Another 25 Seafari goes under the knife

[Blue_Heron]

Well sorta.

As strick’s 25 Seafari restoration is finishing up, mine is just beginning. I hope I can progress as quickly as he has. The first thing I worked on was the fuel tanks.





I posted last September asking for suggestions to get the heavy varnish out of them. The consensus was to use carburetor cleaner in the gallon size. I couldn’t find it for less than $30 per gallon, and being the tightwad I am, resorted to a mix of lacquer thinner and acetone. Hell, it smelled like carb cleaner. And it dissolved a fair amount of the crud. But it left behind quite a bit of flakey brown residue that I couldn’t rinse out. So I poured in some more lacquer thinner, a bag of marbles, and put both tanks in the bed of my truck for a few weeks. The marbles rolled around and knocked loose more crud and the fresh lacquer thinner dissolved most of the heavy residue. I siphoned out the lacquer thinner and rinsed the tank with soapy water. What I poured out looked like this:





What was left behind was a light flakey material that I couldn’t rinse out and couldn’t reach to scrub out. In a moment of desperation, I even considered cutting one end out of each tank to clean them and then get them welded back. Fortunately, I came up with a better alternative. I had an old gear motor that we used years ago to turn a rotisserie with a whole hog on it. I knew it was still lying around somewhere, but I looked high and low and couldn’t find it. While I was finishing up my shop, I was searching fruitlessly for something else and stumbled across the gear motor. I made up a frame to hold the tank, attached the gear motor to one side and a flanged pipe to the other side for an axle and the Tank TumblerTM was born.




I let it tumble for about four hours and the remaining varnish crumbled into powder that I was able to suck out with my shop vac. The BBs that didn't vacuum out, I removed with a magnet on a string. Rinsed with soapy water, then clean water, then dried, and the inside is clean as a whistle.

This past weekend I pulled the outdrive and motor and lifted the beast off the trailer. Will post more tomorrow or over the weekend.

Dave

[Spidercrab]

I had an old gear motor that we used years ago to turn a rotisserie with a whole hog on it.

mr heron

u can't cook no hog wit dat moter. try dis one. click on build yer own. i ferget to tell u to not use marbles cuz they chip yer tooth

sam


how to rig yer pig

[Old'sCool]

Thats a damn good idea!

[strick]

Dave-

What a way to start out your thread! when you get spidercrabs attention you know your doing something right! Looking forward to your rebuild. What is your plan for this boat?

strick

[Blue_Heron]

mr heron

u can't cook no hog wit dat moter. try dis one. click on build yer own. i ferget to tell u to not use marbles cuz they chip yer tooth

sam

Sam,
I didn't have no bicycle wheels like they got on their fancy hog spinnin contraption, but I think you'da been proud if you seen it. I made a couple pulleys outa wood and wrapped a v belt around em. Had that pig turnin real slow, about once every two minute.
Dave

[Blue_Heron]

Dave-

What a way to start out your thread! when you get spidercrabs attention you know your doing something right! Looking forward to your rebuild. What is your plan for this boat?

strick

Hey strick,
The primary use for the boat will be fishing, mainly grouper fishing (and sometimes spear fishing) off the Florida Big Bend but also occasional trips to the Keys or east coast to troll for dolphin, tuna, or wahoo. I'll also want to use it for boat camping every once in a while. I really like the idea of repeating Bushwacker's trip around the southern part of the state.

The restoration plan is for a cosmetic face lift, repower, and a complete re-rigging. The hull is structurally sound. The transom was redone around '95 and is still solid. But there are spider cracks on the exterior that I need to investigate and repair. Since the paint will be coming off the transom, I may repaint the whole thing. The cap, the cockpit, and the bottom below the chine will get paint at a minimum.

Power will be a 300HP Mercruiser Seacore closed cooled 350 Mag MPI bolted up to the existing Bravo 1 drive. Eventually, I would like to find a good used Bravo 3. Plumbing will be redundant bilge pumps, Live well, fresh water and raw water washdown. Electronics will be VHF, Fish Finder, GPS, and Stereo.

Other stuff it needs; windshield, bimini top, fish box and live well (gonna copy you on those if you don't mind), helm and passenger seats, and maybe a radar arch. I'm sure other stuff will come along as I work through it. I'm excited to finally get started on it. Hopefully that won't wear off before I get her done. I'm headed out to the shop this morning to clean out the bilge and finish de-rigging. I'll probably be able to post progress pics tonight.
Dave

[Blue_Heron]

I started working on the boat last Friday night after work. I started the de-rigging by removing the swim platform, platform brackets, and the outdrive. Unfortunately, the power trim, which was working when I bought the boat, wouldn't trim down. The pump ran, but the outdrive wouldn't budge. I looked in the fluid reservoir and the fluid looked like milk. Not good. I managed to work it loose and got it trimmed down so I could pull the outdrive. By the time I got all that done it was definitely time for a beer.





With the outdrive off, I was ready to pull the motor on Saturday morning.





The previous owner said she threw a rod. He wasn't quite correct. There was a hole in the side of the block with the remains of a piston showing through.





I pulled the accessories off and tore the motor down to see If I could determine the cause of failure. There wasn't much left of that cylinder and the others didn't look so good either.





The exhaust valve for the damaged cylinder was nowhere to be found. I'm guessing it stuck open, the piston hit it and snapped it off, and the piston got destroyed trying to chew on the valve.


Before I tore the engine down, I flushed out the power trim pump and rams with clean transmission fluid. Then I flushed them again. And Again. Both Rams were functioning freely by the time I was done.

I knew I wouldn't be able to put the boat inside the shop with the roll-up door closed while it was on the trailer. I bought some heavy duty casters and made a dolly to set her on so I could move her inside or outside depending on what I was doing. I want to do the sanding outside, but whenever I'm doing stuff that doesn't create dust, I want to be able to work in the A/C. Here's the dolly ready to go, and the transom supported on blocks.





Then I lifted the bow and pulled the trailer out from under it.





Next was to put block supports under the forward keel, stick braces under the sides so it wouldn't roll over, move the gantry back to the transom, lift it up, slide the dolly under, and set her down. I cleated some supports to the dolly, and here she is.





With all that weight on it, the dolly didn't like to roll on the broom finished concrete outside the shop. I had to hook a come along to the back wall of the shop to get it rolling. Once it got to the trowel finished concrete inside, I could move it myself. She fits in the shop with about 20" in the back and less than a foot at the bow. The shop looks and feels a lot smaller with this beast in there.





Yesterday I hauled the old mota to the scrap yard. Got $28 for it. Beer money. Yesterday afternoon and today, I've been de-rigging the bilge and cleaning up the mess. More pics later.

Dave

[77SceptreOB]

Nice pics, good job.

[Bushwacker]

Dave, you're off to a great start! That was a pretty violent failure for the rod end to punch through both the cylinder wall AND the outside of the block! Maybe the piston disintegrated from detonation, allowing the unsupported small end of the rod to flop around and punch that hole.

Clever idea for cleaning the gas tank! It's amazing what a little vibration and some rocks can do! We used to deburr superalloy turbine blades by putting them in a washtub full of silicon carbide rocks sitting on a shaker table! That material is so hard (machinability index of 5; pure aluminum is 100 on same scale!) that a file will barely scratch it!

I like your dolly set-up too! Will make it a lot easier climbing in and out of that thing! Keep up the great work!
Denny

[SBD]

Neat shop!

These Seafari's are growing on me...really cool looking boats.

Looks like you are off to a SOLID start.