1965 26' Owens Flagship restoration underway.

[Sea18Horse]

Thank you very much for your suggestions and for sharing your expertise. Very much appreciated.

Cheers............................Todd

 

[Ned L]

If you decide to go down this direction there is a fair bit of prep work to do it properly. If it would help, I'd be glad to outline what I would do for the job.

 

[Sea18Horse]

Ned that's very generous of you and I admit that despite doing quite a bit of research I find I still have a number of questions about the process. But the reality is that I'm a loooong ways from tackling that particular phase of the project.

In the short term I need to get the bilge pumps up and running, Then I need to either get it towed or drive it to the boat yard to have it hauled out, put on a trailer and hauled to my house. Truth be told I'd really like to drive it to the boat yard just because. To that end I need to get the engine tuned up and the carburetor overhauled so it will start on its own. The tune up parts are readily available and I've found a carburetor rebuild kit and float, so that's pretty straight forward. I'd like to find a water pump impeller but I really don't want to put a new one in and then have it sit for a year and a half.

So that said if you have a bit of time and have absolutely nothing else to do..... Yeah right! I would love to hear your thoughts on the process Otherwise if I can hit you up at a later time when I'm at that stage that would be great.

I'm off to spray the area down with ethylene glycol to try to do what I can to slow down the rot.

Thanks again!

Cheers....................Todd

 

[Ned L]

No problem, sounds like a good plan.
It will be rewarding to move her by yourself, under her own power.
I do certainly understand the foredeck is pretty far from the top of your list at the moment, ... we’ll be here if you want to bounce some ideas around.

 

[Sea18Horse]

Thanks Ned! I appreciate it more than you know.

Yeah I'd love to drive it to the boat yard. But the marina looks awful dang narrow in this view out the back of the boat house.

Especially since I have in fact not piloted a single screw inboard since the '80s when I was working in dredging and marine construction. And then it was a small 6-71 Jimmy powered tug-boat. #1 Designed and intended to bump into stuff. And #2 had a ginormous rudder so it steered as well in reverse as it did going forward. This is likely to be a whole different situation. A saving grace might be that there is a fair amount of current flowing through the marina. We'll see.

Cheers............................Todd

 

[mickyryan]

pfft just have marina send out a warning a newbie boat owner coming through , i bet it would be a ghost town by weekend only thing is you would also have to deal with all the you tubers hoping to get a viral video of newbie boat owner sinking

 

[Sea18Horse]

Haha! Right! He should sell tickets!

I think you're right on both counts.

Dan put his own boat in the water on Tuesday. He said he'd be happy to follow me to the boat yard when the time came. Great guy! Just like all of you he's been super helpful through all of this. He spoke with a guy who has a 26" boat there at the marina. He has a trailer in the storage area next door and said I could use it any time. It turns out His is an I/O and so the trailer won't work with my inboard but WOW!

I could ask him if he could get the boat out and tied up outside if worse comes to worse. But what would be the fun in that?!

Cheers.........................Todd

 

[mickyryan]

what could go wrong....

 

[Sea18Horse]

Exactly! What could possibly go wrong?

Ok so update. I got my bilge pumps and switches. Still need to get a couple reducers and short chunks of hose to get from the 1" and 1 1/8" outlets of the new pumps down to my existing 3/4" hoses and through-hulls. (Not going to worry about replacing those until I get it out of the water).

I hauled the gas caddy from work down to the boat and pumped out 12 gallons of the stale gas and put 10 gallons of fresh back in. Meant to take pictures but I didn't remember until I had it back up in the parking lot and was pumping the old gas into the truck. 78 Ford F150, (I figured if any of my vehicles could run on that stuff it could).

Got the carburetor overhauled with a new float. The accelerator pump works well and it starts on it's own now. I think I need to tweak the float level a bit. It dribbles from the mains at idle and drips for a minute after I shut it off. It doesn't like facing down hill that much I don't think.

Looking at the block and intake manifold casting numbers and stamps I've narrowed the engine down to a '70 - '72 truck 350ci. The Block comes up as a '70 - '76 manufactured at the Tonawanda plant. The choke stove on the intake is a '67 - '72 style.

Now to my question... The intake on the thing is a high rise manifold.

(That patch thing looks and feels like lead to me BTW, weird!) A friend has a two barrel intake and carburetor off of his old '72 Chevelle 350. He sold the car years ago to his sister. Well she just had to have a four barrel so they put an Edelbrock manifold and carb on it. It's a low rise manifold and I think it would fit the application much better. What would you guys do?

Cheers............................Todd

 

[mickyryan]

hi rise moves the hp and torque up the rpm band usually and that also means having the cam to work with that, might wanna be sure the cam is matching the intake in future .

 

[Sea18Horse]

Thanks Micky, that's a good point. I'll keep that in mind when the time comes. I admit I'm getting ahead of myself a bit with this manifold/carb thing but I will need to rebuild the engine hatches at some point so I'll want to address it before then. BTW speaking of engine hatches, I'm intrigued by the PVC board you used in the Wellcraft project. That could get me back some of the planking look in the boat I'm going to lose in the bow.

Cheers........................

 

[mickyryan]

the pvc board is nice imho lightweight compared to wood great if you are trying to use as a underlayment too but has to be secured good or it will want to expand in the heat but minimal.

 

[Ned L]

The only thing I see in using the intake manifold is that you will need a wedge under it so the carb isn’t on a slope. (They are an available item.)

