She's home again

Success! Oh man what a great week. Not only was I able to get the pieces assembled but we have had an exceptionally successful shake down cruise.

I'll start with last Monday. In the middle of a hectic process of opening the season opener at work I took the day to put in all the last pieces. As has been the case through this entire project, I hit a couple snags. The steering was a bear to put in. The cable was stiff and argumentative. I managed to wrestle it into place. But there were three extremely important pieces missing: 1. the long 1/4" machine screws holding the steering into its steel anchor in the dash. 2. The nut to hold on the steering wheel (at this point in the story I had no clue what size it was, the original was long lost). And 3. a small steel wedge that fits between the wheel and the steering shaft, again extremely important. The first two can be purchased, the third is a unique and impossible to find little beast. It took three trips to the store to get long enough screws and a steering nut (1/2" fine thread, and no, Home Depot does not carry them). The little steel wedge I cut from a scrap of steel from work. I cut a tiny piece of what I think is 1/8" steel and shaped it with my grinder.
Once the steering was sorted, I installed the stereo, speakers, kick panels under the dash, and attempted to put in the stern trim with the drape over the bilge and fuel area. Since the vinyl is thicker than the old that last piece didn't fit. It will need to be stripped, trimmed, and re-upholstered. Not the end of the world just annoying since it can't go in until then. I also fixed the bow carpet down with spray adhesive, it turned out better than I expected.
I ended the day there, everything took so much longer than I expected there was no time left for a test run. This was unfortunate because Rachele and I decided that since the next weekend was our anniversary we were going to spend the weekend at Lake Chelan and wanted the boat there with us. While I was confident the boat would be fine I was wary to have the first test run 180 miles away after dragging it over the mountains. Not to mention I still had to put the seats in and the last time I did that we put a hole through the boat.
So once Thursday and opening of the show came an went I got up ridiculously early and took the boat and trailer to Discount Tire for an axle lube and a sign off on the tires. Then it was to Seward Park for a test launch. It was 9am and there was no time for ceremony so I put her in for a total of 15 minutes just to check for leaks. Since it was rushed and only a "please god don't sink" test we won't count that as it shake down.
There we were, ready for a real launch and a room with a dock waiting for us at Lake Chelan, So over the mountains we went. Better, stronger, and hopefully at least as fast.

Before we get to the launch here are some close ups of some of the upgrades I've made:

New tongue jack, grade 8 hardware, chains, and paint job. The jack swivels 90deg when connected to a vehicle so it's out of the way.

New winch and stainless steel bow protection

Keel guard for protection from the trailer and the occasional beach.

Anchors on the four quarters for fender tie downs

Loooooove the new vinyl

New storage compartment under the forward most seat. Handy for the rarely used gack.

Speedometer and power jack in the dash. The jack will be used to plug in a charger to maintain the batteries while in storage. Also, you can see the new kick panel under the dash with a speaker.

Here's a bad picture of the new depth sounder.

The sending units on the stern for the the speedometer and depth sounder.

Stereo for some rockin' tunes.

New 6.5 gallon fuel tanks. What's not featured here is the brass tank selector valve. No more wrestling with a leaky line to change tanks!

And the prop is black again.

Fret not loyal readers, as promised here is a video of her maiden launch (sorry about the poor quality, that's the price of a free blog. If you want a better copy I can get you one):

Next stop the water!

I haven't been very good about updating this recently. I have been working a bunch and hammering away at the Phantom to get her finished in time to go out at least a few times before the weather turns. Since I am now about 5 hours worth of work away I will make a push here to fill you all in.

As you can tell from my last post, the motor is fixed. Two weeks ago I took it up to Master Marine in Mount Vernon and they replaced some old corroded wiring in the starter relay and now she runs like a charm. Why Mount Vernon you ask? Because in 1988 when Dad bought the motor they were the dealer and have been maintaining it ever since. For a while in the 90's and early 00's Dad often joked that the motor was the only part of the boat worth anything. Of course now it's the oldest piece. Hopefully in the next couple years we'll be able to replace it with a new fancy 4 stroke.

 Here she is as I drop her off at the mechanic

After the motor got fixed I concentrated on getting the batteries, charging relay, battery switch, and lighting wired up. On Monday Ira came over and cut, sanded, and finished the wood trim for the upholstery so I could get the wiring done. While Rachele stretched and stapled the upholstery together (huge job unto itself)  and Ira finished the last bit of carpentry I did my best not to blow myself up cramming all the pieces into a bilge area never meant to hold this much. But all three of us were successful in our various tasks so by the end of labor day weekend there was no more construction to be done, all that was left was to assemble

And of course I am rapidly running out of time. This week has been work-a-palooza every day 11am-12am so boat time has been non- existent. Fortunately I was able to squeeze a few hours out this morning. I started on the bow railings. Ira was able to bend them for me so I laid them in to get anchored down. Here is where I hit the first speed bump of the day. The new posts are much shorter than the old ones so I couldn't align them the same way. I had to shift the entire railings in a little to clear the cleats and make room for the mooring ropes. After the rails were in I began on the bow upholstery. Rachele worked her butt of to get it all stapled together and did an amazing job. It's a huge pain but looks great. I pre-drilled the trim and line it all up completely unprepared for how hard this step was going to be. The screws had a heck of a time penetrating the fiberglass and I stripped more than my weight in stainless steal. It took longer than it should have but its all in. I began with the back padding and finished with the seats. With the seats I bolted down new brass hinges and then screwed the hinges into the 3/4" ply. The new upholstery is a little thicker than the old but not too much to cause problems, it just means they are tighter to each other. I had hoped to turn the forward most seat into a hinged storage compartment as well for the anchor and BBQ but the rest of the seating is too close. So I'll have to make some clips to hold it down. I will need the storage.

Simply beautiful

You'll notice some carpet on the floor. That section of floor is a mess of rough fiberglass edges and lag screws so I will need to have carpet there, even though the rest of the boat will not.

After the bow was finished I turned my attention to the main panels in the rear. I started on the starboard side so I could anchor the throttle. Since the new pockets are wider than the old I went without padding to save some of the room eaten up. This actually made them much easier to install. I could also use shorter (read: cheaper) screws. The hard part here came in wedging the piece in. It's larger, over 65", thin, and stark white. So I could force it it might break or get really dirty. Once wedged in I pressed on the aluminum edging to protect the vinyl along the top edge of the pocket. the  metal on starboard was a piece of cake, port however seems longer. It won't go back in and needs to be trimmed. It must have grown in the last two years. After I anchored down the large starboard panel I bolted down the throttle. This turned out to be a piece of cake. The only other time I performed this task was floating on Lake Washington after I had lost the key to the lake. The garage is a much easier place to bolt this puppy down.

Starboard assembled. All it's missing now is the steering wheel and seats.

Port, you can see the aluminum trim sticking up waiting to be trimmed.

Now all that's left is: Prop (kind of important) that's coming in on Monday, 
Seats which will take almost no time, trimming the aluminum on port, reinstalling the horn, steering, and anchoring the fuel tanks. Then she'll be ready to go!

I hope to have video of her rechristening cruise for my next post. Stay tuned !!

Vroom vroom