TOPIC: 1964 Johnson Deluxe Resto-Mod

Hello everyone! I thought I would start a new thread to post the endless work that I'm doing to my 64 Johnson Deluxe. I purchased the old girl a little more than a year ago from someone on this site who buys, sells, and restores old boats. The seller had only had the boat a short time and told me all he knew about the Deluxe. In my opinion the transaction went fine and the seller offered to help me in anyway possible.

Brother, was she in bad shape, like a 48 year old Tijuana prostiute. Used, abused, neglected, you name it! It was a typical 48 year old boat that had not been operated in many years and had spent a lot of time out in the weather.

The old girl had 2 things going for her: I wanted a Deluxe and she was a short drive away. Honestly, if she had been farther away I would have passed since the extra expense of a long drive would have made it not feasible..

Regardless, I knew what I was looking at was going to be a mountain of work... but I love work... and I love having a project. This thing is 250 projects wrapped into one fiberglass hull.

So, all that being said, I will start posting photos of the work I've done so far, plus the new work as I catch up.
This is the day I picked the old girl up...


This when I got her into her new home... my little garage. First time in who knows how long this fiberglassic was out of the weather.

Cool she should be a good project!

Bob

Thanks Bob!
I have about 400 pictures I want to post showing what I've done. I'm planning on posting a few each week showing progress that I've already made.
As of now I have the deck replaced and I'm doing a ton of body work.

Just remember, this is my first time working with on a fiberglassic and I can tell you I've made plenty of mistakes along the way.

haha "like a 48 year old Tijuana prostitute" That's a good one, you could name her tijuana mommasaun.
Good luck on her.

Shake wrote:

haha "like a 48 year old Tijuana prostitute" That's a good one, you could name her tijuana mommasaun.
Good luck on her.

Now that's a great idea!!

Great to see another "enthusiast" in the SE Andrew, welcome and thanks for sharing your project with us!

MarkS wrote:

Great to see another "enthusiast" in the SE Andrew, welcome and thanks for sharing your project with us!

My pleasure Mark! Keep checking in, more photos coming soon!
Love your Glasstron, that thing gets across the lake in a hurry.

First things first... this boat had to get off that trailer immediately. The rollers were busted and brackets were rubbing holes into the hull. So I threw together a $100 dolly for the old girl to live on for a couple of years.

Andrew,

I looked at the pictures you posted of your boat. That is a very interesting and unique design. I think you have a winner for a resto-mod!! If I may offer an opinion, I believe it would have better proportions and look better if the windshield were shorter. However, if you are plannng to retain that in a stock configuration, that is your choice and I also applaud that choice.

In looking at the picture of the front of your boat, I can visualize a bow pivot that would have a structure that would be like a bridge to each of the outer bow areas. That would provide support and stability in all positions except inverted.

You could make some additional structure that would wrap over the front and cover a portion of the front deck. This could be stabilized and held in place with bolts through the holes for the center cleat on the foredeck. This structure would support the hull when it was inverted.

By forming a wrap over structure you would also take a lot of stress off the stud through the bow eye hole if you use that. If you do use the bow eye hole, check the interior in that area to be certain it is quite strong and add internal structure (temporary) to spread the loads over as much area as possible.

It looks to me like it would be very doable to make a bow pivot assembly for your hull. As you noted, it will have to be stronger than mine to accomodate the weight of your hull along with your weight when inside working on it.

Good luck!!

Hey Kern, thanks for the reply and input. I'm giving it a lot of thought and I have another month before I will seriously look at getting her upside down. If nothing else I will use an extra chain fall to roll her over as I suspend the hull, then set her right back down. Like I said, i have some time to brain storm and I appreciate anything you can dream up as an idea. Thanks so much for your help and advice.

PS. everything will be removed before anything happens, like that big flip up windshield!

Time to undress this old girl, uncover her many secrets, and see how many wrinkles and gray hair she really has.
The old 225 Buick V-6










Removing what little interior came with the Deluxe.
Next up.. the engine needs to come out. The entire deck is completely rotten and waterlogged.

andy, it looks like, if you are careful, you might get way with just buffing the gelcoat to a high mirror finish instead of re gelcoating. sure she may have area's that need the gelcoat repaired. That gelcoat looks o be in pretty good shape from the pictures!

Great job on the cradle.

Shake wrote:

andy, it looks like, if you are careful, you might get way with just buffing the gelcoat to a high mirror finish instead of re gelcoating. sure she may have area's that need the gelcoat repaired. That gelcoat looks o be in pretty good shape from the pictures!

Great job on the cradle.

