Junkyard 14' Mirrocraft brought back from the dead.

[RaisedByWolves]

Found this boat on CL for cheap as it needed a lot of work.

The Pervious owner needed to get rid of it as the city was closing down his junkyard that he owned since the 60s that was in the heart of the Mannyunk section of philly. The guy i bought it from had the title for the trailer and while not trailerable,I was able to put it in my landscrape trailer and get it home.Here it is the day I brought it home. Paid $320 for it which IMO was a steal.

First up was tearing out the hideous seats and the rotten plywood mounts. Then the Amazon driver showed up with my new tires and wheels! \/


Got the wheels mounted and the boat no longer looks like a dumpster fire.

Old wheel for comparisons sake. Looks much better and should trailer better, no idea why someone would put 8" wheels on this size trailer as the ass end looked like it was dragging the ground when hooked up to the truck.

Next thing Im decided to tackle was the transom. The transom is rotted and needs to come out and a new one made. You can see how bad it is in the first pic and in the second you can see how bad some of the hardware is, had to cut it out with a die grinder and a carbide burr.

During the tear out process I found a 25hp motor on CL for $50! I wasnt sure when I went to look at it that it would even run, but for $50 I couldnt pass it up as it even came with a nicely built engine stand.


Here it is after about a half hours work.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wye4KDxFJ6I







It had a serious problem with the enrichiner as it would flood if you pumped the ball too much, hence the multiple pulls and having to crack the throttle to get it started.
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[RaisedByWolves]

I should have noted earlier that the purchase of this boat was in the summer of 17 and I’m just getting around to a point worth documenting. Lots of irons in the fire.


Ok so while I was working on the transom and some other things over the winter, I decided I didn’t like the trailer in its condition so I began rounding up different items, rollers, new bunks and also guide boards to add on.

I set out to disassemble the trailer in the spring of 18 and it was quite the job. Much rust needed to be removed to have a good shot at a decent paint job. In doing this work I decided to lengthen the trailer as the boat looked too crowded and it hung over the bunks in the rear 3” or so.

Over the course of the next three months or so I lengthened it almost two feet, replaced the wheel bearings and cleaned up the spring pack and the spring mounts front and rear.

The front with the pivot bolt and bushing wasn’t too bad but the rear slipper pad (no shackle) was worn bad. I made up a new pad and welded that on and also made an identical Teflon pad to sit between the spring and pad to make it so the trailer didn’t squeak as much going over bumps.


Here it is right before I put the sideboards and lights on. The frame was pitted in a lot of places so I sent with a silver hammertone paint to help hide this.

You really have to look to see any pitted areas with this paint.



I spent far too long trying to get this pic to come out right side up. Fakit, pretend im in Australia.

 

[Brian121804]

Nice finds. Curious as to what model # mirrocraft.
I have an F3614, 1977 IIRC, great little boat.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Closest I can figure is that is an “80” Resorter. This going first by the year, then beam, the amount of ribs and last the seating configuration. The next closest had a different rib spacing and was 40lbs lighter.

 

[Brian121804]

I think if you email Mirrocraft the hull
number they can tell you the model.

Is that the OEM paint? Mine was originally
yellow. Unfortunately the previous owner
painted it battle ship grey with rustoleum,
peeling now, looks like hell. It is nice not
having to worry about scratches and such
though.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Yes, original paint.

I contacted them about getting another coastguard capacity tag and got no response.


At about this time right about when I got the trailer turned right side up so I could tow the boat with it :lol: I tried to register the boat to be all legal like only to find out that the original owner had titled the boat and I had no title nor was this fact divulged to me at the time of purchase. #-o

Called the guy I bought it from who bought it from the original owner only to find out he was deceased. I called the last know number and found it had been reissued, which lead me to believe the owners widow had moved. So I did some searching on line using the street address on the trailer title and found the house on google maps.

Once I had the house located In was able to look up the phone numbers of some neighbors and I called them. I mostly got answering machines but I hadn't given up hope yet.


LO and Behold one night at dinner a week or so later the phone rings. I go look on the call ID and it shows the same last name as the original owner and in fact it was their daughter calling to see what was going on. =D>

When I explained the situation she told me that one of the numbers I left a message at was the mother of her friend across the street she grew up with who then contacted the PO's daughter.


Long story short I met with the widow and she helped me get her a replacement title and then transfer it to me so I could register the boat. I paid all fees of course and was able to take the boat out one time last year around labor day.

So that explains why it has taken me so long to get this project going.

Next up, foaming in the battery box, removing the front seat and putting a deck with trolling motor on.

 

[1960 yellowboat]

Been there, Done that
I bought a 14 ft Richline Challenger semi-vee off Craigslist in Tampa. It was made in 1960 and other than rotten wood seats and transom was in good shape. It had sat behind the guy's shop for 20 years and was full of water. He wanted $200 for it and I was ready to buy it , BUT he had no title. He wanted to give me a bill of sale only but here in Florida, the FWC will NOT issue a title on that.

