The Last Stage and Water Test #11 of 12

Laying the carpet.


New wiring in the boat. I found cloth covered wire, just like in 1947, and put in curly pig tails.




The ceilings. In a boat, the inside walls are called ceilings, crazy.



They will be screwd to the inside of the topside frams to cover up the ugliness.

Gas tank. I took it to a radiator shop and had it cleaned. The gas had turned to guk after 28 years and melted the gas level sender.




The trailer. The original trailer was pathetic. I found an old used home made boat with a nice trailer under it. I bought them and took the trailer, had it sand blasted and painted. I have no pictures of the trailer until the end.

With the boat at this stage of the restoration, it was time to install the engine. It had been test run on the bench and had no leaks. It was painted and wired and full of oil. All I had to do was put the boat on the trailer, move the boat under the engine that was hanging on a chain hoist, and set it in the boat. Remember when I talked about drilling the hole for the prop shaft? This was the moment of truth, or consequences.


It lined up so near perfect that I only had to adjust the front motor mount about 1/8 of an inch.

You can see a small space on the top between the flanges. It must be with in .004 of an inch. That is the thickness of a hair. I made the adjustment and bolted it together.

The water test was next. Here the boat is on the trailer. It has no chrome hardware and no seats. I am just going to take it to the lake and check for leaks in the hull.


That’s my son and me going about 35 miles per hour. I had a leak in the engine water pump. I’ll repair that later. My neighbor Randy took the picture. There is still masking tape on the side. I will also give the deck one more coat of varnish. Then paint the white water line and paint the deck stripes white.

I guess that about wraps it up. The next one will be the finish. The boat in all it's splenor!