 

[Sea18Horse]

Thanks Ned, good to know. I'll look around. So far the only quadrajet wedge spacers that look like they'll work (The Crusader ones) all wedge the wrong way :facepalm: ! If I wind up going the two barrel route I may have some more options. Assuming they work with this particular two barrel, Glen-L the boat plan folks have some options. Thanks guys.

Cheers........................Todd

 

[mickyryan]

there are manifolds that already have the incline as well to avoid raising it any higher problem with spacers is they do same thing to some degree , they can raise your rpm /torque hp band also check because carb floats can be adjusted to overcome a certain % of angle its why some folks who put rake on there cars in 60 used to have problems because they wouldn't account for it in floats and run dry on fuel, also dad had a 64 he raked i bought it and car died on every hill going back to maryland, after new fuel pump and everything else i realised i couldnt go under half a tank to make it up hills, he lived in florida and never encountered problem after i got it home i realized the pickup was in front of tank rofl! of course i unraked the car and set it modern

 

[Sea18Horse]

Great story! Ah the good ol' days!

Yeah I'm hoping I can find a happy medium for the time being where it's not slobbering all over itself at idle but yet the secondaries won't run dry on acceleration. We'll see. So Micky have you seen a quadrajet intake that's reverse incline like I need? I'm coming up empty so far.

I pulled the alternator off tonight. It's got a really noisy bearing in it. Listening to it with a stethoscope with the engine running it sounded like the back bearing but with it in hand it sounds more like the front one. That would be a good thing. Easy to change.

Also figured out how they had the aft bilge pump wired in. Powered up only through the manual switch and only when the main battery switch is on. And shares a sketchy looking ground on the fuel tank sending unit with the sending unit itself and the hydraulic trim tab pump. Want to incorporate a dedicated ground with full time power, an automatic switch and an indicator. Going to leave the forward one on full automatic. That's the lowest point in the bilge at rest.

Cheers............................Todd

 

[Sea18Horse]

Update; Got the alternator fixed. It was the rear bearing. Had to get a new rotor, bearing and slip ring assembly and a new front bearing from Crowley Marine to rebuild this one. The brushes were nearly new still. Lots of outfits showed a one wire replacement for the Prestolite ALK 6222Y. Namely This one: https://www.*****************/newpart...?pnum=ARC40152 But in this case it wouldn't fit because the alternator mounts in a big cast iron housing where the pivot and slot are fixed. And that one is a half inch larger between the bolt holes, quite a bit larger overall and almost twice the output.



Lowered the float level in the carburetor almost a quarter inch. The port side is fine now but the starboard side still has an issue. Still slobbering all over itself. Must have something stuck in an air bleed.

I got to looking at the outside of that rotten spot on the port side and found a quarter sized hole in the plywood right at the water line. The plywood on the hull sides is supposed to be only 3/8" thick but that hole looked about a half inch deep! Desperately need to lighten that side of the boat!

Still haven't gotten the black water tank out yet. But last weekend I got the head out of the boat along with the fridge and microwave. The head was easy. The fridge and microwave not so much. Turns out they set the fridge in there and then screwed all the framework of the galley cupboard, drawer, sink and countertop right to the sides of the fridge and microwave.
Two dozen screws right through the side of the fridge! :facepalm: I wonder why it doesn't work? Almost a dozen more through the side of the microwave! I'm no expert but I don't think that is the prescribed method! (BTW why would you want a microwave on a boat?)

Anyway it worked. The hole is now a half inch above the water. I'm going to make a temporary patch with some 1/4" and 1/2" Mahogany marine plywood left over from my other project. 1/4" on the outside and 1/2" on the inside screwed together and sealed with 4200 is my plan.

I got the forward bilge pump and switch installed. Went to remove the screw holding the old switch to the bottom plywood. Screwed it out 1/2"...Still in there solid.......Screwed it out another 1/4".....still in there........Ummmmm... the bottom plywood is supposed to be only 1/2" thick... In my minds eye I can visualize an inch of screw sticking out the bottom of the boat :facepalm: . I left it and used it to mount the new switch for now. oy!!!!!

Tomorrow I'll be mounting some cleats in the boat house. (tired of having the boat tied to the rafters) And messing with the carburetor some more. Fun times!

Cheers.............................Todd

Edit, Ok I don't know what's going on with the link I tried to post but anyway it's an Arco 40152.

 

[Sea18Horse]

Update; I finally got cleats mounted in the boat house.

So nice to have it moored properly. More progress to come.

Cheers.................Todd

 

[Sea18Horse]

I've gotten the carburetor dialed in. Found an electric choke conversion kit to replace the home made choke stove that didn't really work at all.
Got it wired in and it works great. Cleaned up a bunch of old orphaned wiring and removed the inoperative Hobbs meter that was just hanging there by the wires. Had 273 hrs on it when it quit. Who knows when that was.

Cheers...........................Todd

 

[Sea18Horse]

I got a new starter. Arco marine p/n 50137 With starter solenoid ST-51 from Napa/Echlin. The original one was Prestolite p/n MDU-7032. The bendix in the old one would let go too easily some times. Also when warm it would sometimes just go clunk and not crank. Just one time then would start fine.

The ignition switch was starting to stick and continue cranking when I let go of the key. Tried lubing it but no dice so I replaced that as well.

I just have to breath on the key now and it fires right up .

On a side note, since I had the lab scope there I checked output on the alternator and got 51 amps out of it. Not bad for a 42 amp alternator!

Cheers.........................Todd