I don't know for sure, but I am guessing 80's or 90's.

Rub Rail Renewal
 

Well, despite the temperatures soaring into the upper 90's yesterday, my sons and I tackled the rub rail installation. We went with basic black semi-rigid from Taco and it went on reasonably well. At first I was stressing about the exact placement of every screw so as to keep as straight a line as possible, but found that stretching and clamping the base made it easier to make it straight as well as move faster.

Nice job!!! Just looking for a dock to wack!!! :) You know it's gonna happen.....just when!!

I hope soon - can't wait to introduce her TO a dock! Still have some more wiring, connect all the rigging to the motor, and the fuel tank should be done next week. Still hoping for a June splash.

Looks great

You have done a great job on that little Seafari! I bet you can't wait to splash her!

Thanks, folks. As a side note, despite predrilling the rubrail screws, the strip of 3/4 inch plywood backer under the deck splintered in a bunch of places. I am thinking of mixing up some epoxy the consistency of peanut butter and troweling it on what's left to seal in the tips of the screws and prevent the rest of the plywood from flaking out. Then paint to match the rest of my inside hull (white). Any thoughts?

Wow, she's looking great!
The rub rail really came out nice. That's a project I need to tackle soon.
Congrats on your haul of vintage collectibles. I found similar treasures
when I explored the bilge, only with more spiders...

Electrical Razzafratz
 

Well, the wiring system is done, with the exception of an hour meter on the dash. Turned it on to test everything last night, and 80% good. The not so good included having to switch two wires from the all-around combination overhead light (the wrong side lit with the nav light switch), and the cabin light circuit not powered, and the rear bilge pump not switching on.

Got out the multi-meter to test the switches - multimeter shot (probably the internal fuse) and then got out the new USB plug in for the 12V receptacle on the dash - it was defective and would not give a voltage readout. Just not my night.

On the plus side, despite being about 5-6 statute miles from a navigible river, and over 10 miles to Raritan Bay, the old Apelco VHF tuned in real good with the new antenna. So good I heard a distress call of a boat taking on water, and the coast guard response. Hope they were OK. In retrospect, my night was a lot better than that chap's.

Oh, and the light on the trim indicator gauge seems to not light.

It think we've all had days like this!
The tool you need to fix the thing that broke is also broken...
and so it goes!
Sounds like good progress, though, and she's coming to life.
The fun part is just around the corner.

After obtaining a WORKING multimeter, I discovered that the newly purchased bilge pump dash switch was defective - only powered one of the two poles, so off to buy another one!

On the plus side, the fuel tank, fill hose, vent hose, deck fill fitting, fuel filter and supply lines are installed. Able to gas up now!

Good stuff!
Glad you got the gremlins figured out.
Add some go-juice and she if she floats!

She Runs!
 

Well, the controls are all in and working fine in the driveway tests. Time to take Ciao Bella out for a sea trial this week. Still lots of cosmetics to go, but the essential systems are functioning....

Looking good! Let us know how the sea trial goes!

Nice Job! Loving that teak!

Thanks!

Pending this weekends sea trial, and a few minor electrical issues (installing a new bilge pump switch and fuel gauge) I will be working on the cabin door next. I believe the door I salvaged from a barn last winter is mahogany, so we will see how close in color it comes out compared to the teak after refinishing...

Sea trial hits and misses
 

Well- the big day arrived, and we splashed Ciao Bella for a brief run in the Tom's River and Barnegat Bay. I give us an 85% success rate, which was more than enough to put a grin on my face, and my wife and son.

Had a gorgeous day for it - 83 degrees air temperature, 78 degrees water temps in the river, winds about 5-6 knots. Launched about 10:30 and immediately had a failure - initially forgot to prime the fuel line, so cranked a few times before I remembered, then turned the key and got a very short "urr" then no starter action at all. Crap! Switched the Blue Seas switch to combine, and fired right up. Puzzling. But headed out nevertheless, and did some donuts in the river - steering good, motor trim and indicator, good, tach and radio and fishfinder all good.

Took a turn for the open bay, and headed south along Island Beach State Park. Lots of boats out today (Sunday Funday) but enjoyed the company and took some stats and measurements down on the way.

Seemed my motor is mounted a little too low, of course. I took Denny's suggestion and put black electrician's tape on the white motor so I could see it, and it was visible, but not out of the flow at speed. I suspect with the motor one hole higher it would be good. It is now about 1 inch above the keel, so that would add about 3/4ths of an inch, and is all the adjustment I have on this setup anyway.

With a load of 3 people, about 30 gallons of fuel, the bimini up, and a BRP 3 blade prop 15x15, I observed a top speed at WOT of about 28.5 knots at 5600-5700 rpms. Seems I am revving too high with this prop. My Johnson manual says max RPM should be 5000 rpms. Speed at 4000 rpm was about 20 knots.

Comfortable cruise was around 3500 -3750 rpms and 18 knots.

