1947 18 foot utility restoration thread

[chris.nackers]

It's about a boat out of water, so figured this was the appropriate place

I figured it would be good to have everything in one place, not only for myself but others as well. After hundreds of hours of reading, videos and research, i feel like i have a good game plan for tackling our boat. I've already started on a lot of it, but still a ton of work to do yet. Thank you to everyone for the help on threads to date and just in general the information on this forum has been helpful.

Engine: Chrysler Crown M7
This one is easy and in my wheelhouse. I've already dissembled this, i dropped the block off a couple weeks ago for magnaflux and machining. I will have all the engine parts next week from Van Ness, and will hopefully begin reassembly in February once i get the block and other parts back.

New pistons, 040 over
New valves, springs, guides
Crank/rods 010 oversized
Tappets resurfaced
Cam resurfaced as needed (waiting on machine shop to verify what it needs)
Water pump, fuel pump, and carb sent to Van Ness to be rebuilt, i could have done the carb, but i have enough other things going on and i was already sending him the other parts.

Boat
So i initially wanted to tackle the gaps in the butt ends that we had on the boat. I went back and forth on leaving it for another year or trying to address it. As per usual, i don't really how to just leave things alone, so i've begun a huge restoration project as a result. Fun times.

I pulled the engine back in November to work on that. Then i started stripping the boat of the interior and removing all the chrome. No plans to do much with the interior as it's in good shape. Upholstery is in good shape. May redo the flooring if i get time.

Gauges/Electrical
Redid a lot of the electrical after we bought the boat, replaced the fuse panel with a marine one and labeled every single wire in the boat. i LOVE LOVE my BMP-21 Plus label maker

I pulled the Tach and Oil/Ammeter gauge and send those off to Mark Clawson to get restored.

Boat bottom
5200 bottom is already on the boat, no plans to touch this or deal with it

A previous owner installed some trim tabs on the planing surface, i will probably see if i can remove those without damaging anything.

Topsides/Transom
Main point is to address the butt joint gaps, but i do have gaps between the planks elsewhere as well. My splash rails are bedded into 5200, so i will replacing those 2 planks (per side) (which one was the butt joint anyways).

As i've torn into it a bit, i found 3 cracks on the bottom transom plake (strake, is it a strake if it's a single plank?) and a larger crack in the 2nd plank. So i plan to replace both of those.

A large number of the brass fasteners are broken i've found. I also have a lovely combination of phillips stainless steel along with the brass frearson, and brass square head as well. So my intention at this point is to pull all the planks off, pull out any broken fasters, drill and put dowels into all the holes. Inspect and CPES the frames. Then i will reinstall the planks that look good, i plan to route the edges to clean them up and get a tight fit between the planks. There is some 5200 between a couple sets where there was a larger gap, so i need to clean that up as well.

Decking
I'm not sure if i'm going to full strip this or not yet. I will at a minimum sand and reapply varnish, and i plan to clean out the deck seams and redo those as well.

General Thoughts
I hate 5200...
Ok i get it, and i understand why it makes an awesome bedding compound and sealer for the bottom. However its dare i say impossible to remove anything bedded in it without damaging or destroying said object?

I will bed the side planks in boat life or something non-permanent.

I plan to use interprime wood sealer on the varnish side of the topsides/planks as i've heard it's a little easier/more forgiving to work with.

Looks like using a red oak stain (per ACBS symposium videos) is a great pre-stain option to darken new planks so they take the filler stain better.

I have a ridiculous amount of bungs to take out and cut... that's gonna be fun...

I'll try get some pictures posted a little later and throughout the project.

[Matt Smith]

Post pics for sure. Also the ones of you in the mental institution. Those are the fun ones

[chris.nackers]

Wow time flies, pics long overdue. Here is the engine getting pulled and then once i had all the chrome removed and lifted it off the trailer.

I have a gantry crane on the front and an engine hoist on the back lift point.

[chris.nackers]

Few pics of the engine apart. That's been off at the machine shop since end of December, hope to have it back in a few weeks so i can start assembly.

[chris.nackers]

Initial plank removal and unfortunately some rot i found near the sheer where a butt end was. Somone dug it out at some point and just tried filling it with 3m 5200, was a mess.

[chris.nackers]

Here's some of the transom planks removed. I ended up planing those off since everything was bedded in 5200.

Port side is stripped, i need to route the starboard side tonight and then remove the 2nd strake and then that side will be done as well.

[chris.nackers]

And the cheek corners, not sure what I all want to do here yet, obviously some repairs were done.

[chris.nackers]

Here's a few more:

[chris.nackers]

Actually this pic shows where the rot was really well.

[chris.nackers]

Here are my stock gauges back from Mark Clawson all redone, i also picked up a temp gauge. I just had a Stewart gauge, but wanted a Chris Craft one to match. He of course did a fantastic job with the repairs and the faces look brand new.

My ammeter gauge never really worked and would jump or get stuck. He said it was very gummed up with oil and dirt. It bounces around freely now, so glad to have that working.

[chris.nackers]

Couple updates:

My intake/exhaust manifold was cracked, so i sent that off to Crow Cast Welding, he's repairing that and looking like it will turn out really nice.

The engine inspection went pretty well, bores were pretty worn, so we are going to have to go to 60 over on the pistons, there were some cracks by the valve seats as well, so those will be getting repaired. The camshaft had some pitting as well, so working on getting the profiles for those to regrind that. All relatively minor things and should be fine once it's all done.

Haven't made much progress on the boat itself the past couple weeks, just been busy with other things.

i did get the rest of my other parts back from Van Ness, so i'll get some pictures of those and upload, carb, water pump and fuel pump all look great.