After a year or so of my girlfriends grandma telling us we need to get the old boat out of her way at their cabin, we finally gave in and brought it home.  I had been looking at boats for a while to do some fishing around ND, but prices have been ridiculous on decent used ones so the price was right for this deal.  Her dad originally bought the boat in the late 80's, it was virtually new at the time.  When he finally upgraded her grandpa bought it.  He was able to use it a few times and kept it at their cabin on Lake of the Woods.  Unfortunately COPD got ahold of him and he wasn't able to take out for several years before he passed away.  Before we took it out on the lake in July it had probably been 4 to 5 years since it had seen the water.  Thankfully it has been stored inside for most of its life, and for the past several years has at least been hooked up to the hose in the yard every summer and started and run for a little bit.

After the 4th of July traffic thinned out we took it out on LOTW for a few hours while her dad had his boat out, just in case we needed a tow.  It ran great though and hardly had enough water in the bilge to even run out of the hole when I took the plug out.  

I've been doing a lot of learning on this one.  It's a Tyee 5.5, 18ft with the Mercruiser 3.0L I/O.  In pretty good shape for the age.  The floor is solid and the transom seems to be as well.  The old red carpet is worn and loose in spots, so that may be a project I take on this winter.  The wiring for the trim sensor and limit switch was shot, insulation crumbling off and the wiring was all green and corroded.  For now I just cut them and disconnected inside so nothing shorts out.  Looks like I'll have to pull the outdrive unit to get access to run the wires for the new sensor and switch.

The motor starts easy and runs smooth.  It was completely rebuilt at around 400 hours, the boat only has 451 hours on the meter total.

 



My first project once we got it home was to replace the bilge and livewell pumps.  It was a good chance to dig around in the back to learn about what all is going on there.



After I filled the bilge up with the hose to test my new pump wiring, I did notice a few rivets on the bottom that had a real slow drip.  To get through the rest of this summer I just put some 3M marine sealant around them.  I'll clean that off and probably have to pull the center floor section out to be able to either tighten them back up or replace them this winter.



We have had it out near our house now, and figured we would use it enough to warrant adding some things to make it a bit easier on us.  I spent several evenings and part of a weekend installing a 60"/80# Terrova with Ipilot-Link and a Humminbird Helix 10 with Side Imaging plus the ethernet switch and all the goodies to get everything talking.  Hopefully I can find a decent Helix 7 to put at the bow during the off-season.

I did a lot of reading about batteries and just ended up getting some group 27 deep cycles from Napa to run the trolling motor and a group 24 to run the graph, ethernet switch and other electronical stuff.  That way I don't have to worry about draining the cranking battery.  I 3D printed a mounting bracket for a battery disconnect for the graph power to keep that semi-hidden.  Also added the Minnkota plug for the trolling motor and quick detach plate for the TM.  Noco Genius 3 bank charger for the new batteries.








Any tips, tricks or helpful ideas for a first time boat owner are much appreciated!

That's a cool ole boat.

Nice boat!

nice boat, fix the minor leaks, and be sure to winterize it every year and you are gtg. I would either keep it in a heated location or winterize it and use a block heater to keep it from freezing.

Regarding batteries:
Run a cranking (or dual purpose) battery for the motor and electronics and a deep cycle for the trolling motor, use an onboard charger to keep everything hot while it's not in use. I have been using ProMariner's for about ten years now and they have been reliable in my experience. You just hook an extension cord to it and it charges everything, there's one running on my 21' center console now. I have 2 house batteries and two deep cycles in 24v configuration so my charger is slightly different than what you need.


link to charger


also, if you are on big water, shit can that VHF and update to something more modern so you have MMSI etc. going in your favor.

If you can get to both ends of the rivets hold a heavy hammer on one end. The hit the other end with a heavy sledge hammer using a punch. It will tighten them up.
Gluvit will work if you cannot get to it.

I have used stainless steel bolts to replace rivets.

I also run a small bilge pump with a much bigger one.
Water always comes in faster than you can pump it.

Awesome! Looks fun!

Thanks for all the good info so far!

Next question, what should I be seeing for top end?  On a nice long run today with 6-8" waves I was able to get just over 30mph when I got the trim just right.  It got up on plane fairly quick, but it seems like 30mph and 3600-3700rpm is a bit low on both numbers.  This is the 3.0L/140 Mercruiser, 1.98 ratio drive.  Not entirely sure what the prop is on there, but I do know it's been replaced at least once.  




That was my plan for this fall/winter.  I've seen the kits online and figured I would just do it all at once since I need to pull it apart to run those new sensor wires through the transom anyways.  The bellows were replaced in 2008 or so, but they're starting to crack just from age.  It was stored inside, so luckily the sun wasn't beating on things also.  I wasn't sure though if those bellows expander tools were required to do a decent job of it or if I could get away without one for now.  According to the serial # it was built in 1985.

Most of the trip today was just testing out all the things I've worked on or installed over the past few weeks, and trying to learn about the graph, i-pilot link and all the buttons.  It'll take a lot of trial and error and watching Youtube to get this stuff figured out.