1980 HydroStream Vamp resto-mod

And I finally got around to making the trailer look less like a crack heads stolen bike...
No more brown and white spray paint with dirty red wheels

 

Nice!

 

Boat ran amazing this week up at the cabin! Started right up each time, but then I ran out of gas about 200 feet from the ramp. Luckily a nice guy that I had been chatting with 5 hours earlier was near by and he came and pulled us to shore.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2_jnUq3k48E

 

It is great that all the hard work you did is now paying off with some fun family time.

The boat looks fast even on the trailer.
( with the best color truck BTW - no bias naturally )

Next upgrade a low fuel light?

 

Yep, Im looking at a better fuel tank right now. I have a plastic fuel tank in there right now that I had gotten to make sure everything worked right. Im going to have a custom aluminum one made soon. It will have a electric fuel level sensor and a filler nozzle on the outside of the boat so I dont need to flip the seats out of the way to gas up each time.

Tank thats in there is 12 gallons. I can move up to a 21 gallon tank if I get a custom aluminum one. I might swap out my second 12v lead acid battery for a smaller lithium one. That battery just runs the radio and lights.

 

Found a great deal on a jack plate, hoping to go pick it up tomorrow. Its a 10 inch setback, and thats a ton for my boat, but luckily its 2 parts, so I can remove 5.5 inches of spacer off that and get me to 5.5 inches of setback. This will replace my current tilt and trim plate thats on the boat now, and I will put on the factory mercury system.
The jack plate should also let me bolt this motor up better than the clamps it currently is using.

With the jack plate I can actually adjust the height of my motor to get it at the perfect depth. Right now Its a little low in the water, but I cant raise it anymore with the clamp system the motor uses. So I can move the jack plate up a bit, and that will reduce drag on the back end of the boat to get a little higher top speed.

 

Jack plate acquired! I already took off the fixed 5 inch plate and started cleaning up the adjustable jack plate (the part I wanted) Looks like this plate lived in the river on the boat, so its pretty dirty, but its in really good shape. I only had to file down one deformed bit of aluminum, it was a spot from someone using a punch to split the plate from the boat.

 

Not ideal, but this should keep the sun off us while putting around. I need to setup a better rear mounting point for the straps, they are wrapped around the cleats.

 

ok, got the rear straps all setup. I mounted them the same as the front straps, there is a padeye mounted to the inside float pods on each side, the straps connect to those and then up to the top. I thought about putting the rear bars in, but that will just block my view if I am pulling the kids on the tube.

But here is the top stowed, I have a cover for it so it wont turn into a giant parachute on the highway. I do need to strap it down to the hull while underway though.