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Sept 17, 2020 8:47:35 GMT
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On top of messing around with old rusty cars I have spent time on and around boats since I was a baby. My father has had just about every kind of engined boat you can think of, small and fast, large and fast, small with a Jet, small and built for dragging, large and slow, large and luxury. It was inevitable that his kids would get into the same hobby. We dabble in the odd boat here and there, we are on lake windermere as much as possible in the summer skiing (mainly why why turbo scimitar has hardly moved forward since march) At the back end of last week I picked this little project up. Its a 1976 Glastron V165 Spirit. Now I know RR is meant for cars but technically its a ride and its certainly retro! Glastron are an American boat builders based in Texas. One of the first manufacturers of fibreglass boats and are well know in the states. In the 70's alongside his car business WRC legend Roger Clark bought the rights to produce glastron boats in the UK under the name Roger Clark Marine. They were sold as the V165 Spirit and the V185 Spirt (V165 is the 16.5 foot and the V185 is the 18.5 foot option) Roger Clark marine produced the hulls but improved them over the American design (what else would you expect from the family that has WRC titles & Goodwood hill records) They were thicker than the American hulls for strength, better designed to make them more stable and a few extra features. This one is a 1965 V165 Spirit. It has a 3.0L Mercruiser 140bhp inboard engine which is rare as most of the American versions came with an outboard. It needs some work, there is a water leak from the engine somewhere, I think it is the core plugs under the inlet manifold. Boats run something called a Gimball bearing which reduces vibration through the prop, the housing for that bearing has corroded so the below won't sit on properly and is causing some water to find its way into the hull (kind of rule 1 to avoid with a boat) It also needs a good tidy up and the odd job here and there to get it back to how it should be but importantly its complete and has metal flake! A few pictures... I had already pulled most of the interior out to put inside to dry but its all there and intact just damp and dirty.       |
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Sept 17, 2020 8:59:36 GMT
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First job was to tackle the water leak, the engine starts and runs perfectly... super smooth apart from it could do with new engine mounts to reduce the wobble. A boat engine runs an open cooling system instead of a closed system like a car. That means it takes in fresh water when its in the water or to run it out of the water you attach a hose. When the system is full and the engine is running there is a trickle of water down the side of the engine on the inlet side. It looked to be coming from the core plugs. It isn't the huge issue on a boat it would be on a car as the water won't run out and over heat the engine like a car would. First job was to get the inlet and riser off to have a look. Once that was done the cause was obvious, there is a small crack along the top of the waterway in the block. This is pretty common with boats due to them not being winterised properly (my dad has just had to spend £18,000 replacing the 2 V8s in his boat for the same reason) I cleaned off the gunk and some old epoxy of some sort and ground the crack out slightly. Luckily it isn't major and should be find welded up. A couple of pictures of the engine and also of dad's boat with its new engine - 2x 5.7 V8s with Holley carbs and a few other trick bits - its 27foot long and tops 60mph without much effort the thing is a weapon.     |
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Sept 17, 2020 9:35:22 GMT
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I for one will certainly be following this with great interest, I was also bought up with boats but they had sails and toy engines (seagulls then small inboard diesels on the larger ones). The old man used to take half the cooling system off the inboards each winter to make sure they were dry. One thing we did soon work out was it was a damn sight cheaper to take the engines to a car guy for machining than a boat expert!
I wonder if you might be better stitching the crack, less risk of heat distortion and further cracks.
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Sept 17, 2020 9:42:56 GMT
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I for one will certainly be following this with great interest, I was also bought up with boats but they had sails and toy engines (seagulls then small inboard diesels on the larger ones). The old man used to take half the cooling system off the inboards each winter to make sure they were dry. One thing we did soon work out was it was a damn sight cheaper to take the engines to a car guy for machining than a boat expert! I wonder if you might be better stitching the crack, less risk of heat distortion and further cracks. Yeah I learnt that a long time ago too! the price difference from land to water is amazing! especially for the same parts in a lot of the cases. I can Tig & Mig but wouldn't be confident welding or stitching this up with it being cast. I have a engineering place round the corner I am going to take it to, I'm guessing they will agree with you. |
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dellie
Part of things
Posts: 47
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Sept 17, 2020 12:30:27 GMT
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This one is a 1965 V165 Spirit. It has a 3.0L Mercruiser 140bhp inboard engine which is rare as most of the American versions came with an outboard. Yours also came with an outboard motor. (sorry, couldn't let it pass  ) Nice boat, looks like a nice winter project. |
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Sept 18, 2020 8:28:38 GMT
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This one is a 1965 V165 Spirit. It has a 3.0L Mercruiser 140bhp inboard engine which is rare as most of the American versions came with an outboard. Yours also came with an outboard motor. (sorry, couldn't let it pass ) Nice boat, looks like a nice winter project. My brother made the same remark :-) It is off to get to the gimbal bearing and weld on the damage at the bottom of the skeg. |
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Sept 18, 2020 11:45:33 GMT
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about 20 years ago, a good mate of mine had one of those, came with a rubbish 2.0 petrol bmw engine. we converted it to take a 2.0td perkins out of a (then) common as muck maestro/montego... was a bloody brilliant boat, we cracked the hull jumping the wake of the barfleur outside poole harbor, but we stripped it all down, glassed it back togther and went out the next weekend. it sank once after breaking its mooring overnight. we dragged it back up, drained the fuel, changed the battery and starter and went back out the next weekend. we blew it up several times (oil starvation due to the angle the engine ran at we eventually figured out), ech time it got a 'new' engine, and we were back out in short order..... running on red diesel meant we were able to use it so, so much more than people who had the petrol v8 powered stuff... had a lot of good times on that boat... got stolen once too..... we got it back that time too!!
