Now I'm getting serious....

[Offset]

George, I have followed your progress for a long time. I would think you must have some apprehension about the next step of actually running the boat.

You have done an incredible job of rebuilding this boat into the beautiful creation it has become. I wish you all the best and hopefully the only bugs are little.

Enjoy it.

[gcarter]

George, I have followed your progress for a long time. I would think you must have some apprehension about the next step of actually running the boat.

You have done an incredible job of rebuilding this boat into the beautiful creation it has become. I wish you all the best and hopefully the only bugs are little.

Enjoy it.

Thank you!
At this point, I have a recurring nightmare that I launch it and it sinks!
I've determined I'm going to dump the stern in for awhile just to make sure it doesn't!!

[bertsboat]

Are you going to actually put this work of art in the water display at the boat show?

[gcarter]

I took more pics, but they were a little out of focus.

[yeller]

Getting closer. Hopefully we'll both hit the water this year.

[Ed Donnelly]

Be very very careful George. What will you do once the interior is done?
I guess nothing but enjoy running it
Dibs on a ride at the Awakening. Going to bring my daughter just so she can meet you and the other fanatics...Ed

[Conquistador_del_mar]

Looking nearly ready and good George! How does the drive cooler distribute the water over the drive since I don't see the outlet in the picture?

[gcarter]

Looking nearly ready and good George! How does the drive cooler distribute the water over the drive since I don't see the outlet in the picture?

Thanks Bill.
The hose is screwed into a square cap that is spaced above the outdrive cap. There's probably a 1/2" vertical space between the two caps. The water just splashes over the surface of the outdrive cap.
The water picked up by the lower is still being shuttled through the drive shaft housing water porting.
The only difference is that water just dumps back into the body of water the boat is floating in.

[Conquistador_del_mar]

Thanks Bill.
The hose is screwed into a square cap that is spaced above the outdrive cap. There's probably a 1/2" vertical space between the two caps. The water just splashes over the surface of the outdrive cap.
The water picked up by the lower is still being shuttled through the drive shaft housing water porting.
The only difference is that water just dumps back into the body of water the boat is floating in.

Okay, that sounds like a good system for heat dissipation - both internal and external water flows. I just did not see the secondary cap on top of the outdrive in your latest picture. Thanks.

[gcarter]

Okay, that sounds like a good system for heat dissipation - both internal and external water flows. I just did not see the secondary cap on top of the outdrive in your latest picture. Thanks.

Bill, here's an additional picture that may be a bit more descriptive. The shower cap is visible;

[gcarter]

This is the first Bravo I've owned and have read the manual nearly cover to cover. The truth is, not every detail is covered.
For instance, the six studs and nuts that hold the upper and lower drive together requires short (low profile) SST Nylock nuts. If you use regular lock nuts, the locking element is still above the stud when tightened.
Not a big deal except these are 7/16"-20 fine thread studs and you can only find the nuts in major cities (and maybe Orlando or Tampa) but not in little Leesburg, FL. So, it takes 3 days to get them from McMaster-Carr in Atlanta.
Neither here or there, but it's all very time consuming and if the manual had that detail, I could have ordered them much earlier.

[gcarter]

After refinishing (new gel) the fore deck, I decided to remove or fill the hole in front of the windshield for the anchor light.
Filling the hole proved more difficult than I'd hoped. I tried a number of times to get a good finish using gel patch paste from Minicraft, but I was never satisfied with the result.
Finally, I bought another quart of gel from Minicraft and sprayed about .025"-.030" on an area of about 1 square foot.
I let the gel harden for two or three days and color sanded it.
The good news was that the surface was absolutely perfect. But I was frustrated to find the gel color wasn't right, I mean the tint was correct, but it was as if the gel pigment had sunk into the resin and left translucent resin on top. It was all very subtle and almost didn't exist but it did. I was able to photograph the problem, sort of. I took my laptop to Minicraft and showed the pictures to Paul. He said I had sprayed the gel too thick. I spray gel using a Jaguar HVLP gun w/a 2.2 mm tip. Paul suggested something a little smaller and a bit higher pressure.
So, today I scuffed a slightly larger area w/360 paper, installed a 1.9 mm tip, and sprayed three thin coats of gel, separated by about 10 minutes between coats. Tuesday, or so, I'll sand the area, and hopefully the repair will be invisible.
The first picture shows the discolored, translucent gel. Look carefully and you can see how it looks as though you're looking through the gel to a substrate. The next two show the bow masked off, and finally, the gel sprayed on the deck.

[Greg Guimond]

After refinishing (new gel) the fore deck, I decided to remove or fill the hole in front of the windshield for the anchor light. Filling the hole proved more difficult than I'd hoped.

.
George, I have followed many of your posts but not all. What receptacle? Was this an OEM location for a navigation light of some sort? Removable pole or permanently screwed to the deck? Or more of a courtesy light?

[gcarter]

.
George, I have followed many of your posts but not all. What receptacle? Was this an OEM location for a navigation light of some sort? Removable pole or permanently screwed to the deck? Or more of a courtesy light?

Greg, a base for a removable pole mounted two way anchor/nav light.
I removed both lifting rings and moved the light aft to the rear lifting ring location.
The original light in front of the windshield was similar to this Perko;



The aft location now has a base similar to this (this is where the aft lifting ring was mounted) the trim ring is powder coated to match the other hardware;

[Greg Guimond]

So the Donzi factory had a plug in stalk, located just in front of the windscreen, that was half stern light (but not at the stern) and half cockpit area courtesy light. Was the housing two bulbs so you could run the stern light only and then click again for both. I guess it must have been set up that way.