1958 Crestliner Super Seaman

[VTCrestliner]

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I'm planning a simple upgrade of her present condition -- basically new seats, inside bottom paint, and maybe some some rod holders and basic storage. I'd like to keep it simple restoration style. I'm definitely a fisherman, though so it needs to be a working boat rather than a garage queen. Not sure if I'll be polishing the aluminum, that seems like it would dull again pretty quickly on the CT river. The hull is in excellent condition however, and it even still has the original decals.

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Seats are sad looking however with old carpeting nailed on, and it looks to me like one at least has been relocated. There is only one remaining aluminum flotation chamber, and the seat it is attached to has fallen below it's support cleat.

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There's a little confusion over her exact model (though it is definitely stamped #205) because the Super Seaman of 1958 didn't have as large a foredeck as mine has, and also did not have the cast bow handle. The '58 catalog shows this model with a smaller breasthook, with an oval hole in it for a handle. This seems like an upgrade that wasn't listed in the catalog.

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Anyway, I really like the boat, and am looking forward to prettying it up (within reason). I have a Mariner 8 2-cycle 6G1 model (Yamaha in disguise), and that hasn't run for 20+ years, so I'm working on that at the moment. I just rebuilt the water pump (though the old impeller surprisingly looked fine. I just got the lower unit back on yesterday, but before I could adjust the shift linkage it started to rain, and it has been pouring ever since.[/align]

We got 15" of rain in July in my county -- normal for us is 4-1/2" so I'm thinking at this point maybe I should have skipped the Crestliner and bought an ark!

Well here's hoping it''ll stop soon so I can get this new rig out on the water for a test run!

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[Weldorthemagnificent]

That's a cool looking old hull. A lot of boats of that vintage had wood seats. New planks with a stain and several coats of spar urethane will look great, I used pine on one tinny and they looked good and held up well. I definitely recommend having a fabrication shop bend up a couple flotation boxes to replace the missing ones. If youve ever swamped a boat (I have( it's cheap insurance and piece of mind to have that floatation. I wouldn't polish it either, just clean it with a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water. Any decal shop should be able to make a new set of those cool decals. Good luck and keep posting pics of the progress.

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

 

[VTCrestliner]

Thanks Weldor, I'm going to be using cherry for the seats. It's wood that I cut and milled myself -- I built a bandsaw mill about twenty years ago. Cherry is a lot more rot resistant than just about any other wood I have locally, the cost is nil (for me) and it looks just like mahogany when stained.

For the flotation I'll be using fabric covered foam (plus the existing single tank.)

I've been looking into zinc Chromate primer to renew the inside bottom paint, which originally had anti-skid compound mixed in.



I saw a couple reviews of one spray can formula commonly sold for marine use. One reviewer claimed it wasn't actual zinc chromate, based on its color, and said it was just a plain paint primer colored to look like zinc chromate.

So before dropping $17 on a spray can of it, I checked the MSDS for that product. Some very interesting facts came to light. It had only between one tenth and one percent zinc chromate, and about 10% lead chromate, the rest was just pigment.

I think I'm going to skip spraying that, as the chromates are both poisonous and carcinogenic, and at 17 bucks a can, it's not even the right stuff it is labeled as. I'll just paint the inside a similar green to factory with a little sand mixed in for traction. I'm really not worried about corrosion worries in freshwater, and I'll be drysailing the boat anyway.

Not sure what I'm going to do about the decals. I might just touch them up with paint, as-is, myself.

 

[1970GregorVHull]

Looking forward to the project!

 

[VTCrestliner]

ThanksGregorV!

Between rain storms today I stripped the carpeting off of the existing wood seats. I really don't want to sit on water-soaked carpeting for the maiden voyage -- that will be tomorrow if the rain holds off. I don't understand why somebody would want to put carpeting on wooden skiff seats. This stuff wasn't even indoor-outdoor carpeting. I think it was t was just house carpeting remnants, held down with rusty roofing nails. One seat was oak, the others softwood.




The middle seat was in the worst shape. It had come adrift of its support cleat, and somehow got wedged down under the cleat and on top of the flotation chamber -- which was loose. Everything was wedged together, so I'm going to leave it for tomorrow's outing, and probably saw the wood out when I replace the seats.



The middle seat has also apparently been moved a couple of times. There are two rows of 6 rivet plugs, forward of the seat where the seat support cleats were probably attached at a couple other points in this boat's history. The present one must be the third location. Also two rivet holes further up the sides where I believe a (missing) curved seat bracket must once have come down to the original seat location.

 

[VTCrestliner]

The forward seat also seems to have been moved. It is both higher and further aft than the original location. It's also, strangely enough, made of aluminum, with a wooden top. I don't believe the aluminum part was original, and I wonder where it came from. I think the seat may have been moved to fit this foreign seat in this particular hull -- the original location would have required a shorter seat. There is a line of 6 rivet holes where the original probably was. Because of the (also unusual) longer foredeck, anyone sitting on the original forward seat would have had to face aft. The new seat location does allow a forward facing position for a passenger.