I am soooo glad you said that. The very first thing I learned about these old boats is that ANYTHING can look good in pictures. I learned this the hard way when I drove 500 miles one way to purchase a Craigslist deluxe in Florida. The owner sent me several pictures of a super shiny deluxe. When I get there it had 10,000 spider cracks and the dullest gel-coat known to man. I turned around and drove back home with my money in my pocket.
What the owner was doing was spraying the boat with water then snapping a few pictures.

That being said, the gel-coat on this deluxe is in bad shape also, especially below deck where the wet foam lived. No possibility of buffing this old girl. Be like putting make up on the 48 year old Tijuana prostitute to make her look good... not happening my friends.

Ahhhhh………..memories. Good luck with your Deluxe project………..it will be a fun and rewarding headache haha.
www.fiberglassics.com/components/com_kunena/template/200907_the_lips/images/english/emoticons/cheerful.png

deluxe wrote:

Ahhhhh………..memories. Good luck with your Deluxe project………..it will be a fun and rewarding headache haha.

Hey Deluxe, I've seen a few pictures of your sweet boat on other sites. I would love to see more photos of your Deluxe and the work you did to it. That thing is PERFECT!

The next task was getting the engine and lower engine cover removed. Of course, none of the stainless bolts holding the lower engine cover would come out. The blind nuts turned because the deck that they were in had rotted years ago. So I cut away enough deck to get a saw-zall with a carbide blade under the fiberglass skin and cut the nuts off without damaging the lower cover.

That turned a 1 hour job into an all day ordeal.

Hi Andrew,
Get yourself one of the milti master Oscillating tools. It will be your new best friend, esspecially for cutting into glass.
I have the Harbor Freight version for 39.99 plus a few of the 8.99 blades. You can't go wrong with that bad boy !!!

Thank You for all the pictures and updates. Looks like it's going to be a fun and messy project !

Chuck in Cincinnati wrote:

Hi Andrew,
Get yourself one of the milti master Oscillating tools. It will be your new best friend, esspecially for cutting into glass.
I have the Harbor Freight version for 39.99 plus a few of the 8.99 blades. You can't go wrong with that bad boy !!!

Thank You for all the pictures and updates. Looks like it's going to be a fun and messy project !

Got me one those rascals! and a carbide edged blade so it won't wear out no time soon.

Rosie the Riveter dropped by to check my progress.

nice, good to see the little lady is supportive of your hobby.

Shake wrote:

nice, good to see the little lady is supportive of your hobby.

That's my lady, and she is enjoying watching the progress (not too happy with the expense).

Time to pull that old 225 Odd Fire Buick out of the Deluxe. You can't replace a deck with that thing in the way.

Then Murphy's law showed up. I unbolted everything and it would not turn loose from the stern drive! I pulled and yanked to no avail. I had to remove the flywheel bolts because the input coupler was rusted to input shaft spline.

Let me tell you, those bolts were almost impossible to get to. I had to lock the wrench and turn the engine to break them loose.

But I got it out!



Look at the picture above, what dumb thing did I do?

Had to look for a minute, but the chain for the hoist is between the engine stand and the block right? (Going to have to un-bolt one of the lugs CORRECTION - two of the lugs to get it out!) Hey Andrew, when Murphy is in the house stuff like that happens.

MarkS wrote:

Had to look for a minute, but the chain for the hoist is between the engine stand and the block right? (Going to have to un-bolt one of the lugs to get it out!) Hey Andrew, when Murphy is in the house stuff like that happens.

You got it right!! I trapped the chain hoist chain in the stand. had to unbolt it to get it out. It was time to quit then.

I'm going to be taking a break during thanksgiving, so no posts until maybe this Sunday. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!!

man this boat is too cool. I love the cockpit dash...sweet!
Great pix of the lady too!

Kelly wrote:

man this boat is too cool. I love the cockpit dash...sweet!
Great pix of the lady too!

Thanks for the compliments Kelly! These old Johnson Deluxes are so unique, thats what attracted me to them.

Andy,

I would have pulled the engine & intermediate housing as an assembly. The drive still needs to be removed so you can get the rest out of your way. That still doesn't eliminate the corroded splines but would make access easier.

jimandros wrote:

Andy,

I would have pulled the engine & intermediate housing as an assembly. The drive still needs to be removed so you can get the rest out of your way. That still doesn't eliminate the corroded splines but would make access easier.

Brother, if I had to do again thats what I would do for sure. I was a virgin to these stringer drives and just didn't know any better. I figured unbolt the engine and it should just slide right out... WRONG! Sorry to hear you closed up your shop...

Awww, the sign of a true pro. Your doing great, keep up the good work. It will get easyer at some point. Skip.

It has come to my attention that I have offended the gentleman I purchased my wonderful old Deluxe from.

Let me start by apologizing to him. I never intended to imply that he was dishonest, but rather the opposite. My initial post on this thread reads...

