All my boat projects

[Kevin]

I has been a very arduous past few months but I have made lots of progress on the boat.

The bow railing is gone. Looks much better. Never go up there anyways and the railing was nothing more than an ankle biter.

Tinted the windows. I used to do that for work in my younger years and you lose your touch with it after 20 years. It stays cooler and darker though.

After the engine hatch redo I rolled right into dealing with the corrosion on the turbos. That was pretty easy. I replaced the mixing elbows as Bruce advised. While at it I figured I would replace the 4" exhaust. I had about 20ish hose clamps on each side and just hated it. I got rid of all of it and built a new 5" system from scratch. I incorporated surge tubes into the design. The mixers are 3.5" and they run right into the main 5" inch tube in the appropriate place. I cut down the mufflers by about 9 inches or so in length and had to make the inlets and outlets 5 inches as well. It took time but I saved a good chunk of money my making my own custom. I moved the mufflers aft a bit and was able to fit them and the rest of the tubing outboard of the stringer so space is really opened up in there. I did use 18" of flexible hose between transom and muffler for the vibration isolation.

The motor mounts were a bit of a bitch, but I got them done and am happy with them.

I moved the batteries and all the cable/switches to the aft engine bulkhead. No more under the step switches. I had to replace my racor 500's because the were beyond ugly and corroded. Once again those leaky hatches did their damage. While at it, I lowered them as much as I could per Bob's recommendation. I figured I was transferring weight distro so why not go all out with those too.

When all that was done I put a fresh coat of paint in the engine space and filled any screw holes in the bulkheads. Looks a lot better. But then of course I changed the oil, did the belts and developed my tranny leak so it needs cleaning again.

Next came the Simrad NSS 8. I installed it and bought a ducer to go with it since it had built in echo capability. First time I have had a thru hull ducer. I got rid of the old fairing block style one that was in there (obsolete) and just made the hole bigger for the new tilted element. It seems to work well but have not messed with it enough to know for sure.

I got really lazy and decided I am tired of "steering" the boat. In went the autopilot. Computer and pump are in the head space. Staying dry was priority for me. Works like a charm even with the rate compass taped in temporary place until I find it a permanent home.

Since I had installed the N2K backbone for the AP the next thing was getting the engine data up to the display. I had to get converters for J1939 to N2K and figure out CAN high and low outputs. Steyr folks helped out with that a bit. I had to make connectors to eliminate the resistors behind the gauges but with some searching on the net I was able to find the right connectors and build them. All that engine data is right on the Simrad unit now. Very cool.

Then I said the hell with it....tired of going down in cabin to change the music volume or song. I got the SonicHub that puts the music and all the controls on the Simrad display as well. It controls the speaker zones independently and even the subwoofer. Basically a N2K amplifier with a docking station for iphone or USB device you can mount it anywhere.

While doing all this I have still managed to destroy some fish. Hogs, grouper, mutton, dolphin and even deep dropped some rose fish with a buddy on his boat.

My son is loving every bit of boating. He is able to walk in neck deep water at the sand bar at 2 years old. Arms length at all times of course. It is a blast seeing him learn new things. I can't wait to teach him how to use a sling. He's not quite there yet.

That's what I have been doing since February. What's next?

[Yannis]

Sounds indeed very good Kevin !
I've been doing mostly all that (except the electronics) too.
One thing about the bow rail: I experience too a degree of hardship with my size 13 foot when trying to walk through the front window/bow rail gangway space. Instead of demolishing the whole rail though, I thought that I should soon shorten it so that it ends one stanchion forward. Together with a SS handle of some sort on the cabin front ledge I think will ease the passage and render it much safer. Over here where mooring is 100% anchor dependent, I thought keeping some minimum bow rail is a necessity.
As for the exhaust, I experienced a port turbo casing rust issue due to the negative angle of the exhaust SS pipe, and more specifically, the part which is forward of the muffler that kept water inside. I removed all SS tubing and I'm now trying to connect a flexible tube so that all water drains backwards. Difficult with the 4lha's as the space and clearances are really minimal.