TOPIC: 1971 Lancer Outboard

Second try to start this thread.
Life handed to me a boat that my Dad had but that I never really knew about because I lived far away for some years. During this time, he had this CC lancer outboard and wound up selling it to a friend of mine in about 2006. I still lived away and the friend used this oat with his family a few years then it got winterized and sat since 2011. fast forward to now, my friend basically needed to boat moved and asked if I wanted it back so I said yes.

And like a big dummy decided to restore it

I have the tools and technology so that part isn't a huge deal but it will be the many many hours work because I want to and not because I need to.

It is #26 of 60 of these outboards made. It was made in Cortland NY at the Thompson Boat Company in Cortland NY and by coincidence, my name is Thompson. it originally had an Evinrude 115 but that is gone and in it's place is a 90's Johnson commercial 100. It is too long a shaft for the transom so it can explain the handling characteristics my friend described.

The rest of it is decent, all the electrics worked before I tore it apart. The original gas tank is almost perfect and zero rust colored anything came out of it. Just some gray zinc from the galvanizing.

The deck was shot and the partial repair from 2006 served well enough but it all had to go. The stem board was soaked!
the flotation foam was all soaked and inside the stringers was/is foam filled. I haven't got all that out yet from the stringers but took an easy 300 pounds of wet foam out of there already. The combined weight of the wet wood and foam was hundreds of pounds, maybe half the cargo capacity worth.

I still am doing demo on things but that is nearing the end , I will grind the whole thing out, fix any bubbles etc and lay in some new glass and use a lightweight material for decking. It should scoot along pretty well when I am done with the weight savings.

I found this pic of what it looked like all red.

Picture

Those gray seats are not so good looking. The originals were on 8" bases.

Even though it has been pretty cold, I continue to make progress. I have the entire thing stripped down to the hull and the deck cap. I separated the halves and filled in all the bolt holes so that it is not swiss cheese anymore.
The plywood that was used to form the stringers was soaked and rotten and the stringers were filled with flotation foam so getting all that out of there has been a huge pain but there is so much other work to do that it can still be start/stop efforts. I am making templates for the new deck and bulkheads for the ends of the fuel tank area. There was a crack between the holes where the bow eye was mounted and that needs more grinding. I found a fab shop to replicate the lifting ring attachment bracket out of stainless to replace the original. It lost about 1/2 it's thickness to rust where it laid up against the wood puttied into he bow to bolt it to. The hull appears to be pretty solid and no major damage repairs are visible. There were some bubbles and some poor layup of the glass in a few places that I ground all the way out and filled with TotalBoat polyester structural repair putty. I like that product for this purpose.

Sounds like you are doing a great job.
A few years ago I inherited my Dad's boat. I'm in New Zealand, mines a New Zealand built 1974 Fi-Glass Viscount, approx 20 ft. My boat is in good usable condition, a few scratches here and there in the gel coat, nothing major.
We don't winterise boats here in NZ, that's when the best fishing is.
I'm interested to follow your progress.
Cheers Blake

Hi Blake, Thanks for the comments. Not much fun fishing in the Mid-Atlatic USA in winter. I had a little pause in activity but have back at it. I need to figure out the best way to get the coosa/thermolite boards to me for the decking. No place that stocks is terribly close and the shipping is expensive but not too horrible if I need to travel a few hours to get it. There is no end to the sanding anyway so I can always do that. I got a new seat ( back to back) to put in as some visual reference. I hunted everyplace to get the all red vinyl replacements and have the P/N but the mfg no longer makes that part.. Oh well, I am not aiming for a perfect resto to original anyhow. We have an unusually cool , wet springtime here this year and some more warmth and less wet will help me when I mix the foam.

The Viscount is a snazzy looking boat.

The fates were kind to me and the motor started. That is a huge plus now I can take it off and know that it at least runs. Once I get that off there, I can finish cutting out that doghouse and the wood original plywood decking underneath gone.

This photo about sums it up well.

I made some more minor progress now that I know the engine runs. I had to take a couple weeks off because I broke a few ribs and that tends to slow one down. I put a new layer of chop strand over the repairs in the hull under the area where the fuel tank will go. I need to clean that up a little and get it ready for the tank to go in I need to create and epoxy in the blocks to hold the tank clamps. it is a cylindrical tank in a rectangle space...
I also got a coat of topside primer on today. I tried to practice with the HVLP spray gun and it is clear I need more practice!.
I also bought a tractor so now I have a way to pull the engine off and finish up that area with grinding/sanding in prep for the new deck. I tried to get the coosa shipped to me but the place that had the shipping of ~~ 340.00 also charged about 100.00 more per sheet than other sellers. Shipping from that seller was 575.00 so it looks like I will be taking an entire day to drive over to southern MD to pick it up myself.

Not entirely boat related but the engine. The centermost bolt holding the gear housing to the exhaust shaft was epic stuck. It turns out that the body of the bolt where it passed thru essentially a sleeve of teh aluminum was mechanically corroded into place. It took quite a lot of time and effort to get it to even move and when I finally did get it out without breaking anything, it is clear the bolt twisted a lot but did not fail. That was impressive.