I had a '65 18' Holiday badly mistreated and lived half sunk for who knows how long. Once I got it home I realized I paid way too much for it even though that wasn't all that much.
Restoration main components were the transom and deck...the one you walk on on the hull proper. The hull was in sorry shape cosmetically so after I had the "innerds removed, I loaded it on a trailer and took it to a sand blasting shop in Dallas where they had an overhead rail able to raise and move the boat around the place. It went into the sand blasting area and was blasted. Then brought back out and a couple of coats of epoxy white and she looked really good. I painted the deck and Gunwale caps. I think that cost me around 200 bucks.
There was a Galvanizing facility in the DFW area that coated things like cross country power line parts and agreed to hot dip the trailer for 30 bucks. I pulled the trailer over there, after dropping the boat off at the sandblasters, right there in the lot, disassembled it to suit them (and me) had the parts (all but the spring/axle assy) sandblasted and hot dipped. All that and I had the trailer back together and back home in one day. Probably a week later I went back to pick up the empty hull.
Really surprised but the I4 Chevy block Mercruiser engine made it, even though the oil was mustard color, with a valve job and other minor normal maintenance items/gaskets, plus a JB weld repair on a horizontal 2" split on the block from a water freezing crack half way up the side of the block....surprised it held as long as I had the boat and then some so I heard.
Removing the engine from the boat to repair other parts consisted of stripping the "removables" (internal moving parts and oil pan remained intact) from the block and manhandling it up on the Gunwale (I was aboug 35 at the time and in pretty good shape) and holding it while a couple of neighbors sat it on the ground...boat was on the trailer in my driveway.
The outdrive had been a marina queen with the LU in the water and I had a lot of reconstruction work to do there (JB weld to the rescue again) to get sealing surfaces flat enough to seal, but was able to do it at home with a simple arrangement of tools. I had significant gear wear on the rear of the F gear and thought a machine shop could correct it. Reply was no way, too hard. I replaced the clutch dog which solved the "slipping out of gear while underway" problem without having replaced the gear.
Why I didn't just buy a new gear is now a mistery to me other than I was pretty financially into this project at the time considering all inputs including the purchase price and I just didn't......but in retrospect, the new dog luckily solved the problem.....this occurred long before the advent of the internet...would have made a whopping difference. The Gymbal bearings and CV joint needed replacing and I went to a local bearing house and got replacements best I could. The only problem was the CV joint, don't think I got the exact replacements and once completed and operational,, outdrive would vibrate once it had moved past about 20 degrees from CL....not that bad but annoying.
Made a really nice fishing boat for the family of 6, smooth, quiet I4, didn't have PT....would have been nice (wasn't available on the '65 models), on our usually wind driven, rough N. Texas lakes. Doing it today, if I were still 35 would have given me better access to better replacement outdrive parts and a more satisfied completion.
So, if you had nothing better to do this AM, as I with the nasty weather outside, current boat sitting inside my farm shop, temporarily collecting dust, this may have provided you with some entertainment. Wink!
