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):