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Five Litre Bathtub

Started by _Bomber Watson_ , Dec 18 2010 04:19 PM

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82 replies to this topic

#1 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 04:19 PM

Gday guys, though i would share with you all the tale of the boat, cause im bored.

I literally pulled it out from under a tree at this blokes place, threw him a wad of cash hooked it up to the car and drove off.

Was in a fairly sad but complete state when i got her, heres a few picks of the night i got her home.

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She is a 15.5ft 1979 model Flightcraft Phantom, mid mount 308. Not really the kinda boat i was looking for at the time as i dont like 308's and mid mount is a stupid idea but for the money i couldent say no.

Soooo first thing i did was give it a good wash then proceede to see if it ran, apparently it had a seized engine. Well i put a battery in it, took the fuel line off the tank and put it in a jerry of fresh fuel, cranked it over and off it went. Yay win.

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Things that were wrong with it at that point were the prop shaft was #@$^%&, the coupling from the dog box was #@$^%&, and the dog box wouldent go into gear. Meh not so bad.

So i ordered a new prop shaft from a certain marine company on Windsor Road Vinyard Sydney that i wont name, and it ended up a keyway was machined incorrectly, we had to spend another couple of hours on it to get it right What made it worse is after i discovered this i emailed them twice and tried calling them five times with no reply to anything.

I also got a new copling direct from Kincad Marine Rolco, the origional manufacturers of the dog box, i cannot speak highly enough of these guys, recieved the item the day after i ordered it, great to talk to, and they know there shit. Please anyone needing boat parts contact them first. Was a welcome relief after being #@$^%& around by the other certain company on Windsor Road.

Whilst all this was going on i was just playing around, machined up some new rudder bushes out of nylon, made new floors, roughly fixed some of the ratty trim, got it registered as i had a day off, put new numbers on it, repainted the origional name on the side of the boat, fitted led tailights to the trailer, little things like that. Heres some various picks.

Cause the old rego number was painted on the side i had to think of some quick, neat and cool looking way to cover them, so did this.
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Then i could see the outline of the origional name still faded into the gellcoat, so i decided to redo it...
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Picks of floors i made out of marine grade plywood etc
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Not sure how many picks i can put in one post so i'll stop there for now, will put more up a bit later.

Edited by Bomber Watson, 18 December 2010 - 04:24 PM.

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#2 _nzstato_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 04:33 PM

Sweet bomber,definitely jealous of your project. It's funny how I'd barely seen a mid-mount before cheeking out some ozzy forums, everyone over here runs jet units. what's the big plan for her?

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#3 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 04:50 PM

Alrighty that worked so i'll go some more.

Got the prop shaft, coupling etc sorted and back in, turns out the motor was way off center, probably half the reason the old shaft and coupling failed. So i straitened that up, replaced a few hoses, did basic stuff, stuck her together and took her to the river....

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Went quiet well, had a lad who knew the boat from before i got it, and he said it used to have a massive drive line vibration, which was now totally gone, woot win.

It went quiet well, but had a bit of a miss up the top and wouldent go past about 4000rpm/80kph, which was a bit annoying. Also i had trouble keeping the temp down, if you held it for a bit to long the temp would sky rocket. Last problem was it kept blowing the oil filler cap off..... Then at one stage the temp went up, and even when i slowed down it kept going up, untill it died.

MOTHERfrOckER frOck SHIT PISS POOO and various other words like that were spoken. After about 10 minutes of randomly paddling it to keep it off the edge of the river, she cooled down enough and started up again, and i headed toward the bank on about 4 cyls at full throttle just to keep it running. About half way back i had a bit of an idea to just pop the engine cowl to let a bit of air in, reached around and opened it and suddenly it came back on 8 and damb near jumped out of the water, and as such another problem was found, NOT ENOUGH AIR IN THERE.

When i got it home i decided to investigate the cooling issues, so i pulled the water pump apart and found the problem strait away. The water pump impeller had eaten itself and sent little bits of rubber all through the lines. Yay.

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More to come but the forum yelled at me for putting up to many picks.

Edited by Bomber Watson, 18 December 2010 - 04:51 PM.

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#4 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 05:06 PM

nzstato, yeah mid mount is common as comodores around here.

Plans currently are to get it reliable for the skiing season, might do something silly later on, its a good hull, in good shape and a nice old school shape, just the driveline lets it down a bit being mid mount and holden v8 powered.

Ok back into it.

Since the pump impeller ate itself i ordered a couple of new ones from Rex Marine in the USA, another very good company to deal with, and set about making a few improvements.

See, at first i had decided just not to screw with it and leave it basically stock, but when it failed, and the things that had failed were the only things i hadnt screwed with, i decided to frOck with everything.

i did an order to summit and got a nice box of goodies, including a carbie spacer, air cleaner spacer, hilborn style scoop, autometer guages, accel plug wires, holley rebuild kit fram breathers, etc etc.

So first thing was to fit the scoop up and get that sorted, i didnt like the mounting bracket they supplied with it so i made my own, much nicer, then dummy'd it up on the old manifold.

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Fitted my nice new guages

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And swapped the stock manifold out for an Edelbrock Troquer i had laying around.

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With that being a squarebore bolt pattern the old wedge i had on the standard mani was no good, it was rochester pattern, so i ordered a squarebore to square bore wedge from Kincad Marine Rolco, and again, they were absolutely fantastic.

