I bet that is the same boat with the 454. I don't remember the name of the marina, but the big block lancer was inside the building, and there was another pretty rough Lancer outside in the weather that had a Ford small block in it if I remember correctly. As to the 400, there is no replacement for ...

On my 1953 35' Commander there was a nut and threads that tightened the cutless bearing forward up against a ring in the front of the strut. There was a dowel pin that threaded through a flat on the hex of the nut and was safety wired in place to prevent the nut from backing off. I modified my strut...

Some models of Sea Skiff Corinthian were lapstrake, and some were kind of a hybrid with Carvel planked hull sides and wider than normal (for a Sea Skiff) lapstrakes below the waterline. Crusaders had Carvel planked hull sides, but with sheet plywood bottoms like Cavaliers. Sea Skiffs have soft chine...

I'm not sure I understand the last post? GPS is going to be showing the boat's speed over ground no matter what the current is or the relationship of the boat is to the current- either going with or against it. The satellite doesn't know what the vehicle is or where it is being operated. It might be...

Land speed or speed over ground (from a GPS) is probably your true speed. There is ground underneath all of that water, you are moving across the earth's surface and that is what the sattellites see from your GPS. An older style boat speedometer is calculating speed from a propellor drug through the...

Jim definately has some very good knowledge to share and good trailer information. But shipping cradles are very different than what you want in a trailer. Mainly, you will want to have strong support under the engine stringers. Especially in the engine and fuel tank areas. And never rollers for a w...

As for the 427 Ford, I don't think they came out until the later part of 1963.

I don't know if you can do that kind of work or not, but can go get some GM 350/290hp, two-piece rear main seal crate engines and put all of your marine parts on them. There a few things to change out, but it's not extremely hard at all for an even half decent mechanic. Changing one to counter rotat...

Where I'm originally from, the Great Lakes area, wooden cruisers have had next to no value forever, probably since shortly after the fiberglass era got a good hold and the wooden boat era ended. In addition to all of the extra costs of handling a cruiser, you really need to keep them in covered mmoo...

Go to Kirby Paint Company in New England or Sandusky Paint in Sandusky, Ohio for old school marine paint.

307's are not the best engine out of the small block Chevy line to use. They are another sbc and as such are as dependable as any other sbc and make as much power in stock form as the others do per cubic inch and design criteria. If you are happy with the stock 200 hp of a 307 in your boat, all is g...

I too was caught off guard with a personal issue that took up some time and kept me offline right before the downtime. And then I couldn't see the previously left note about it because it was down. And I too had others e-mailing me to ask if I knew what was going on. AND, I also found the "Forbidden...

I may not be understanding things correctly, but....... CPES is not a glue, it is a penetrating sealer. Anything coated with CPES should be left to dry and have the CPES cure out for at least 24 hours before coating it with any finish. And I never got any definitive answers about gluing, caulking or...

It's almost impossible to hold varnish and/or seam compound on a bright finished flat deck exposed to the sun and elements as in open, uncovered permanent moorage, which is often the case with cruisers. A covered slip is the best way to go. The only thing I've seen hold up well is teak planking with...

I suspect that the exit of Bill Baldwin as editor of the BB has thrown a monkey wrench into an already stressed production situation. I had a few respectful, ideological differences with Bill Baldwin's editing style, but he certainly did provide a valuable service to the club. Bill's departure was e...

Are you talking about the aft deck? If so, Douglas Fir decks had white seam caulking and Teak decks had black seam caulking. Over the years, darkening of the varnish and dirt will make the white deck seams on the Douglas Fir decks look black, but they were white when they were new.

Greg, I'm a new Fort Worth area resident, working for that airline with the red, white and blue name. If you want to, send me a PM and we can talk about boats and Texas.

I personally like poppets (jackstands) although I don't have a Sea Skiff. But I have seen them used on Sea Skiffs with good success. And with stands you can use more of them to distribute the load out over more areas. If I were using them on a skiff, I'd probably concentrate on the outer engine stri...

Besides what has been discussed in some of the other posts, a 5200 bottom often has barrier coating applied under the bottom paint which would make tighter fitting planks swell less than the original planks would. 1/8" gaps are at least, better than the 1/8" to 1/4" gaps talked about in the original...

Cavaliers are of plywood sheet construction, not planked. And, Cavaliers, along with the lapstrake Sea Skiffs, did not appear until at least the mid 1950's as an outgrowth or replacement of the Kit Boat Division (Cavaliers), which were boats of- plywood sheet construction. There were some hybrid, la...

Do you have Chevy/Chris Craft "Q" engines? The fuelpump pushrod is known to wear down and make the pump fail on these engines after a lot of hours. A new pushrod might put you back in business.

We've discussed this before. John could not believe the speed I claimed out of our old Commanders. So, during our "The Wet Edge" Antique Motorboating Symposium a few years back, I got these photos. One picture is of me at the helm of fellow ACBS Pacific Northwest Chapter member Craig M's boat "Takeo...

I'd stay away from anything other than marine paint. New paints are a strange blend of weird chemicals blended more to please the EPA's clean air VOC requirements than for actual paint quality. Marine paints are still a little closer to the old time boat paints. Kirby paints in New England is one of...

Actually, come to think of it, that looks more like the other fellow in Vermillion that did all of the work on his Commander. Joel's was a 6 sleeper if I remember correctly. Darn, I can't remember that guy's name, a really good fellow, I talked about Commanders many times with him. He redid the enti...

Is that Joel's boat from Vermillion? It would a 1954 model, not a 1953 even if the hull card says it was built in late 1953. The 1953 Commanders were all 35'ers like mine. There were a few leftover 35' Commanders sold as 1954 models, and both the 35'er and the 36'er appear in the 1954 sales catalog....

I had a 32' Commander just like that, great boat. The running (navigation) and bow lights on the later 1950's boats became more streamlined than the earlier pieces that were larger and had a wood "grab handle" hole portion in the cabin top running lights. This styling change coincided with the large...

I say this in freindly manner, hoping that you can learn about and eventually end up enjoying wooden boat husbandry. But I hope this is not a joke. Your boat is very grey, with dried out wood having it's strength substantially diminished. It shows evidence of fastener pullout and subsequent plank sp...

Just going off of bad memory cells, I think my 19'er was ORAZ 19 blank, blank, blank, blank something or other. Sometimes the 2blank, blank, blank, blank or 3blank, blank, blank, blank can mean later consecutive years of the same model. I almost bought a Lancer based 23' 427 powered Commander that h...

Cool stuff, thanks for the posts.! I'd actually love to have a twin or single V8 engine 25' Lancer, but they are a little big for trailering. Actually, I think they are over 8 1/2' at the beam. But these are all very cool!

I don't have any experience with your exact combination, but it looks like you do have a Volvo 280 drive from what I can see of the cover in the other pictures from your other topic post. And I do know a little about them. So, here is how it would go on a Chris Craft engine. I don't know how many di...