaker bar in my suitcase but the dipstick still had oil in it and all the components are present. As you can see, the manifolds have been removed to get bead blasted. Reid.............I'm going to need your help on this one bud!

Diablo ski club is located in Brentwood CA.

So here is the story on how I obtained this boat it was something like 1998 when my dad told me about this boat located in a secured parking lot in stockton CA, so I would go to check it out, I found the owner of the lot and asked if he would leave the owner of the boat a message that I wanted to buy the boat, I never heard back from him. I would always drive by it just to look at it. One day the lot was empty. About 2 months later I got on the am track train going to bakersfield and sitting high in the train I see over a fence the boat again, once again I try to contact the owner with no reply again. A year or two pass then I find the boat in another secured parking lot and again I would drive by then finally one day I drive by and the gate was open and guys were moving vehicles. I asked if they knew the owner of the boat and the said yea he's across the street. This guy had about 20 junk cars and three boats. He was the classic hoarder did not want to sell me the nautique. I pretty much begged him for about an hour until he realized I wasn't leaving without it, it worked he sold me the boat in 2014. It then took me another year and a half to get it regestered in my name. That was the most difficult thing I couldn't tell you guys how many times I went to DMV and left there pulling my hair out. So that's my story.

Yes, that is the serial number. We will have to compare it to the other promos and have Art pull the build sheets. Will be interesting to see the production dates, I have seen a mix of '72 and '73 hardware on the orange promo boats, but they are generally believed to be '72 model year. Of course, the model year demarcation was a little fuzzier back then. My theory is that the dark green promos were ~70, the yellow promos like Paul Waters were ~71's and the red/white/blue boats came in '73.

This looks like it will be an awesome project to follow, good luck!

This is going to be a fun project. I would love to come check it out when you get her settled and start working on it.
Congrats!

That's pretty neat. Artwork was so much cooler back then for logos and such.

BTW - Chris, I am pretty sure I remember my doctor saying something about no repetitive motion like sanding. Yep he was pretty specific about that...

skutsch wrote: So is the doghouse supposed to be some sort of yellow, or orange to match the rest?

It is suppose to match the boat. There is a lot of sun fading on the doghouse, and more cracks than any of the other gel.

BKH

Looks orange to me! Just very faded.

Awesome, thanks for the story Dan! I wonder if anyone at Diablo knows Don McClelland.

reidp wrote: Congrats Chris! My favorite pic you posted is actually the one of the block with the "340" suffix. I was just hoping that the engine hadn't been falsely identified or replaced sometime back in it's history. I'll keep my fingers crossed that she spins over and is a keeper, as it's the first Promo I've seen that actually came with a 340. So welcome to the Promo Club (I'm now a member by virtue of the one Tim Benj, Joe and Uncle Todd and I picked up), and we'll look forward to seeing your progress.

Tanks Reid!

I cant wait to get it here so I can start investigations. I have an engine stand ready but where do you start with an engine that's has possibly been sitting for 20+ years? do you even try to turn it over with a little oil in the cylinders?

I think I forgot to mention in the first post, it has two popped freeze plugs.

Thanks Joe - this is the kind of stuff / advice we are going to need... It looks like Chris and I will be working together on this rebuild, actually we will be doing two.. His will be a full engine mine is only half...



Chris maybe we should start an engine rebuild thread, probably two... Of course, let's get the boat back here first. We also need to look at your new found garage space. We may want to do the engines across the street as opposed to your storage facility.

I'll give it 100 miles.

I would have liked to put HW's prediction to the test. Unfortunately, the truck driver's truck blew a transmission today. Looks like a 2 week setback.

Sigh........

bkhallpass wrote: In related good news, with the rent my wife plans to charge for garage space, I'll be buying a new SN200. BKH

I'm pretty sure Joel got a 200 this year. I'll just start checking his garage for weaknesses. Not sure what color it is, but it might have some nice ski equipment included.