Remember Footloose - well he's back (finally)

O, Come on in anytime. You know how the sandblast booths work.
 
with work I might have to send my Dad next week to do my dirty work....let's grab a lunch next week Bro
 
Wow - what a weekend - Friday I burned half a day to gut the engine room. Sturday I spent 7 hours in the Engine room with my 70-plus year old superman of a Dad - we removed every remaining hose, the fuel manifold, the Gils for both motors, bildge pumps, most useless wires, and cleaned it/degreased it. Good day but needed a hot tub just to move.........SO SORE.Need to get used to this engine room yoga.

Sunday hit the wharehouse where my 454s are...spent three hours trying to get the power steering unit from 502s to work on the LH rotation 454...jeez, had to remove the fresh water cooling, all hoses, the fuel pump, the fuel separator, the alternator bracket, most pulleys......the whole frigin front end of the motor....kinda fun but really time consuming.

Never made it to Joe for my beer....sorry Bro
 
This week I spent a few hours a night cleanig up the engine room and pulled the engine and trans mounts off the old 502s. Had to build structures to support the engine weight as I lifted them with a come along ... but got em done. Dad spent hours at Joes sand blasting them - thanks JOE!

This weekend we are finishing up the replacement 454s and painting the sandblasted parts....week or two off and we will be hauling the beast for it's repower.
 
Saturday update:
Spent a day with Dad painting the motor mounts, pulleys, assorted brackets, raw water filters, and such. My Dad did a primer coat and two regular coats while I tried to get the engine manifolds figured out, cleaned out the manifold bolt holes, did some electrical stuff, and tried to align the power steering pump.

Ran into a bit of a snag - the 454s came from a boat that did not have power steering. Used the PS bracket and unit from my existing raw water cooled 502s and of course - the heat exchanger wont allow a fan belt to be installed nor will the Gil clear the alternator on the new bracket.....and I need to change out pulleys. Nothing earth shattering but it brought me to a screeching halt on the manifold install. Trying to avoid going back to raw water cooled....will see what alternatives I have tomorrow.

cheers all

Foot
 
Sunday update:
Mounted the painted motor mounts and brackets on the 454s, reinstalled the refurbed water pumps, planned out some taller brackets to hold the heat exchangers about 6 inches higher than they are now - this will allow the brackets to not effect the power steering pump location or be in the way of the belts to PS and alternator. Then mounted three of the 4 Gil exhaust manifolds and checked all clearances. Making progress.....this week I will scuba to scrape the bottom and get the hoses all ironed out and change the transmission fluid. Then we are ready for the haul outin 2 weeks.
 
This week's update:

Looks like the drive shafts I brought to the local drive shaft shop need about $900 of work to be safe....some rusting and bad pitting has messed up a few "yokes" to the point where the c-clips that hold the Ujoints together wont hold....not a good spot to try to save money since 10 seconds at 3400 rpm and a broken ujoint will tear the boat up and sink it.

Ahhhh Break Out Another Thousand
 
quote:
Originally posted by footloose

This week's update:

Looks like the drive shafts I brought to the local drive shaft shop need about $900 of work to be safe....some rusting and bad pitting has messed up a few "yokes" to the point where the c-clips that hold the Ujoints together wont hold....not a good spot to try to save money since 10 seconds at 3400 rpm and a broken ujoint will tear the boat up and sink it.

Ahhhh Break Out Another Thousand

Click to expand...


I love ya man, But your going to make me cry.[:-cry]
 
LOL - Dude, it's a boat - I expect to find issues as I tear everything down the way it should have been done the first time around.When I am done this time I will know EXACTLY what I have, what works, and what needs to be fixed or upgraded. I am actually optimistic this time around.

Positives - the 454s are running well and are bone stock so I can count on them. The electrical system is pretty solid so I know I can count on it. The transmissions are stock items, work, and I know what they are ratio-wise (no more prop guessing), the drive shafts will be clean, balanced and safe.

Add a couple of fire extinguishers and some fresh gas and I should be going boating soon.....she gets hauled a week from today for the engine swap, bottom paint, and engine room clean up. Have faith
 
Moved follow ups to this thread to Captains Section so everyone can giggle and point at the nucklehead repowerring his boat himself.
 
Have not seen footloose around here for some time, what happened? did you ever get your boat to run?

Cor
 
This was a good thread until it went poof...

RWS
 
hi guys ... I'm back again. The hard work this HOT brutal summer burnt me out a bit so I took a break. The old Harley sat behind the house and waited for me. Last two weekends I got the dash board redone, cleaned up wiring messes, retorqued all the manifold bolts since they were leaking a bit, and even got the genny running so we can run the ac on the hook.

spent a few overnights on Boca lake to make sure things are working right.....she is a fully functional trawler and will remain so until I can get a flat day on the ocean to test the props and get some statistics for the prop tuner. I'm sure some tweaks will be needed since she is down on power now.

hope to see some you on the water soon ....Joe....lets raft up on
e of these weekends.
 
Good to hear you are hanging in there. I was just about to be convinced that the south FL club is dead.

Cor
 
Good going, and we're looking forward to the prop testing!
 
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