This is my long tale which explains some of my absence from this page. Its a cautionary tale of an almost "Free" boat.
In April of 2023 a friend from Montana asked me to either buy or sell a boat for a friend. Beware of friends offering essentially free boats!!! It was a 1994 custom built aluminum fishing boat designed for fishing the mouth of the Columbia or in the Pacific. Aluminum boats like this are quite common along the west coast but much too big for most lakes in Montana. This boat had a 1994 Volvo Penta 5.0L EFI V8 and outdrive. While I liked the hull I knew the engine inboard/outboard was state of the art in 1994, they are out of style these days with much more reliable outboard engines. Nevertheless it was a solid 1/4 and 3/16 inch thick aluminum plate hull with massive longitudinal stringers. However, cosmetically and mechanically it had seen better days. I decided to take the project on much to my wife's amazement. The floor was rotten being 30 year old plain plywood covered with vinyl flooring. So I started with ripping the floor out and replacing it with epoxy impregnated marine plywood with a textured marine deck coating. Both the plywood and deck coating were rated for use in submerged applications. Being a cautious guy, I coated both sides with penetrating epoxy followed with 2 surface coats of epoxy on all surfaces. I was happy to find that all the floatation foam seemed to be in decent shape and was not saturated. But it was lacking in some spaces so I filled those spaces with additional 2 part foam. Then I drilled holes to fasten the floor to the stringers and epoxy coated the holes before fastening. This was the easy part.
I was having trouble getting the V8 to idle smoothly. So I drained and flush the old fuel and crud out of the fuel tank and changed the 2 fuel filters and fuel/water separators. With fresh fuel, it would run at speed just fine but would hunt like crazy at idle once warm. The Volvo-Penta 5.0L is really just the marinized Ford 302. But Volvo-Penta dropped the Ford block in the mid 1990s for Chevy engines. This made parts difficult to find and expensive even after I found that they could be cross referenced with OMC parts. Since the engine only had 35 hours on it and it was fuel injected I figured this had to be a sensor based issue. I searched and found replacement parts for 4 main sensors that control fuel and air at idle. I then took it to 3 different but experienced Volvo-penta mechanics and an automotive mechanic. None of them could find a problem (early OBD 1 so getting a code reader was the first step) and the engine wasn't throwing any codes. Then one day one of the mechanics had it out for a test drive and it died. He had just checked everything including timing and it was running great. But when it died on the water he started going over everything once including the timing. He noticed it had lost the timing despite the distributor still securely bolted in place. He pulled out the distributor and found that the drive gear teeth were worn paper thin. So we put in a new distributor and ran it for 1 hour and found significant wear on the teeth of the new drive gear. I determined that the reason there were only 35 hours on the engine was because the block had cracked previously during a Montana winter after incomplete winterization. They had installed a short block from a national engine rebuilder. I had the build number and called the engine builder for the specs on the cam ( the oil pump and distributor gear are run off the cam) and oil pump. But they had little information about the cam but they could tell me it did not have a high volume oil pump. This eliminated the possibility of premature gear wear due to the extra torque caused by a high volume oil pump. I consulted a few marine and high performance car engine builders who all said I needed a hardened distributor drive gear to handle the high RPMs. So I ordered one and installed it after slathering it with ultra slick lubricant. After another hour of testing, I pulled the distributor and the hardened gear was showing signs of wear. At this point, my options were to remove and replace the cam and distributor but I was done. I was afraid there was also metal circulating in the engine. I had never really wanted the inboard/outboard setup anyway. But I was too far into the project to give up. My wife even said I needed to set up the boat the way I wanted it.
I wanted an outboard on an offshore bracket and to regain the space taken up by the V8. So I stripped the hull of everything including the controls, steering and all of the electrical wiring. I yanked the engine and outdrive. I was able to sell the outdrive and engine and recoup the cost having an offshore bracket fabricated and installed, and having the holes in the stern sealed. Then I had a new outboard with hydraulic steering installed and traded in my old duck boat motor for a new trolling motor. Then I went to work on reinstalling the flooring, rewiring every system including installing a new NMEA 2000 network for electronics and engine management, redid the entire console with new gauges and steering, wash down pump and added a second bilge pump. Then I got around to the cosmetic and comfort aspects. I added new captain and passenger seats. Then I sanded and painted the entire hull with 2 part epoxy primer. All of the bright aluminum that wouldn't be painted was acid washed and protected with a metal protectant. Then I painted. After almost working off and on for the last 2 years I am happy to be finished and getting ready to take her out on her "maiden" voyage. I named her after my wife for tolerating me throw this whole thing. Salmon season is just getting started so I hope to get some blood on the boat soon. Here are a few before and after photos.