"Did I think the seller was dishonest? Not really, he said the floor was bad (aren't they all?) and it didn't run (no kidding). My only complaint was that the Craigslist photo of the engine was jacked from another website and used as the engine supposedly in the Deluxe (I knew it as soon I opened the engine cover)."

So let me set the record straight, in no way was seller dishonest with me personally. He was selling a 48 year old boat that he had recently picked up and knew very little about and shared what he knew and answered my questions, including an explanation for the engine picture. Again, my apologies and I will edit my initial post to reflect this.

Also, the seller was very upset about another post I made on this thread...

"The very first thing I learned about these old boats is that ANYTHING can look good in pictures. I learned this the hard way when I drove 500 miles one way to purchase a Craigslist deluxe in Florida. The owner sent me several pictures of a super shiny deluxe. When I get there it had 10,000 spider cracks and the dullest gel-coat known to man. I turned around and drove back home with my money in my pocket. What the owner was doing was spraying the boat with water then snapping a few pictures. "

Honestly, this comment was concerning a DIFFERENT Johnson Deluxe that I was attempting to purchase in Ocala, Florida several months before buying my Deluxe.

The gentleman I eventual got my Deluxe from did none of these things and I regret that when he read this he thought I was posting lies about him.

I hope this helps to clear things up and I sincerely meant no ill will towards the gentleman that sold me my Deluxe and would never want to ruin our relationship or his impeccable reputation.

It is too bad that things like that happen. Some people can take anything the wrong way. You have said your piece and don't let it get to you. Just go forward on your project and enjoy your self. Everyone here is here to help you in any way we can. Skip.

skipthescrounger wrote:

It is too bad that things like that happen. Some people can take anything the wrong way. You have said your piece and don't let it get to you. Just go forward on your project and enjoy your self. Everyone here is here to help you in any way we can. Skip.

Thanks Skip, I appreciate the good words and advice. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and I cant wait to get back to work on my Tijuana Mama-San.

Well said Skip. Things happen, correct when/where you can and you move on. We're all here to help where we can, keep plugging along.

Bob

Next up, getting the 1964 stringer stern drive out of the way.


Lower engine cover carefully removed.


Outdrive removed.


Intermediate housing with old round transom seal.



All gone so I can start removing the deck.



not really sure what I'm going to do with the old 225 buick and stringer. The plan now is to modernize to some degree.

Any suggestions?

As Jan Hadley once said time for a "radical floorectomy".





I ended up getting a carbide edged blade, the fiberglass eats up the regular blade pretty quick.



Cutting up close in the hard to reach places.



Revealing the rotten plywood..

I'm amazed how rotten the deck is and the foam is so water logged the extra weight is enormous.


Pulling up the old foam. This piece weighed about 40 pounds.

Look at the water standing in the bottom of the hull. Now imagine that freezing and thawing several times a year.

Time to get out the Skil Saw and cut just deep enough to get thru the rotten wood.



This piece of foam was so heavy I couldn't get it out of the boat.

I broke it into pieces so I could handle it.

It's a start!

I know you cant tell it, but that is about 700 pounds of wet foam in the truck.

agleason wrote:

jimandros wrote:

Andy,

I would have pulled the engine & intermediate housing as an assembly. The drive still needs to be removed so you can get the rest out of your way. That still doesn't eliminate the corroded splines but would make access easier.

Brother, if I had to do again thats what I would do for sure. I was a virgin to these stringer drives and just didn't know any better. I figured unbolt the engine and it should just slide right out... WRONG! Sorry to hear you closed up your shop...

Andy (and to everyone else too),

Thanks for the shop comment; I took advantage of circumstances that came up to the best I could and escaped intact. Bad as things may seem at times it is important to remember that when one door closes another opens. My internet and email has been thru the shop and I will still have internet available but to a lesser degree. I will continue to be on this board as well as the OMC and ClassicGlastron sites. Everyone please remember that we are all on a budget but if we don't support our hometown businesses we won't have a hometown. Brick and mortar costs money but those people provide a service as well as jobs in small town America.

Andy,
The 225 V6 is a stong motor. Don't worry about the odd fire rough idle reputation. I get upper 30s from both of mine and I'm sure my explorer has its share of water weight too. Both will pull a slalom skier from a deep water start no problem.

Everyone please remember that we are all on a budget but if we don't support our hometown businesses we won't have a hometown. Brick and mortar costs money but those people provide a service as well as jobs in small town America.

Well said Jim, WELL SAID.

I love the old Buick odd fire. My biggest snag is the obsolete stringer. Just the cost of ball gears for this particular model will buy a 800 series that 95% of parts are still available and reasonable. Of course, the 800 means a different engine, controls, etc.