1999 Longhorn Nautique Restoration Thread |
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FredWSauer
Senior Member Joined: August-28-2015 Location: St. Paul, MN Status: Offline Points: 156 |
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Wow! Very cool. Thanks for all the awesome pictures.
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- FWS
1993 Ski Nautique 1978 Glastron T-160 1994 Weeres Pontoon - Wife's Boat |
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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Haven't made much progress due to the holidays but I do have a couple items to share:
First, I decided to make a mold of the cup holders that attach to the rear of the engine cover. Mine were cracked on the back side. Probably due to the heat from the engine and the fact that are made of plastic. Next I worked on designing the Correct Craft logo for the interior. I wanted to incorporate a longhorn into the logo and wanted to try and figure out what font the "Correct Craft" logo used. I think I go pretty close. The font below is called Baskerville- Regular. If anyone knows of a font that is closer to OEM, please let me know! Finally, can you guess what my next part mold is going to be? The boat came out of sand blasting today. Gave it a quick pressure wash and will take some after photos tomorrow. I will say that the sound deadening attached to the walls of the hull is virtually impossible to remove. I tried a heat gun and acetone. Neither really worked. Looks like the sound deadening will be staying. If anyone knows of a similar sound deadening material, please let me know. I would like to install additional sound deadening bow to stern to make everything symmetrical. |
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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After talking with my buddy doing the glass and gelcoat work, gelcoating the interior walls of the hull seemed kinda unrealistic. The amount of work and time it would take didn't seem worth it. I proposed the idea of upholstering the sides of hull from bow to stern using the same material I am wrapping the seat bases and engine cover base. The material is called Spradling Hitch- Caramel. I think this could look really good especially if we incorporate some french seam work. Here's a breakdown of the interior details and materials.
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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I totally understand what you are saying. But I have to remind myself that this boat 20 years old. That’s a long life for most things made today. Are you talking about the jack or the pull out tongue? The jack is just a temporary jack the trailer builder was using. |
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M3Fan
Grand Poobah Joined: October-22-2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3185 |
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The serifs on the capital "C" on that Baskerville font are too big and prominent. I'd simply trace the existing logo with vectors or convert that font to outlines and modify those serifs in Illustrator.
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2000 SN GT40 w/99 Graphics/Gel
2016 SN 200 OB 5.3L DI https://forum.fifteenoff.com |
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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The only logo I have is very poor quality and not perfectly straight on. The original logo's are no longer on the boat. I'll keep searching for a font. I agree, this one is a little off.
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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I thought more about your comment and had a realization. Maybe C&S Marine would allow me to send them some of my vinyl and they could embroider just those pieces? Then the logo would be perfect! I’ll give them a call on Monday. |
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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One of the most anticipated parts of this build was the opportunity to help re-assemble the GT40 turned 408. I've watched engines be built but it was important to me to be able to assist in the assembly. I wanted to get my hands dirty and learn.
Today we blueprinted the block and short block rotating assembly. Then we installed the crank, rods, and pistons. Tomorrow we will install the cam. timing chain, and oil pump/pan. All other parts are here, just waiting on the heads to come back from the machine shop so we can complete the valvetrain. We are probably two weeks out from dyno time! I have also been going back and forth between FAE vs an inline style muffler. I'm a skier so I don't want the FAE to affect the wake in any way. Maybe that's not a realistic concern. Either way, I ended up ordering the Hardin inline 4" silencers and a set of their composite double flapper exhaust tips. I know these aren't shiny and cool but I like the look of the transom on the python boats so I am going to match that. The black exhaust outlets are subtle. Comparing the cost to an FAE system, I am going to take the gamble and hope that it isn't too loud. The boat has remain hospitable for cruising. |
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Kristof
Grand Poobah Joined: October-08-2007 Location: Bree, Belgium Status: Offline Points: 3397 |
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Shiny shiny shinyyyy!!!
Awsome work bro. Keep those pictures and story coming. Love it. |
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- Gun control means: using BOTH hands!
- Money doesn't make one happy, but when it rains cats and dogs, it's still better to cry in a Porsche than on a bicycle... |
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79SNbrady
Senior Member Joined: June-26-2008 Location: athens, Tn Status: Offline Points: 229 |
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When you say blue printed. Did you actually remove any material from the pistons to get them within the same weight by a few tenths of a gram or match total assembled weight of piston rist pin and connecting rod within a close weight range?
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"It's just water... not concrete or dirt... so just throw it"
-Parks Bonifay 1979 Ski Nautique - (stringer job completed summer 2012) 2007 236 Team - All White! |
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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We remeasured all the tolerances set by the machine shop to ensure they were correct. We also checked tolerance within the rod bearings, crank, etc. Like I said in my original post, this my first time assembling an engine. The engine builder is well respected in the boat racing community so I have faith that he and machine shop have done everything right. If I’m not saying it correctly, it’s because I don’t know. Just learning. |
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79SNbrady
Senior Member Joined: June-26-2008 Location: athens, Tn Status: Offline Points: 229 |
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Your doing a normal rebuild then. A blue print build is where you weigh each individual component such as pistons, wrist pin, and rods. Then you match each component together to try and get each piece to weigh the same. Example: heaviest weight wrist pin paired with lightest piston. Then calculate the weight of the wrist pin and piston together. Then you remove material from each piston its self till every piston+wrist pin combo matches within a few tenths of a gram to the lightest piston+wrist pin. Then move on to the rods and try to get all the rods within the same weight. I havent messed with v8s that much. But in hondas it's usually good for a couple hp and supposed to smooth out a engine. But for what your doing. Blue printing is on the over kill side.