So I told him that when he got the title, I would be back. 30 days later he called and said he had found the title.
31 days later the boat was mine.
I found a 14 ft trailer for $75 from a neighbor and rebuilt it with new tires,wheels,hitch,winch,bearing buddies and bra's.
Painted the trailer with aluminum paint and put new 8 ft vinyl covered bunks on it.
Painted the boat yellow!
Painted the gunnels and lapstrake to match the engine, a 1955 Evinrude 15 HP which I got also for $200 off CL.View attachment 2

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Thats a nice looking rig.


Took the boat out today and took some trailer pics while it was off of it.







And here with the boat on it. I moiunted the lights as high and as far back as I could to aid visibility and keep them out of the water. It also helps spread the light behind the trailer further for backing up.








Here you can see a closeup of the deck and battery box installation. The deck is 3/4" ply with a 1.5x1.5" spruce support at the open end. The battery box was fixed in place with expandable foam and is as far forward as possible while still having access to remove it. I went this route to help with weight distribution, plus it aint going anywhere save for capsizing the whole boat.

The ply bulkhead is about 12" tall in the center and this makes for lots of storage room. A bit messy right now as I still need to conceal the wiring.

If you look on the sides of the hull you can see where I removed the front seat to free up a bunch of room for the deck and also to install the floor.

 

[Matt193]

Nice work and awesome score on that outboard! That trailer paint turned out fantastic. Did you just use rattle cans?

 

[overboard]

Nice job, I caught a lot of fish out of a Mirrocraft like that and always considered it to be a good boat, never leaked a drop of water either.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Nice work and awesome score on that outboard! That trailer paint turned out fantastic. Did you just use rattle cans?

Thanks guys.

Paint is Rustoleum Hammertone. I had to do a lot of experimenting to make the paint come out "Right" as the hammertone is not like regular spray.

Instead of spraying it on heavy enough to get a shine, you have to go past that a bit and stop right before it starts to run.

Then at that point you can actually watch the paint separate and come into the hammertone look.

I stripped the entire trailer bare and went over every crevice with an assortment of wire wnheels to strip the rust and any loose paint (There was much of both) and hit it with two coats of brush on Rustoleum rusty metal primer and then 2-3 coats of the hammertone.








Took me about a month total working 2-3hrs a day just for the paint and another 2 weeks for lights and bunks.

I had previously boxed in the winch mount as it was only a C channel and let the bow wiggle 4-6" either way while being towed. I didnt like that at all and doing this stiffened it considerably.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Took some pics of the transom details for another member so I figured Id put them here.

I wanted to raise the transom to fit the motor I found so when I cut the wood for this I added 2" to the height and tapered the sides down to the level of the gunnels. Because I was going outside of the original design parameters a bit I went with the "Total overkill" approach.

The transom is two layers of 3/4" plywood sandwiched together with West systems epoxy and a filler/thickener to strengthen the bond.

The corner supports had to be cut, bent and welded to conform to the new transom dimensions. The original top cap for the transom was basiaclly tin foil and did not survive the removal, so I ordered a length of dimensional aluminum to serve as the cap and to add strength.

The top cap is 1.5" inside with 1/8" wall thickness to give an 1 3/4" thick cap. This was attached to the corner caps, and the corner caps attached to the top rail with 1/4-20 stainless fasteners with the aid of some machined inserts here and there for the bolts to clamp the thinner materials together.

Yeah, I kind of over did things here, but it is a rock solid transom for sure. :wink:





Here you can see two of the support pieces I added to give the bolts something to squeeze on. The smaller one in the upper right has three threaded holes (Not shown) for the left and right side corner cap bolts to thread into. The corner cap bolts going through the transom have the nyloc nuts on them.



This shows the 1/4-20 bolts holding the transom top cap in place.




This is the corner cap as seen from the outside. If you look you can see the bend line where I had to cut a pie shaped piece out, bend them and have them welded. No you wont find the welds. :wink:

 

[akboats]

Been there, Done that
I bought a 14 ft Richline Challenger semi-vee off Craigslist in Tampa. It was made in 1960 and other than rotten wood seats and transom was in good shape. It had sat behind the guy's shop for 20 years and was full of water. He wanted $200 for it and I was ready to buy it , BUT he had no title. He wanted to give me a bill of sale only but here in Florida, the FWC will NOT issue a title on that.

So I told him that when he got the title, I would be back. 30 days later he called and said he had found the title.
31 days later the boat was mine.
I found a 14 ft trailer for $75 from a neighbor and rebuilt it with new tires,wheels,hitch,winch,bearing buddies and bra's.
Painted the trailer with aluminum paint and put new 8 ft vinyl covered bunks on it.
Painted the boat yellow!
Painted the gunnels and lapstrake to match the engine, a 1955 Evinrude 15 HP which I got also for $200 off CL.GEDC0722.JPGGEDC0722.JPG

I really like the paint job. you have a thread of everything you did. and texas is the same way. you can file for a bonded title if there is no reports of it being stolen.

 

[WINGO-LINGO]

Very impressive job you've done here. I have a trailer very similar. It is old, but the metal is solid. Your' post is inspiring.