1980 HydroStream Vamp resto-mod

Next layer on, had a couple of spots that needed more filler, so some went there, but the bulk went onto the keel.

 

2nd layer sanded and cleaned up. Tomorrow I will start on the other side of the hull and continue to put filler on the keel and bow. The keel is a concave shape that flattens out near the bow, so I will have to get that close to right. The final sanding and filling on the keel will be done with the boat level instead of tilted like I have been working on it. This will let me get a better look at how straight it all is. But doing it that way means I get to lay on my back while all the dust from sanding falls right on my face.... Thinking I might setup the box fan to blow it all away as it falls.

Then last thing will be to go over the bottom of the hull with a flashlight and mark out any little spots I might of missed.

 

We got rain again today, dogs got a vet appointment, then my daughter has dance. So pausing today and will pick up again tomorrow with filling the left side of the hull.

I do think I am going to bring in the throttle control box for the boat and get it all taken apart and cleaned out. That way its ready when I put the motor on.

 

Couple of pictures of the throttle controls. Random wires cut, random wires just tied together, and many wires with cracked insulation. The tach wire was grounded and connected to a white wire... not sure what they do, but I dont think they should of been wrapped up together. Purple and green wires no longer even used, just taped to the harness. One ground was just melted, it was connected to the tach signal and then connected to the white wire..

This box is eventually going away, but I need to get a new motor first since the controls are motor specific.

 

That is going to take a weekend of bench time to make it right.

 

All looks good, just throw it in!

 

That is what the guy who used house paint said.

 

Hahaha!

 

Im going to try to tackle a good chunk of it tonight, but I need to strip all the insulation off the main part of the harness so I can check the wires, if they are still good then I can just trim off the bad parts of the wire and solder it back together. But if the wires are bad under the insulation then I might have to order a new harness.

 

ok, nevermind on that harness... I stripped off some of the big cover for it. Some of the wires just straight snapped in half.

 

Doesn't look like too many wires, is it something you can fab up yourself?

 

Yeah I can make my own. There is a special plug on the end of the harness that goes into a plug on the motor, I can either cut the plug from the old wires and put on new ones, or I can remove the plug all together and replace it with my own plugs or I can order a new harness for $250.

Im leaning to cutting the plug off the old harness and just rebuilding it with new wires. Since I dont plan to keep this motor, I would rather keep costs on it to a minimal.

 

At least the harness is available if needed.

With the manufacturing quality issues that seem to be everywhere these days I'm sure if you build one it will be better than the purchased one.

 

I had another idea of building a "universal" harness too. from the control there is really only 6 wires (7 if you include tach, but I dont have a tach). You have accessory, choke, start/neutral safety, power, ground, and off. Some newer motors have alarms too, but I wont need those as my gauges have that info.

So, if I build a harness to a keyed on switch, then mount the keyed switch into the dash, then all I need to do is hook up those wires to the new motor, hook the main power wires to the motor and its good to go electrically and just needs the throttle lever and shift level (same lever)

 

Alright, I went all the way into this old harness, its junk, no saving it, no using any parts of it.

So, I am going to go with a 1 piece harness. Going to connect the motor right to the control box, no plugs, nothing but straight wires. This will be the easiest way to go about this and will provide water tight wires from end to end.

So, I will need to order some power wires and a couple of 50 foot rolls of other wires to get this all done. motor harness will be all independent of the rest of the systems so I dont have to do much to switch to the new motor.

Another issue I need to figure out is mounting of the control box. This one is a little goofy, the control box sits on the gunnels, but the gunnels are pretty high up resulting in the throttle sticking up over the top of the sides of the boat. Not too thrilled about that, so I am going to play around with making a drop kit that mounts to the backside of the gunnels and puts a mounting location lower. With the wire harness removed from the controls, now is a perfect time to figure out a good mounting location so I can glass it in.

 

Just talked to a buddy who lives a few hours away in Wisconsin. Turns out he has a storage garage full of merc and evinrude parts and motors that he is sick of paying for. So Im going to make the drive down there soon and load up my truck with what ever he doesnt want. Might even be able to get a motor for cheap to rebuild over the summer, but he has a couple of the same boat I have, so im sure he has some parts there I might need (hope he has a windshield!)

 

"...he has a couple of the same boat I have..."

This might be a dangerous guy to be hanging out with...

 

Lol, yeah there are a few people with a couple of these boats, they all live a couple hours away though thankfully. But I think we might try to get together for a river run this summer.

 

Alright, tomorrow is the day I finish filling and sanding the bottom. Its going to be in the low 60s, sunny, and I dont have any after school things with the kids. So, after morning meeting I will go out and jack the boat up and acetone the hull down where I will be filling. I will fill the spots right after that so its cured when lunch time rolls around and I can spend an hour blocking it all down. I will fill any more spots I need so I can block again at 3. Once I got all the spots done I am going to go over the entire hull (top and bottom) with 80 grit to smooth out the deeper cuts from the 60 grit that I had been using.

Then its time to prep the hull for gelcoat! That means I will be pulling the boat out of the garage again, putting the leaf blowers to work blowing out all the dust from the hull. I do plan to tape up the front access holes I cut along with the storage holes under the lounge seats so when I am spraying I dont blow dust out of the hull all over the fresh gelcoat.

 

Filler down, I got most of the spots, but I will need to go back over it again after I sand. There are less spots on this side of the hull, but they are bigger than the other side.