New Here

Yet another story of a long hard road ahead . . .

My husband and I are new to this site and we’re really excited about getting started on the restoration project of our 1977 ½ S.N. We’ve finally uncovered it, pulled it into the garage and we’re eager to get started on it again after 6 years. We bought the boat in 1999 from the original owner, who at the time was going through a divorce and wanted to protect it from the “enemy”. It just had a little over 300+/- hours on the original engine. We used it religiously for 2 years and then went into business for ourselves. At that point, everything recreational came to a halt.

What started off as a simple carpet reupholstering job turned into quite an undertaking. Once we removed the carpet, we starting finding dry rot in the stringers and a lot of it!!!. First we pulled the engine out and then we removed several hundred pounds of saturated flotation. We then had it sanded down and re-gel coated under the graphics; had new stringers installed, new flooring and had everything re-fiber glassed inside. The man did a wonderful job.

Before we ever started any of the restoration/repairs, we raced a friend who had a 99 S.N with a 4-blade prop and fuel injection. He beat us out of the water but couldn’t loose us and our 3-blade. We’re still not exactly sure how fast we were actually going but we had the speedometer buried at 50.

Most of the work that still needs to be done is cosmetic as the engine is pretty much in excellent condition; again, just some cosmetic work to be done on that as well.

So here we are in the midst of project #1 and we have a long list of things to do. I am truly hoping that ya’ll can get us going in the right direction. We have a list of things that need to be done and we need some additional resources. I’ve searched this sight and now I have to try and figure out how to un-cross my eyes. What a wealth of information there is here and many, many thanks to Keith for creating such a great site!!!

Anyway, long story short we need help locating the following items and we need some answers to some questions:

1)     What is the difference between a 1977 and 1977 ½?
2)     What type of paint should be used to repaint the faded dash board?
3)     Where can we find a complete wiring harness?
4)     We just noticed after casual inspection of one of the labels on the engine that it states not to use unleaded gasoline – uh oh, never saw that one. What type/brand of lead additive should we be adding to the gasoline?

I’m sure there will be more questions to come but this will hopefully hold us over for a little while.

Thanks everyone!!!

Welcome to the site. A few answers for you:

1) No such thing as a 77 1/2, as far as Im aware. There were no significant changes from '77-78, so Id say there is no difference.
2) No paint necessary when trying to restore color and shine. Break out a buffer and go to work- the gloss can be restored.
3) SkiDIM definitely has them and JA Chamberlain may have them as well.
4) Nah, youre probably ok.

You'll find that the older hulls are lighter and have less wetted surface, so they'll be faster- even with less power. Add some power and they'll really fly. The newer boats come out of the hole pretty quick, though.

Welcome.

I always used lead sub in my '78 and my '81. But of course that was before I knew Pete.

As you'll hear alot...PICTURES.

john

phatsat67 wrote: Just take the Heads off while the motor is out and have them gone through and have hardened valve seats put in and you wont ever have to worry about what fuel you use.

For what it would cost to do that ($230 for the valve job, $110 in gaskets), I think it would be wiser to just save the money and put it towards a set of GT40/GT40p heads when the time comes to refresh. Its no harder to do the work with the engine in the boat.

wet sanding will not work on the side and transom graphics as they are painted and if you try to wet sand all your going to do is remove it.

Now wet sanding will work on the rest of the boat where the gel-kote is faded and dull but not on painted surfaces.

understood the question Tim just pointing out that you cannot wet sand the whole boat and expect it to come out all shiney as it will not effect the painted area's by wet sanding them.

Yes go to town on the dash and top deck but once you do that then your going to have faded dull sides with a shiney topside so odds are they will try and do the same to the sides of the boat so that it all looks the same. You have to be very carefull or you will remove the lettering on the sides trying to get a consistant shine to the gel-kote on the whole boat.