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Current fleet:
'58 A35 (half mine)
'67 11 window splitscreen vw (half mine)
'77 mini 1000 (not quite 1000 any more!!)
'86 Armstrong MT500
'89 XR4X4
'94 Corrado VR6
Some sort of sevenesque kit car (no age yet!!)
'01 Mondeo estate 2.0 (engine eventually destined for kit car!) - scrapped, engine only left!
'98 E300 estate, rusty but seemingly reliable, fast-ish tat hauler. eventual engine donor
A35 van, or whats left of it after it lived in a field for many years
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Sept 21, 2020 8:08:53 GMT
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about 20 years ago, a good mate of mine had one of those, came with a rubbish 2.0 petrol bmw engine. we converted it to take a 2.0td perkins out of a (then) common as muck maestro/montego... was a bloody brilliant boat, we cracked the hull jumping the wake of the barfleur outside poole harbor, but we stripped it all down, glassed it back togther and went out the next weekend. it sank once after breaking its mooring overnight. we dragged it back up, drained the fuel, changed the battery and starter and went back out the next weekend. we blew it up several times (oil starvation due to the angle the engine ran at we eventually figured out), ech time it got a 'new' engine, and we were back out in short order..... running on red diesel meant we were able to use it so, so much more than people who had the petrol v8 powered stuff... had a lot of good times on that boat... got stolen once too..... we got it back that time too!! I think we all need to know what finally killed it in the end? |
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Sept 22, 2020 10:53:30 GMT
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I think we all need to know what finally killed it in the end?[/quote] LOL, Actually, i don't know!! We eventually got it all sorted and up together and just used the hell out of it for a few years. Eventually it got sold to local chap, who used it for a season or two, then moved it on again, then I lost track of it completely until it turned up on ebay as a bare hull with no running gear, interior at all, a year back. There were several, very easy ID points, and I'm 100% certain it was the same boat, and we considered buying it back 'for old times sake' (it was only a couple of hundred quid, but realised that it would be a bit of a big project with so much missing, and probably wouldnt really ever get used, assuming we could find the time to finish it anyway (my pal still boats, but now with a 34' sunseeker, and a weird audi 2.5td engined jet drive boat he built a few years ago).... Sorry bit of a boring ending really..... Thread hijack over, sorry!  |
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Current fleet:
'58 A35 (half mine)
'67 11 window splitscreen vw (half mine)
'77 mini 1000 (not quite 1000 any more!!)
'86 Armstrong MT500
'89 XR4X4
'94 Corrado VR6
Some sort of sevenesque kit car (no age yet!!)
'01 Mondeo estate 2.0 (engine eventually destined for kit car!) - scrapped, engine only left!
'98 E300 estate, rusty but seemingly reliable, fast-ish tat hauler. eventual engine donor
A35 van, or whats left of it after it lived in a field for many years
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Sept 23, 2020 8:18:28 GMT
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I think we all need to know what finally killed it in the end? LOL, Actually, i don't know!! We eventually got it all sorted and up together and just used the hell out of it for a few years. Eventually it got sold to local chap, who used it for a season or two, then moved it on again, then I lost track of it completely until it turned up on ebay as a bare hull with no running gear, interior at all, a year back. There were several, very easy ID points, and I'm 100% certain it was the same boat, and we considered buying it back 'for old times sake' (it was only a couple of hundred quid, but realised that it would be a bit of a big project with so much missing, and probably wouldnt really ever get used, assuming we could find the time to finish it anyway (my pal still boats, but now with a 34' sunseeker, and a weird audi 2.5td engined jet drive boat he built a few years ago).... Sorry bit of a boring ending really..... Thread hijack over, sorry! [/quote] That was an anticlimax I was hoping it went out in style! |
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Sept 30, 2020 8:25:35 GMT
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Small update, Since finding that I thought was the cause of the water leak, I took the boat over to an engineering place I use, they had a look and decided the mark was an old casting mark and nothing to worry about, I filled it slightly with a bit of JB weld just to neaten it up, cleaned off that side of the engine and gave it a coat of paint, refitted the inlet manifold after cleaning both sides of the mating surface and refitted with a new gasket (That is now the suspected cause of the leak).
Bolted the whole thing back up and ran it on a hose up to temperature, no sign of a water leak! huzzah!
Managed to track down a replacement alternator (the old one worked but looked naff) so will fit that and then move onto the gimbal bearing repair. Then I can get the leg on and water test.
I want to get it in the water this year to get a full list of jobs for the winter but so far the list is.
Cut and weld in replacement skeg (old one has been worn down by hitting the bottom)
Replace hoses, wires, fuel pump and other scruffy bits on the engine and paint the block, inlet & risers up.
Replace engine mounts
General engine bay tidy up
Fix up the hinges on the seats (they fold flat for sunbathing) and the hinges have seized
Replace the carpet
Full wet sand and polish
Clean off, oil and polish up the teak trim
General cleaning and tidying
Hopefully all ready for the spring. (I said something similar about my scimitar 3 years ago)
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Last Edit: Sept 30, 2020 8:26:27 GMT by ScimiTurd
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Sept 30, 2020 8:27:24 GMT
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Sept 30, 2020 9:30:52 GMT
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Bookmarked! I know of Glastron, but had no idea about the Roger Clark connection. A nice little bit of history. |
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Sept 30, 2020 21:59:55 GMT
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I love this boat. It has beautiful lines. Very classic.
I would happily work on something like that.
I have my jetski and boat license and have a ticket to drive even fairly large boats. However I have never owned a boat and have no desire to do so. I have friends with boats and love to go out with them and share the cost of going out with them but I never had the need to have one.
But I always like to look at boats. Marina's etc, I love them.
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