Due to "first time itis" - which I diagnose as the stress in trying to remember/check/observe and listen to every part of the boat at once, I took few photos, but my son did snap these, indicating a good does of euphoria. And his selfie shows he had a good time at WOT!

How in the h--- did that happen?
 

Photo upside down?

twice, no less!
 

strange....

Last try
 

[QUOTE][/Q]Let's see if this works...

sorry folks.

Hey John, sounds like you had a pretty successful first outing! FYI, I made a series of checklists on 3x5 cards that I keep in my truck for hookup, launching, and retrieving. They help to insure I don't forget anything, especially if I haven't used boat for a month or two!

Your speed/rpm numbers sound about right for a 15"P prop, assuming your gear ratio is 2.0:1. I used to run a 13 3/4 x 15P 3B SS OMC SST prop on my 115, and I used to cruise all day long on Bahama runs at 4500 rpm and about 20 kts/23 mph with a very heavy load. WOT was 5500/32-33 mph, again with a very heavy load and top raised. However in 1975, motors were rated at the powerhead instead of the prop, so the fact that you can turn a 3B 15x15P 3B prop, assuming you have a 2.0 ratio, says that your motor is putting out a fair amount more power, probably 120-125 hp at the prop. I suspect my old motor probably wasn't more than about 100-105 hp at the prop. Optimum rpm on most of the E-TECs is around 5500-5750, and I think your powerhead is very similar, so I think you'd be fine if you could wind it up to 5500. The crank on those V-4's is only about 6" long and they're good for about 9000 rpm, so 5500-6000 sure won't hurt it. But I'd raise the motor and try it again with the same prop to see if you can pick up a little more speed. Experiment with the trim and do some handling checks (sudden sharp turns) to see how high you can trim it it without prop ventilating or blowing out.

Congratulations!
I'm so happy she performed well, and that you guys had a good day on the
water. Working out a few bugs should be easy now that the hard work
is done. I hope you have many more adventures this year!

Thanks for the kinds words and input.

After checking the manual again, I discovered the WOT rpm range is really 4500-5500 rpms, so I am not that much over, but I have a 17 pitch prop and may just substitute that on the next run to see how that does.

I believe the Blue Seas battery switch is faulty, and will be checking that component carefully tonight or tomorrow - It worked as it should on Saturday night, and again on Sunday morning, but somehow lost the connection to the starting battery at the dock on launching.

I tested this on the water by switching the batteries back from combined to run position while the motor was running, and though the motor remained running, lost my tach readout, indicating that the start battery was disconnected in that position, and maybe not feeding the ignition/motor circuit. Back at the dock, the motor trim switch would not work on the run position, further confirming that the connection in the switch had been lost. But at the combined position the trim switch worked fine, so the house battery was powering it. Could just be a loose connection, but I am inclined to suspect an internal switch problem, as the battery cables are tight at the batteries and the switch, the cable terminals are bright/newly installed, and were working the night before.

Another small event of note on the test run - while running at 18 knots in the channel, with boats ahead and astern, I swiveled my helm chair just enough to catch the oversized keychain float I had stupidly attached to the key, and it turned off the motor! Startling is not the word for this! I am glad I had raised the transom, so the stern wave did not swamp us, but was I annoyed! So were the boats behind me!

Be careful switching batteries with the motor running, as that can blow the diodes in the alternator unless your battery switch is specifically designed for that! I think your tach signal comes from the alternator, so that might be why your tach quit working!

Found the culprit on the switch question - a simple blown fuse. Apparently I undersized the fuse on the Blue Seas MRBF fuse on the starting battery. Will order new ones of the proper capacity and try again. Lesson learned.

Denny:

In your response you mentioned: "your speed/rpm numbers sound about right for a 15"P prop, assuming your gear ratio is 2.0:1."

I looked it up and I have the large gearcase of M type, with 2.25:1 ratio.

With that much gear reduction you can probably spin a 17"P prop up to 5500.

With a 2.25:1 ratio and a 15"P prop, 28.5 kts works out to a prop slip of 8.9% at 5700 rpm and 7.3 % at 5600, if the rpm numbers are accurate. Slip numbers below 10% are very good, especially for a 3B prop. Do you have a digital tach, and are you running a stainless or aluminum prop?

The prop I was running for the initial test is a 15x15 3 blade aluminum. This weekend if the weather forecast is ok, I will switch to a 3 blade 15x17 aluminum and record some numbers. I will not raise the motor just yet, because I did not feel I had optimum trim for my initial observation, and I also did not do any turning to assess blowout. I will try to do both on the next outing and then make a determination on the height after I feel I have the correct trim setting. I don't want to raise the motor, only to have to lower it again.

It is the typical analog tach, not digital, unfortunately, but it is fresh from the dealer last month. Hope it is close to accurate.

One other thing - the 17p prop has a good bit more cupping on the trailing edge than the 15p - could that make a big difference in sternlift?

