kevbry
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- Jul 21, 2014
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Since this place has been such a help while I've been planning and working on my own boat, I figured I'd post what I've been working on.
I have a late 70's Lund C-14 which had spent nearly a decade slowly being absorbed by the trees in my brother's neighbour's yard. I picked it and a '99 Mercury 8HP for a pretty decent price and hauled it home to start working on it.
As it was, it came on a decent but ratty looking trailer with 8" tires; way too small for highway speeds. My brother's 16' Lund is in the background... we like our old boats.
The bunks were not placed properly, and were in pretty rough shape. One of them had punched a good dent in the bow when it was last loaded.
The first change was to upgrade to 13" tires. They're actually just standard radials, which work perfectly for something like this. They absorb bumps much better than trailer tires due to the softer sidewalls, and are way, way cheaper.
Next up was a test on the water. While the boat held water just fine, the primer gasket in the carb had completely disintegrated. It poured gas out of the carb, so I wasn't able to take it for a test run. When I got home I decided that I might as well fix up everything while I was at it. I completely disassembled the trailer, then repainted it with galvanized metal primer and spray cans.
Trailer frame primed
Parts painted
Built new, wider bunks to replace the junk that came with it. They're cedar stair rails on fir 2x3 with lots of Thompson's Water Seal. The carpet is very nice, thick waterproof carpet runner, all glued on with construction adhesive and stainless staples. It killed me to cover them up... they were beautiful.
It took way longer than I'd expected, but the trailer is back together. I moved the winch post all the way forwards so that the transom actually sits on the bunks now, which should reduce stress on the bottom.
Kit's 1970 Lund C-14 thread
https://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=26611
was incredibly helpful. From the moment I bought it I'd decided to deck in the front, and will be using aluminum angle just as in that thread. The angle all came from garage sales and the local scrap yard. If I'd paid retail price it would have been well over $100, but I got the angle for around $1 per pound. This part isn't done quite yet, but it's next up on the list.
Today's project was replacing the seats, since they'd almost completely rotted away from their years in the sun. The original plywood was some sort of sealed 5/8" ply, but I replaced it with 1/2" (actually, the metric equivalent) since I was going to be carpeting it over. I bought all new stainless fasteners, and drilled a few holes in the supports that the original builders had missed. A single 4x8 sheet should be enough to do both seats as well as the front deck. One slight problem was that the benches are actually a bit over 50" wide, so I had Home Depot cut the ply into 50" and 46" sections, then cut the 50" section into two 13" seats. Each seat was extended to 13" from the original 12", since the original length wasn't quite wide enough to give the center screws much purchase. I'll cut the contour for the front deck later on.
Next up is to deck in the front across the seats, install the fish finder transducer and speed sender and add a top deck to mount the trolling motor to. We're taking it out for a spin this afternoon, which hopefully will clear the dock this time through... fingers crossed. I'll update as things progress.
I have a late 70's Lund C-14 which had spent nearly a decade slowly being absorbed by the trees in my brother's neighbour's yard. I picked it and a '99 Mercury 8HP for a pretty decent price and hauled it home to start working on it.
As it was, it came on a decent but ratty looking trailer with 8" tires; way too small for highway speeds. My brother's 16' Lund is in the background... we like our old boats.
The bunks were not placed properly, and were in pretty rough shape. One of them had punched a good dent in the bow when it was last loaded.
The first change was to upgrade to 13" tires. They're actually just standard radials, which work perfectly for something like this. They absorb bumps much better than trailer tires due to the softer sidewalls, and are way, way cheaper.
Next up was a test on the water. While the boat held water just fine, the primer gasket in the carb had completely disintegrated. It poured gas out of the carb, so I wasn't able to take it for a test run. When I got home I decided that I might as well fix up everything while I was at it. I completely disassembled the trailer, then repainted it with galvanized metal primer and spray cans.
Trailer frame primed
Parts painted
Built new, wider bunks to replace the junk that came with it. They're cedar stair rails on fir 2x3 with lots of Thompson's Water Seal. The carpet is very nice, thick waterproof carpet runner, all glued on with construction adhesive and stainless staples. It killed me to cover them up... they were beautiful.
It took way longer than I'd expected, but the trailer is back together. I moved the winch post all the way forwards so that the transom actually sits on the bunks now, which should reduce stress on the bottom.
Kit's 1970 Lund C-14 thread
https://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=26611
was incredibly helpful. From the moment I bought it I'd decided to deck in the front, and will be using aluminum angle just as in that thread. The angle all came from garage sales and the local scrap yard. If I'd paid retail price it would have been well over $100, but I got the angle for around $1 per pound. This part isn't done quite yet, but it's next up on the list.
Today's project was replacing the seats, since they'd almost completely rotted away from their years in the sun. The original plywood was some sort of sealed 5/8" ply, but I replaced it with 1/2" (actually, the metric equivalent) since I was going to be carpeting it over. I bought all new stainless fasteners, and drilled a few holes in the supports that the original builders had missed. A single 4x8 sheet should be enough to do both seats as well as the front deck. One slight problem was that the benches are actually a bit over 50" wide, so I had Home Depot cut the ply into 50" and 46" sections, then cut the 50" section into two 13" seats. Each seat was extended to 13" from the original 12", since the original length wasn't quite wide enough to give the center screws much purchase. I'll cut the contour for the front deck later on.
Next up is to deck in the front across the seats, install the fish finder transducer and speed sender and add a top deck to mount the trolling motor to. We're taking it out for a spin this afternoon, which hopefully will clear the dock this time through... fingers crossed. I'll update as things progress.