In April of 2023 a friend from Montana asked me to either buy or sell a boat for a friend. Beware of friends offering essentially free boats!!! It was a 1994 custom built aluminum fishing boat designed for fishing the mouth of the Columbia or in the Pacific. Aluminum boats like this are quite common along the west coast but much too big for most lakes in Montana. This boat had a 1994 Volvo Penta 5.0L EFI V8 and outdrive. While I liked the hull I knew the engine inboard/outboard was state of the art in 1994, they are out of style these days with much more reliable outboard engines. Nevertheless it was a solid 1/4 and 3/16 inch thick aluminum plate hull with massive longitudinal stringers. However, cosmetically and mechanically it had seen better days. I decided to take the project on much to my wife's amazement. The floor was rotten being 30 year old plain plywood covered with vinyl flooring. So I started with ripping the floor out and replacing it with epoxy impregnated marine plywood with a textured marine deck coating. Both the plywood and deck coating were rated for use in submerged applications. Being a cautious guy, I coated both sides with penetrating epoxy followed with 2 surface coats of epoxy on all surfaces. I was happy to find that all the floatation foam seemed to be in decent shape and was not saturated. But it was lacking in some spaces so I filled those spaces with additional 2 part foam. Then I drilled holes to fasten the floor to the stringers and epoxy coated the holes before fastening. This was the easy part.
I was having trouble getting the V8 to idle smoothly. So I drained and flush the old fuel and crud out of the fuel tank and changed the 2 fuel filters and fuel/water separators. With fresh fuel, it would run at speed just fine but would hunt like crazy at idle once warm. The Volvo-Penta 5.0L is really just the marinized Ford 302. But Volvo-Penta dropped the Ford block in the mid 1990s for Chevy engines. This made parts difficult to find and expensive even after I found that they could be cross referenced with OMC parts. Since the engine only had 35 hours on it and it was fuel injected I figured this had to be a sensor based issue. I searched and found replacement parts for 4 main sensors that control fuel and air at idle. I then took it to 3 different but experienced Volvo-penta mechanics and an automotive mechanic. None of them could find a problem (early OBD 1 so getting a code reader was the first step) and the engine wasn't throwing any codes. Then one day one of the mechanics had it out for a test drive and it died. He had just checked everything including timing and it was running great. But when it died on the water he started going over everything once including the timing. He noticed it had lost the timing despite the distributor still securely bolted in place. He pulled out the distributor and found that the drive gear teeth were worn paper thin. So we put in a new distributor and ran it for 1 hour and found significant wear on the teeth of the new drive gear. I determined that the reason there were only 35 hours on the engine was because the block had cracked previously during a Montana winter after incomplete winterization. They had installed a short block from a national engine rebuilder. I had the build number and called the engine builder for the specs on the cam ( the oil pump and distributor gear are run off the cam) and oil pump. But they had little information about the cam but they could tell me it did not have a high volume oil pump. This eliminated the possibility of premature gear wear due to the extra torque caused by a high volume oil pump. I consulted a few marine and high performance car engine builders who all said I needed a hardened distributor drive gear to handle the high RPMs. So I ordered one and installed it after slathering it with ultra slick lubricant. After another hour of testing, I pulled the distributor and the hardened gear was showing signs of wear. At this point, my options were to remove and replace the cam and distributor but I was done. I was afraid there was also metal circulating in the engine. I had never really wanted the inboard/outboard setup anyway. But I was too far into the project to give up. My wife even said I needed to set up the boat the way I wanted it.
I wanted an outboard on an offshore bracket and to regain the space taken up by the V8. So I stripped the hull of everything including the controls, steering and all of the electrical wiring. I yanked the engine and outdrive. I was able to sell the outdrive and engine and recoup the cost having an offshore bracket fabricated and installed, and having the holes in the stern sealed. Then I had a new outboard with hydraulic steering installed and traded in my old duck boat motor for a new trolling motor. Then I went to work on reinstalling the flooring, rewiring every system including installing a new NMEA 2000 network for electronics and engine management, redid the entire console with new gauges and steering, wash down pump and added a second bilge pump. Then I got around to the cosmetic and comfort aspects. I added new captain and passenger seats. Then I sanded and painted the entire hull with 2 part epoxy primer. All of the bright aluminum that wouldn't be painted was acid washed and protected with a metal protectant. Then I painted. After almost working off and on for the last 2 years I am happy to be finished and getting ready to take her out on her "maiden" voyage. I named her after my wife for tolerating me throw this whole thing. Salmon season is just getting started so I hope to get some blood on the boat soon. Here are a few before and after photos.