The underside of the aluminum seat is stiffened with heavy corrugations.


There are no cleats on the boat, which is going to make docking difficult on the maiden voyage. I think I see where they may have been located originally, where there are 2 rivets:

 

[VTCrestliner]

Seat carpeting stripped. Motor on.

The motor now has a cleaned carb and new water pump, and changed lower unit oil. Starts first pull and there's a good jet of coolling water. Full tank of new gas and oil mix. We're pretty much ready to go. I need to strip those old reg numbers off, and hang my new temp license on, put some fishing gear and tools aboard, and hope the rain holds off tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

 

[VTCrestliner]

Well I took the Crestliner for a spin on a local pond today. The first five minutes were great, started first pull, idled perfectly, reversed fine, and slowly ran up the RPM in forward until full throttle, the boat planing nicely.
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But on throttling down, the motor died and thereafter it was hard to start or maintain running. Seems to be a fuel issue. I could pull the choke and it would run a few seconds and then flood out. Push in the choke and it would start again, and then lean out in a second. Repeat ad nauseum.

I tried opening the idle mixture screw, but didn't have much hope of success because it had been running perfectly in the tank yesterday, and also for the first five minutes today. The screw shouldn't have to change arbitrarily if it is set well otherwise. I suspected dirt had somehow got into the idle circuit, and adjusting the screw isn't going to help that. But I riched it up anyway, to not much effect..... as predicted.

I did find that I could pull the choke out, start the motor and quickly push the choke back in a little, and sustain running like that. High speed was easier than idle. So I knew I could get back to the ramp about 600 feet away. Wind was calm, so I decided to make lemonade from lemons and try fishing. Caught a half dozen dink bass on crappie jjigs, two crappies, and a fat short largie about 14", all belly and mouth, on a senko.

I wanted to open up the carb again, so headed back to the ramp, pulled the boat and drove home. The boat BTW had absolutely no leaks, and I'm just really happy with the hull.

Carb off, I saw a couple tiny specs in the drained gas, nothing that looked like it would clog a jet, but I tooke everything apart, cleaned everything in carb cleaner again, and blew it all out, and reassembled. There is a filter on the incoming line. Maybe I need new fuel pump diaphragms (they were already sent for but hadn't arrived yet). They didn't look bad to me, but they are over 30 years old, so maybe that was it.

Anyway I've reassembled the carb, and fingers crossed the problem will be resolved next tank test. If it is, then the problem was indeed dirt. If it isn't then it's likely the diaphragms.

 

[VTCrestliner]

Did a thorough cleaning of the carb again, this time polishing the float valve seat, and pulling all the jets out and carefully rodding the orifices. Motor is back together and running great in the tank.

We also had days of rain from Henri, but today the sun is peaking out, motor is running great, and I think we're finally back on track.

 

[VTCrestliner]

I cut out the middle thwart today. It was the only way I could free it and the flotation tank underneath, as both were jammed under the hull support cleat.

 

[VTCrestliner]

With that removed, I had access to the full bottom of the boat. I vacuumed it, and then gave it a good scrubbing with Mr. Clean.

 

[VTCrestliner]

I'm ready to paint the inside to the original paint line whenever we get 24 hours free of rain. This has been the summer of rain here.

The original paint job was green zinc chromate with non-skid compound in it. I've got a vintage can of anti-skid compound with the label dated 1957, which was given to me by my father in law about ten years ago. I finally have a use for it!

 

[VTCrestliner]

Well, I'm between rainstorms today with about 8 hours in the clear, so I dried the boat first with towels and then with a heat gun on all seams. I masked it, and then mixed up a quart of paint with 4 ounces of the non-skid compound. It looks like very fine white quartz sand, mixed with a light oil of some kind, maybe mineral oil or mineral spirits. It worked well, but had to be constantly stirred while applying.

This is a round-bilged boat, not a vee-bottom or flat-bottom, like modern boats. One nice shapely quality i appreciate is the tumble-home in the quarters -- the way the sides roll back in at the stern -- very Fifties style.

Every frame in the boat (or I should properly say every floor member) is different and each seems to be stamped with a part number. All of the floors have limber holes at the center of the boat, so water won't sit behind them, but drains to the back if the trailer is set bow-high.

Most of the floors are stampings, but two are heavy duty I-beam extrusions, bent to shape. I'm really impressed with the quality of this 63 year old boat. It might as well be two years old from the way it has held up.



I got the painting done in an hour, now fingers crossed the rain holds off long enough for the paint to set. It's drying slowly in this humidity, but I'm pretty sure rain won't hurt it in a few hours.