First new analog tach I bought from the dealer for my old 115 read high by about 300 rpm, leading me to buy the wrong prop! At least they gave me another tach after they tested the first one. I'd have dealer check your tach accuracy before you buy a prop!
I think trailing cup is typical of a bow lifting prop that's normally used for max WOT speed. I believe a stern lifter will have a lot of cup in the tip, although any 4B prop will give extra stern lift.

Testing resumes
 

Today I managed a good run in the bay- 12 nm or so. Using the aluminum
3 blade 15x17p prop we recorded WOT top speed of just 30 knots at 5200 rpm, so this seems to be the right prop for the boat so far. Seemed to cruise nicely with 6 people (our typical max load) and a full tank of fuel. That was with the bimini down.

However, at one point we were running in about 3-4 feet of water (Barnegat Bay is shallow) and we hit something submerged with the prop while at low speed, and put a good 1/4 inch ding in two places on the prop. Razzafrats! No damage to the skeg, though, so not sure what we hit.

Congrats on a good day!
I guess the good thing about aluminum is that it's easy to straighten...

I respectfully disagree. Not sure of optimum rpm for your motor, how accurate your analog tach is, and if you've raised motor enough to get AV plate above water at cruise, but I think you should see at least 5500 rpm at WOT. (I believe optimum on the V-4 T-TECs, which use the same basic block, crank, rods, etc., is 5500-5750.) I ran a 13 3/4 x 15P SST prop on my old carb'd 115 which allowed it to spin up to about 5500 rpm with a very heavy Bahamas-type load and the top raised, and about 5700/30 kts with a light load and top down. I put well over 1000 hrs on that motor with no problems. When you lug down the motor by running a prop with too much pitch, it increases pressure and temperature in the cylinder, increasing loads on the bearings and rings and raising piston temperature that weakens the piston and makes it more prone to detonation or pre-ignition caused by a hot carbon deposit!

You can't hear detonation in a 2-stroke motor because there are no valves to rattle, which is what you hear in a 4-stroke motor that's "pinging", and is caused shock waves from fuel mixture which is exploding instead of burning! In the worst case scenario, the first sign of detonation in a 2-stroke may be when it blows a hole in the top of the piston! The lower speeds on an over-propped motor also reduce exhaust scavenging, leading to more carbon deposits on the piston, rings, heads and exhaust ports. Because the 2-strokes have nearly frictionless needle bearings, very short strokes and very rigid short cranks (good for about 9000 rpm on a V-4!), high rpm doesn't hurt 'em, and the harder you run 'em the more oil they get, so you're much better off to err on the high rpm side when selecting a prop!

Next time you're out, I would also test with bimini top up, which will further reduce your WOT rpm, so you may actually need an increase of about 400 rpm. That would typically require a pitch reduction of about 2", so when you get that dinged prop repaired, I would ask the prop shop if they could reduce pitch to about 15". You may not lose that much speed because the prop will be spinning faster with the motor higher up on it's HP curve, plus it will accelerate and climb on plane quicker. Once you get the aluminum prop dialed in, you'll then have a good baseline for selecting a more expensive stainless prop if you want a bit more speed and efficiency! I picked up about 3 mph with the heavily cupped SS prop because it allowed me to raise motor a couple holes.

Denny: My manual indicates a WOT rpm range of 4500-5500, and based on recommendations from several sources, I was under the impression that a WOT rpm figure in the top 50% of the range (5000-5500) was a good target. Is that not the case? My Evinrude dealer/mechanic advised to shoot for close to 5000 rpms.

My first test with bimini up and only 3 people aboard was approximately equal to the collective load on my second test with 6 people and no bimini. I think the loads should be similar, no?

Until BRP published the Optimum RPM ranges for the E-TEC 's, which is a much narrower range than the "Recommended Operating Range", the latter range is the only thing most dealers ever talked about! However the dealer I used for my old 115 had been selling outboards since the 1930's and seemed to be very knowledgeable. They insisted that the motor would be much happier and live longer if I propped it to turn 5500 (the top of the "Recommended Operating Range") with the max load, and that's what I'd do if had your motor. I believe Fr. Frank would say the same thing.

If they repitch your prop to 15" and rpm is too high with max load, a good shop should be able to add some cup in the tip that would bring rpm down and also add some stern lift. That would help lower your min planing speed which you will like because of how it improves the ride if you ever get into a rough chop.

On the outing before this past one, a 15 pitch prop (Michigan Wheel I think) turned around 5700-5750 on the last outing. I thought that was not advised because it was above the 5500 max recommended?

I have another 15 pitch prop (BRP I believe) that I will try next. It seems to be a little bit different (thicker blades).

My 14 3/4 x 15P BRP Cyclone 4B SS prop has a very heavily cupped and very thick trailing edge on the blades, so it acts like it has more pitch than 15"! It's actually harder to turn than my larger 4B SS 15 x 15P PowerTech; the Cyclone turns about 100-150 rpm less @ WOT than the PT, but it's 2-3 mph faster! If the BRP prop is a 3B SS Rebel, it may be very hard to turn as it has very large blades and lots of cup. My dealer said they're normally only used on the big block 3.3-3.4L V-6 motors.