SR 1979 Reborn page 5

Boats are a work in continuous progress, therefore the need for this page. Also, serves a purpose on keeping notes of what need to be done. When it come to boats, I'm fussy. Small problems that I know can be cured, will be.

Lower End Gear Lube

Waking up your vessel from winter's long nap? Lots to do here, if you want a minimum grief later in the season. Changing the gear lube in The Mercrusier outdrive was first on the list. Removing the outdrive and greasing the top universals need to be done, but in my case, there was less then 22 hours since this was last done. Decided to postpone this until around the first of July.

Custom 5' Stainless Steel Rigger Arms

Make some decent out-down 5 foot stainless steel arms for my Big Jon downriggers. The screw together jobbies just ain't up to snuff in my department. The joints constantly loosen. Then, it depends how the arm is measured. BJ claims 4 foot. Not so, at least aboard my boat. The long-arm, or outdown port/starboard riggers hang 42 inches from the side of the boat. Not 4' as probably advertised. Cutting the arms into sections was done for packaging reasons, not to make a better downrigger. Simple solution was to order 5/8" non magnetic stainless steel rod and have a machine shop do the job.

Don't take this as I'm beating up on BJ. Fishlanders and Walkers all have sectioned arms. Big Jon riggers are made 60 miles from where I live, in Michigan, in the USA, not China ...enough said! I've used this style of rigger since 1977 and prefer the flexible, shock absorbing arms, cuz they don't break off cannonballs. The rigger cable is suspended with a built in shock absorbers. On tough days, there's less wire hum from BJ riggers than from Scotty, Riviera, Walker, Fishlanders, Cannon, and Invader. Wire hum is from the rigger cable with water passing thru it. BJ's sounding deadening attributes are largely in part, due to the large, oversize end-pulley made from Lexan. I took no free product from Big Jon, or got a price break. I paid retail so, look at this is a free consumer report.

More Sound Proofing

Quiet? Nothing is ever quiet enough, installed sound deadening material as per advice from a top notch auto engineer who designed several patents, now owned by the Ford Motor Company. I bought this stuff called eDead v4 - TekLite from Elemental Designs. It was 2 bucks a per running square foot and had adhesive already installed on the backing. For 10 bucks the inside of the motor cowling was sound proofed. While the 4 stroke Johnson was already quiet, but even quieter is better.

Cheap Storage Solution

Small boats means small storage areas. There was a empty spot under the captain's chair that was utilized with a cheap pull drawers to organize divers. During the course of a season Slide Divers, Deep Sixes, regular and mag Dipsys will all see service. Having them all located in one spot with snubbers will save time and keep the mess to a minimum. Sure this isn't a fancy-dancy expensive marine grade boat tackle box, but being out of the way, this K Mart special will do just fine. Installed a pop rivets to hold it together and a bungee cord to keep the drawers closed.

Flush Mounted Rod Holders

SR_1979_Finsihed_Photos_002.jpg (56389 bytes)

Before

After

Cleaned up some of the obstacles across the transom i.e. trolling board. Vertical stand up rod holders were a nuisance/hindrance when it came net time (shown in the before photo). Just more stuff to get in the way! Installed flush mounted rod holders to cure this problem and still have a place to stick a rod when needed. Looks a whole lot cleaner now! eBay sold the 4 Tite Loc rod holders for me. So, the new flush mounts didn't cost me a dime. Trying to keep costs in check.

Eye Sore Fixed!

Before

After

With SR 1979 approaching it's 30th birthday, some of the teak was weathered. The previous owners chose to paint over the teak. Found brown paint underneath the white in the above "before" photo. In my opinion, the paint only makes older beat up teak wood look worse. Easy solution was to run a strip of canvas the length of the bow. Man, what a difference!

Had Dick B make an aft curtain to keep the rear deck cleaner when parked under trees and the carpet a little dryer. Carpeting will go someday, but for now budget doesn't allow for sandblasting
and have spray on pickup bed liner material installed.