Rebuilt the carbie, which was totally #@$^%&. Thankfully i had a spare so i made one out of two. I used a Holley Trickit rebuild kit, i cannot reccomend them highly enough. They come with everything you need, and reuseable gaskets where required so you can pull the float bowls etc off as many times as you want. Cheap to at about $35 for the 4bbl one, i also used one on the grenaides carb it was about $25
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I also got an electric dizzy off ebay, as i traced the miss down to the points gap being incorrectly set on the old points dizzy. I had actually rebuilt and bench set the old points dizzy, buying an electirc one was a last minute decision, but i managed to get rid of a few wires, balast resistor, etc, neated a few things up and used the MSD blaster 3 coil i had laying around.

I fitted up the Accel Super Stock wires (that im not impressed with), modded the rocker covers so both breathers were up the top and fitted my new breathers, rebuilt he water pump and fitted a one way check valve in the water pump inlet so it cant run dry, fitted new marine style exhasut rubber, and replaced the steel exhaust ends that rusted with stainless...

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More to come....

Edited by Bomber Watson, 18 December 2010 - 05:12 PM.

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#5 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 05:17 PM

The next order of business was making the cowel fit around the scoop and still look cool.....

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More to come.....

Edited by Bomber Watson, 18 December 2010 - 05:18 PM.

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#6 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 05:29 PM

#7 AbsynthHatch

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 05:55 PM

Well you have been busy haven't you

Thats cool, on ya mate.

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#8 GML-31

Oh My, Don't you post alot

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 06:12 PM

nice work bomber

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#9 lcgtr1970

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 06:29 PM

nice work!

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#10 Stinga

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 06:34 PM

Grenade #2, 2x turbos??

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#11 _Brad1979UC_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 07:09 PM

this is cool!! Love inboards of that era

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#12 _Big Fella_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 08:00 PM

looks sweet mate, I love the old school hull.

Been lookin around for a project like this myself.

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#13 _rorym_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 08:19 PM

In my Day...we ran the scoop backwards to stop water injection..?...
Bomber...obviously...does not have a female in his life...Good to see.
R

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#14 _DrFegg_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 08:38 PM

Love the attention to detail, great work!

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#15 _cruiza_

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Posted 18 December 2010 - 10:12 PM

Grenade #2, 2x turbos??

Grenade two will be twin 202s' 6's with turbos

In my Day...we ran the scoop backwards to stop water injection..?...
Bomber...obviously...does not have a female in his life...Good to see.
R

I noticed that too, but figured he wants it to blow it up sooner rather then later so he has an excuse for Grenade two

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#16 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 19 December 2010 - 05:14 AM

From the rough testing i have done, basically i've had it out once and i held it pinned and thrashd it though corners....Water does not go near where the scoop currently is.

In the case it does, it has mesh then guaze then mesh again, then a flame arestor, then it can make it to a carb, i dont think any water drops of notable size will make it through all that. small ones i have no drama with, otherwise all you blokes running scoops on cars who have balls to run it in the rain are way worse off than i am. Mind thats very few most guys with scoops on there cars also wear a skirt so meh.

On the off chance they do i will replace the gauze with foam and then water will have no chance.

Not as if im submarineing the frOcking thing.

That said thank you all for the comments on the cool hull, i agree it is a very cool shape and in very good nick, so i may well be keeping it for some time.

Cheers.

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#17 Collo

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Posted 19 December 2010 - 07:47 AM

Good job Bomber, looks good. Got any action pics?

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#18 Heath

I like cars.

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Posted 19 December 2010 - 10:49 AM

I'm very impressed. Good to see you're keeping busy up there, even if you're working on the wrong thing

Nice work mate

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#19 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 19 December 2010 - 10:55 AM

No action shots at this point peoples, probably some on raceme's phone but none i can really share...next time.

Thus far this has been a pretty steep learning curve, i didnt konw the difference between a skeg and a transom before i got this thing, but yeah, im nearly there with the boats hahaha.

Cheers.

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#20 _Gunmetal LH_

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Posted 19 December 2010 - 10:52 PM

Nice work!

Rubber impeller in the water pump? Alrighty then.

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#21 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 20 December 2010 - 09:10 AM

generally how marine is....bit of a stupid idea....pump well though.

Cheers.

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#22 lcgtrrob

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Posted 20 December 2010 - 09:42 AM

looks good Bomber,i've got a centre mount 350,i think your better off with a centre mount for social skiing,especially trying to get kids and ladies in the boat when they fall off.

cheers Rob

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#23 lxsstorana

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Posted 20 December 2010 - 12:09 PM

..... i didnt konw the difference between a skeg and a transom before i got this thing, but yeah, im nearly there with the boats hahaha.

Cheers.

I have no idea what you're talking about but love your boat project.

Keep the pic's and updates coming,

Cheers Mick.

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#24 _lx5008_

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Posted 20 December 2010 - 01:22 PM

nice boat, whats your engine #. going back a few years found a HZ L34 engine in a old boat.

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#25 _Bomber Watson_

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Posted 20 December 2010 - 01:40 PM

ZT22402.

doubt its anythign special, HZish i guess....Motor was a factory fitment to the boat and the boat is a 79 model...one would assume they got the motor brand new from holden.

Cheers.