Fathers Day Gift - Seafari 20

[jtharmo]

So I'm new to Seacrafts and boats with motors in general. I originally was speaking with Bigeasy about his '69 Seafari listed in the For Sale forum. But my wife wasn't letting me bring home a project. Super guy if anyone is interested.

I found this one in the Mass area (they only seem to exist in Massachusetts and Florida). It's a '78 with what seems to be a good running '78 Merc Black Max 1750. In general the hull is in very good condition and I would call it a running project, mostly just cleaning and updating. The only issue I found was a soft floor in the step down to the cuddy. I will tackle that in the fall.

I do have one question and one observation. First the question. What is this? I opened the engine cover and this dropped out. I didn't see anything obvious out of place or missing. Manual is on the way but I can't find this peice online



Also, I was surprised to find it has a 25" transom. I can find the faint line where the splash well was built up, yes, exactly 5" down. The previous owner was insistent it's all original. I'm reasonably certain Potter SeaCrafts never had 25" transoms. Does anyone know of any dealers that may have raised transoms by request or any other reason?

[jtharmo]

Forgot photos and f the boat and transom

[Terry England]

Originally Posted by SSPBill

Forgot photos and f the boat and transom

Major Score! The "yeller" ones always look great. Good luck wearing out that Black Max - they are very "resilient" - ask Frizzle.

[NoBones]

Your spare part looks like the plunger for the choke solenoid.....

[bilgerat]

Originally Posted by NoBones

Your spare part looks like the plunger for the choke solenoid.....

yep, choke plunger
good looking boat, My first seacraft was a yeller 20 seafari. great boat

[jtharmo]

Google agrees. Thanks guys.

[gofastsandman]

Originally Posted by SSPBill

Google agrees. Thanks guys.

Happy Dad day indeed.

[Capt Terry]

Congratulations on your 20' Seafari. It looks very much like my '76 yellow 20' Seafari. There will probably be plenty of suggestions on CSC about your soft stepdown. Here's what I did for my soft stepdown way before I knew of CSC. It first occurred forward of the cabin door, then a few years later aft of the door. I used a thick cutoff wheel on a Dremel tool with a flexible drive ( to keep the fiberglass dust away from the Dremel brushes and bearings). Then carefully peeled back the upper layer. I scraped out all of the balsa and replaced it with some layers of roving and polyester resin. Then mixed up some cabosil with resin to make a putty to glue the upper layer in place. Then caulked up my cut line. It is firmer than it ever was. There are materials available that could have been lighter weight and just as stiff. But this worked well for me for about 18 years on the repair forward of the door, which I actually did with the boat in the water at my dock at night! The aft repair was done about 10 years ago.

[TomParis]

nice pickup indeed!

[jtharmo]

I know I have had my Seafari for well over a month and the weather up here has been near-perfect for boating but we finally got the boat out for the first time this weekend. It was just a quick spin and everything worked except for one thing, the fuel gauge. It is an old Medallion gauge that is original to the boat ('78). Does anyone know what the resistance range is this vintage gauge reads? I checked continuity between the gauge and sending unit, the grounds as well as 12v across the gauge. If I short the gauge it reads full. In practice however it doesn't move. I now the tank was changed by the PO and I assume by the look of it the sending unit was too. I'm also assuming since its newer the sending unit is a 240-ish to 30-ish ohm unit. Since everything seems to check out on there own I'm trying to figure out if this I just a compatible problem.