Thread: 60'-70's era wooden boat project - help identifying please

Well 8am this morning (sunday 9th jan 2011) myself, mate and his father got stuck into the boat again.

First off we finished removing the left over paint from the cav plate, my mate finished sanding and mates dad started to fill holes etc. we stuck at thos for a few hours then got to the oint where we could primer the boat, (were painting it this summer in winter will strip down again and restore to original glory) by this time the ladies had arrived so after some lunch Alan (mates dad) started to spray her while the rest of us sat in the office and we'll watched!.

whilst the undercoast set, the girls got to polishing the remainder of the chrome such as the ski pole, exhaust ports etc.

As we could not touch the boat or anything we realised we had all the flooring out of the boat so got to re-cuttign some of the more brittler bits and pieces. Using 19mm mdf which we will re-carpet tomorrow. the parts of the floor which were in good nick one of the girls vacumed etc and they came up mint.

Once the primmer was ready Alan hit the boat with a shadow coat.

Time to call it a day

Plans for tomorrow are to sand back the boat ready for paint, at this stage it looks to be going a similar colour blue to what it was when i purchased it but this time its suited to a wooden boat, Not a factory Floor!

In 1963 the 327 replaced the 283 as a production engine from GM. General Motors never released the block castings for use as an aftermarket item, so all the 283's of the world are from 1957 to 1967. It was unusual for anyone to install a 283 block after 1963. It was the largest of the 3" stroke engines, but was inferior to the 327 for many reasons. All these early small block Chevy engines are what we call the big journal motors, because the crank and rod journals are bigger then the next generation of small block.

As for what your boat is, who knows. Back in this era, record keeping and required hull numbering wasn't what it is today. As to your 283, put a medium riser intake on it and a set of 202 heads. These engines really like to "twist" up some RPM's but the stock valve train is going to start "floating" around 5k unless you install double or triple valve springs. They aren't big torque makers, but with a 4" bore (makes it a 302) you get more reciprocating mass which helps a lot and makes the motor "over square" which is also good for twisting a prop. Also toss the points and condenser over the side and install a HEI or an electronic conversion. It'll start reliably and you'll get some free HP too. Lastly, don't let this engine get hot, they like to spin the number one main bearing if they do, if they don't crack a head first.

I think the 283 was still available in the Chevelle and Chevy 11 in 64 and 65 before they chnged to it to the 305.
The truck 283 had 4 bolt mains so were better suited for marine apps. Any resemblance to early Formulas hulls?

Are you sure it is 15" The Donzi 16 in about 1965 or 6 looked close.

The 305 didn't appear until the early 1970's and was a 350 block with a smaller bore (same stroke) which is the small journal engine, not the large journal crank the 283 is. The only other small blocks that shared this crank configuration were the 265 (the first small block) and the 327. None of these early blocks had 4 bolt mains, not even the truck engines. At the very end of the 327 production run a few where made with the 2.45" mains and drilled for 4 bolt, but this particular block (pretty rare if you have one) had all of the weaknesses of the first small block castings, which were flexible main saddles, flexible front block wall, excessive heat buildup from the timing gear set and a few other minor flaws, including the pesky rear main seal leak.

The new 2.45" main casting solved most of these issues, with extra beef in the main saddles, an extra web in the forward portion of the block, etc. The 302's dominance as well as the impressive power from the 350 (the first of these 2.45" main blocks) proved the small block was here to stay, though it took them another generation to fix that damn rear main leak.

Originally Posted by wood b playa

As we could not touch the boat or anything we realised we had all the flooring out of the boat so got to re-cuttign some of the more brittler bits and pieces. Using 19mm mdf which we will re-carpet tomorrow. the parts of the floor which were in good nick one of the girls vacumed etc and they came up mint.

In my experience MDF has a fatal attraction to moisture, which would take it right off my list for a boat floor.

The main reason for eliminating mdf from any sort of boat would be its weight. Big NO NO!

MDF will literally fall apart with any moisture exposure. MDF and for that matter carpet have no business being aboard any small boat. Good catch Malb, I missed that and it's a big mistake. Hopefully someone else caught it before he put it in and glued carpet to it.

I have just brought one of these boats recently so would love to know what make of boat these are also

mine had a 302 in it at one stage then a holden grey motor and now has a red 202.