85 2001 LVL Stringer Project

This weekend I only worked on the boat Saturday. Sunday we went down and visited my granddad for fathers day since my Dad is no longer with us. So we got to spend the day Sunday on the lake having a good time. Talk about making you want to get a project done!!

So back to Saturday. I started off by cleaning up 27 years of tarnish off of the boats metal parts before I start installing them. They shine like a new penny now.



Once all that was finished I left my strut sitting out in the sun to expand a bit while I had the new cutlass bearings in the freezer. After a few hours I pulled the bearings out of the freezer and stuck them in the strut. I got them in about half way by hand and that was as far as they would go. I easily slid them the rest of the way in with a piece of all thread, a few washers and nuts.

Next was on to doing some work on wood. I cut out the rear removable floor and the brace that goes with it. I have not cut the access hole in it yet because I want to get a jig and cut it with my router so it is a nice straight circle.

Next I cut out the piece that goes over the front of the engine cradle for the carpet to glue to.

Finally I cut the top to the battery box. Once I glue these two pieces together I will cut the corners. That way they are nice and smooth.

Here is all 3 pieces


I do not think I showed you guys the welds after I got back my engine cradle. I knocked the tops of the welds off so they were somewhat flat but I wanted to leave some mass so that it would hopefully not crack again anytime soon.



The red stuff you see on there is just a little lumber crayon I used to mark the location of the welds on the wood that is going there. I routed out places on the wood for the welds so that the wood would sit down flat and I would not have to grid down so much of the weld.

One side effect of the welding though is the pieces moved a little. when I put it in the boat the pylon would not go in the hole!! So I massaged it just a little bit and got the pylon in. Then it did not line up with the mount in the hull. At this point I am freaking out a little, because it was fitting fine before I painted!! But after I relaxed a little, I took the pylon and adjusted the aluminum a little bit by putting in just the top and prying slightly and that did the trick. Crisis adverted!!     Now it slides right in and into the mount no problems.

Next I drilled the mounting holes for the cradle. 14 holes in my brand new stringers!! I filled them up with lag bolts to make sure everything fit and it did. Now I have to pull them all back out and fill them up with some cpes and then some 5200 and mount it back in for good.


I also had a bunch of parts come in this weekend so my parts pile is growing.

word of advice on the glue,be careful to make sure you dont use too
much. Mine had two little spots that soaked through, I picked at them with a razor blade and got rid of most of the glue but it was something I was not careful enough about.

yup it sure did. It was something I did not anticipate. but I must have just had a few blobs in that spot or something. I use a trowel but I wasnt super careful because I didnt imagine that could happen.

Got ya, thanks for the tip!! How long did it take you to lay everything?

Jllogan wrote: yup it sure did. It was something I did not anticipate. but I must have just had a few blobs in that spot or something. I use a trowel but I wasnt super careful because I didnt imagine that could happen.

Wow, I have never had that happen. And Ive used both thick, expensive carpet, and thin inexpensive grass stuff (always marine or outdoor though). And I put the glue on THICK, with a brush.

What type of carpet did you use?

TRBenj wrote: Jllogan wrote: yup it sure did. It was something I did not anticipate. but I must have just had a few blobs in that spot or something. I use a trowel but I wasnt super careful because I didnt imagine that could happen. Wow, I have never had that happen. And Ive used both thick, expensive carpet, and thin inexpensive grass stuff (always marine or outdoor though). And I put the glue on THICK, with a brush. What type of carpet did you use?

Spartan 24oz, from boatcarpetbuys.com . I have bought the cheapers stuff before and this was definitly nicer but there were 2- 1/8th inch spots where the glue seaped through. It almost like whicked up the threads in a way. Maybe their glue was too thin.

The carpet on the sides of the boat is in. Woo Hoo, Doing the happy dance!!

These 2 pieces went in pretty easy and only had a few places where I needed to clean the glue off of the carpet. I am going to get the bottoms trimmed up and hopefully get the floor piece cut out tonight.

My damper plate is supposed to be here today so I will try to get that put on tomorrow and then glue the floor carpet glued down. Then the trim on Friday.

Hey Big Pappa, your SN looks great. Wondering how you got the pieces to shine so nice? Also would it work to get them powdercoated with clear finish?

I was able to get a good bit done on the boat last night. I started out by cutting the access hole, then gluing and screwing down (SS Screws) the support piece on the rear removable floor. Now just a little sanding and CPES then it will be time to Paint and carpet this piece.



Next my new SACHS damper plate came in yesterday so I decided to get to work on that. I was going to wait until today to do that but I thought it would be better in case I needed to ask any questions here. I am glad I did now.

Here is the inside of my trans. A little cleanup is in order!!


Here is the flywheel with the old damper plate still installed.


Old with the new


Cleaned up flywheel with the new damper.



Now a question for you all. Is this enough clearance? It looks like I need to trim some off to me. If I do need to trim some what is the best way to do so, and how much do I need to trim?

Leave it about 6" large in every direction if you can... it will move a little bit when you go to glue it down and dont want to short yourself. Dont leave TOO much excess though- that just makes it hard to work with.

I would trim that damper around the edges where it starts to overhang.

storm34 wrote: Huh, did you order through Skidim or ebasicpower? Tim and I were talking damper's yesterday and it seems what you ordered is the same as Skidim's damper for GM Small blocks. Ebasicpower shows a 12" and 14" damper. Maybe we need a damper that will fit a 12" flywheel? We just ordered yesterday so I'll be watching closely to see if we need to change our order. Sorry if this is repetitive, thought I'd post in case others who are looking for this information.

I ordered the ebasicpower 14". From what I have read it is a universal plate for many applications and some times it does require a little trimming.

Great, I hadn't heard of anyone having to trim them down. Let us know how it goes, we'll be a day behind you on our install.

the dampner I got from ebasicpower was already trimmed on the end. I paid the 10 bucks extra. They are the same part as tim said.

Saturday I got started by cleaning up the rest of my carpet trim getting all the old glue and pieces of carpet removed. Then I hopped in the boat and trimmed the carpet down. Then I combined the carpet with the glue and let that set up for a while.

While I was letting the glue set on the trim I started putting the packing in on the rudder assembly and the drive shaft log. I used 3 3/16" wraps of the gortex cord on the drive shaft and left it pretty loose (Barely compressing the wraps). I will adjust this better once on the water.

I mis-read what I put down for the rudder packing and ordered 1/4" for that. First off, WOW, that stuff is huge!! I cut 2 rounds of the 1/4" and put it in the rudder assembly. (2 rounds of 1/4 = thickness of 4 rounds of the 3/16" that came out of it) I had to compress the width of the 1/4" a little to get the rudder in but it fits good now. I figure this should work for the rudder since there is not much motion going on there. Someone correct me if I am wrong about this.

After a little break I cam back down and glued down the carpet and trim.

Once finished with that I went back and trimmed up the carpet by the bilge and went around and "Sealed" the edges with a lighter.

Next I cleaned up the wiring harness, cleaning and inspecting each strand, replacing the old zip ties with new ones and eliminating the electrical tape wrap and replacing it with new zip ties.

Then it was time to start putting stuff in the boat. I ran the wiring harness and new speedo tubes up to the front and installed (With supre strength hot glue) the bilge pump. By this point it was about 1:30am so I took a shower and crashed!!

So as you can see it was a huge weekend for me and I was able to get a lot accomplished. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter and I can not wait to be having a great time in the sunshine on this project again soon!!!