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"It's just water... not concrete or dirt... so just throw it"
-Parks Bonifay 1979 Ski Nautique - (stringer job completed summer 2012) 2007 236 Team - All White! |
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8122pbrainard
Grand Poobah Joined: September-14-2006 Location: Three Lakes Wi. Status: Offline Points: 41045 |
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Dominic,
Here's a book on engine blueprinting. it says it's been "the blueprinting bible for nearly thirty years". |
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stepper459
Senior Member Joined: June-17-2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 349 |
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I think I've learned more about engine rebuilding from this forum than I did from actually rebuilding an engine, because it was only one engine and I had a machine shop that did the shortblock. Anyway....keep it up. |
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KENO
Grand Poobah Joined: June-06-2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 11050 |
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That might be a simple explanation of something but it's not blueprinting. I figure his engine builder knows what he's doing Maybe you should take a shot at trying to explain balancing |
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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Guys, I am content with the engine progress so far. We can revisit engine building on another thread! :)
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67 ski nat
Platinum Member Joined: July-19-2018 Location: Santa rosa Status: Offline Points: 1194 |
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Mclonghorn and the chunky thread are try to top each other. Making me up my game
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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Couple more parts are ready! Picked these up from the powder coating shop. Each piece was media blasted, sprayed with an epoxy primer, then sprayed with a UV resistant powder in ultra gloss black. They turned out great. I also had a couple pieces coated that were originally bare aluminum. I guess I am going for Paragon level of detail. I've already come this far lol.
Parts below are: -Windshield frame -Engine cradle- originally raw aluminum -Front and rear vents -Drivers seat mounting plates- originally raw aluminum |
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MrMcD
Grand Poobah Joined: January-28-2014 Location: Folsom, CA Status: Offline Points: 3735 |
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First everything is looking fantastic. This is going to be one very cool old boat!
Second, blueprinting, and I did not read the link sorry. Blueprinting is simple to explain but very time consuming for any shop to do. Every engine was designed by engineering and there is a blueprint of how it should be manufactured. Due to accepted tolerances when manufacturing almost 100% of engines built vary from original blueprint. When a shop blueprints they attempt to return all parts in assembly to the exact factory blue print. The main things are the distance from center of the crankshaft to the deck for each piston. Size of the head chamber is checked to make all 8 identical. Most decks are not square from the factory, they are very close but some are way off. Returning these measurements as close as possible to factory blue print design ends up with all 8 cylinders matched so they each in theory produce the exact amount of power. So, square decking is important to get closer to blueprint. Keep in mind that all these factory engines ran but the ones that were closer to blue print always ran better and made more power. The previous description covered parts of balancing which is also important for engines that will run high RPM for extended periods. Since the early 2000's most pistons manufactured are within 2 grams of each other because of the modern CNC controlled machines that make them so balancing pistons is much easier today than in the old days and most shops do not have to balance piston sets any longer. From your pictures it does not look like the shop had to do much clearancing for the large stroke 408 crankshaft. Looks like the 351W was designed well to be a 408. Looking forward to your driving impression on this new engine. Torque should be fantastic. |
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ultrarunner
Platinum Member Joined: October-02-2005 Location: Ridgefield, Ct. Status: Offline Points: 1831 |
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I’m keeping my eye out for an Austin layover!
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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Thanks for the explanation. I was specifically told that the block/deck was squared at the machine shop. I appreciate the insight. Fortunately, this engine isn't going to run super high rpm. Maybe 5k max. But I guess the dyno will determine that if we are still making power up there. I definitely dont plan to beat on this thing. But I am looking forward to it pulling like a freight train out of the hole lol.
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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This makes sense! Thank you for the explanation 79!
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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Thanks Brian! I will order a copy!
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SNobsessed
Grand Poobah Joined: October-21-2007 Location: IA Status: Offline Points: 7102 |
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There have been studies done that show machines built to nominal (the blueprint target size) have less vibration, noise, & greater reliability.
Modern engines have much tighter tolerances plus statistical quality control aims for nominal - this is why they are so reliable. Back in the glory days of the V8 as long as it was barely in tolerance, good to go. Machining equipment (& measuring gages) have improved over the years, providing better precision. Even if your machinist didn't specifically get it exact, it probably is better than when it left the factory. |
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“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
Ben Franklin |
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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Completely agree.
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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Domed Numbers finished the digitizing of the oem decals today. These are direct copies of the original but will be domed. I also had them add a little something special for the OEM EFI logo.
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brantb
Groupie Joined: May-15-2019 Location: Colorado Status: Offline Points: 94 |
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Where are you getting the stickers from? If they arent too expensive i would like to get the Nautique one for my boat
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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The domed decals are little more expensive than oem. The domed “Nautiques by Correct Craft” decal is $30.00 per side vs the oem being $24.50 Domed Numbers is who created them. They save every project so you won’t have to get anything digitized again. Just send them an email and tell them what decals you want. |
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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Got a couple more photos over at Magnum Trailers. Paint colors are finalized. Really happy with the period correct "Nautiques" logo. Trailer should be done in two weeks.
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DHMcFadin
Senior Member Joined: May-27-2019 Location: Austin, Texas Status: Offline Points: 312 |
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Tach and speedo came in over the weekend. Speed Hut did an incredible job redesigning and recreating the oem gauges. These gauges, along with the rest, will be completely plug and play with the Holley EFI system.
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