Well fellow boaters, this leg of the trip is finished!   Until I start the sole (floor) and stringer replacement, I'll be spending my afternoons, weekends and evenings boating.  Enjoy your projects, keep sending me your notes, and in the meantime, take a look at my parting page - Why I Did It and use it as your inspiration to fix up that old boat and get back on the water with confidence.

The test today went (almost) flawlessly.  We ended up paddling the last 10 feet to the dock due to improperly torqued shift cable core retaining screws.  Aside from a very slow oil leak from the oil pan drain plug (grrr) the bilge was bone dry - not a single drop of water in it.  I'll leave you with this picture to let you know just how I felt during the test.  I think you can safely assume ;)

It goes in the water on Saturday!  Today is buffing, tomorrow is decals/lettering, Saturday is boat trip with the family (after a test run alone)!

I posted a video on YouTube of the engine starting and running.  Yay!

Water test was excellent - no leaks!  Got the tanning pad installed, what a sucker to install.  Ran into an unanticipated problem, though.  My battery trays must be about 1/2" higher than before as the tanning pad supports sit up too high and keep the pad from laying down all the way.  Tomorrow I'll probably take them out and grind them down.  Not sure yet.  Either that or I'll raise the pad.  Both options are sucky.  Also got 90% of the decals removed and Dad went around the boat with a half gallon of 3M adhesive remover and got all the sticky stuff off.  Next is a wet-sand/buff/wax.

Bilge pump is in.  I was able to make it removable for service, which is nice.  The previous location required engine removal to service the pump.  The water test is today.  Just going to dunk it and make sure I don't have any leaks.  If no leaks, tanning pad goes on.  If there's leaks, engine comes back out.  That would SUCK.

Tint is done!  What a pain.  Looks awesome, though.  Love the blacked-out look.  I did 20% on the 3 front windows and 5% on the sides.  Bilge pump and tanning pad tomorrow.

Depth gauge is in and looks great.  Bilge pump is still on the todo list, but I did get all the windows removed last night and started tinting them.  I did 3 of them wrong (bubbles, even after squeegee'ing), so I tore the tint off this morning and will take another run at them tonight.   Water test is this weekend.

I drained the drive last night and tried bleeding the trim pump.  It's still full of air, not sure what to do about that.  I filled the power steering pump and will check it again once I've run the drive a few more times in the yard (and had a chance to turn the steering lock-to-lock a few times to work the air out).  Tonight I'll fill the drive and run the boat in the yard, check the fluid levels again, change the oil and filter, check for leaks, do a compression test, re-install the engine compartment supports and should be done with maintenance after that.  Last major item is installing the bilge pump.  I already made a bracket, so it should be a matter of hooking it up.  After that, the depth finder goes in after I make an adapter for the gauge hole.  The old one I removed was bigger.

This weekend I plan to re-install the engine cover/tanning pad.  That'll require 2-3 people.  It's a heavy and very clumsy bugger.  Then if the buffer shows up, I'll remove the rest of the decals, buff, wax, clean and be water-ready.

Tonight the drive was installed and the engine was fired up.  It runs great, shifts great (on land, anyway).  We'll see if my super-duper adjusting process works in the water!  Pictures added to the Re-installing the engine and drive page.  Next is the bilge pump, tanning pad and depth finder.  Then it's water-test time!