1963? Hydrodyne custome deluxe 1700 restoration thread

Hello all. After restoring a 1986 Formula 272 LS, I am proving myself completely insane by tackling another project with my children. The below 1960's Hydrodyne! This one will be interesting, but we love the lines of the dyne and it's history. This boat is pretty far gone due to gelcoat damage, so it is going to be restored based on making it safe, fun, and looking decent from 10' away or on the water. No museum piece here.

My goal is to use it for family time and teach my children ( 5 of them from 4 to 14 right now) life skills. The boat will be for use on local lakes as there is only really one or two that I can run the Formula on in NE Indiana without going to Lake Michigan or Erie. That and I want my kids to have access to a boat they can go out on with friends, another reason to make it a user restoration, not a museum piece. And no way are my boys taking a 700 HP Formula out for a spin on the lake alone!

Boat is currently off the trailer on blocks waiting for the cradle to be finished up to hold it while the floor is redone. This will give us mobility to move it and support the bottom well as it is recored. In the mean time, the trailer will be cleaned up, painted to match the boat and be converted to bunks. Trailer is in pretty good shape actually with new LED lights, new tires, and good spindles/hubs. Needs rust cleaned, convert to rocking bunks and then matching paint.

The outdrive actually looks really good and the prop looks like new. Bellows are dry rotted and shift cable is bad, but everything else looks clean. We will get it in the garage and see if the motor is any good before deciding what to do with it. If motor or transom is bad (feels solid right now), my plan is to redo it for a 3.0L merc and alpha drive drive, which I have a complete system out of an 80's Chris Craft.

Boat has the floating front bench and looks complete. Does not have the rear bench, but has the front cover for engine compartment. From attachments on the hull, it looks like this boat had the two side benches in it. This is the route I plan on going.

My other restoration thread is on offshoreonly.com under the formula section. Has over 300 post in the thread and is rather in depth, so this level of project is not unknown for me. Besides, it only has 4 cylinders, weighs 1400 pounds and one prop. How hard can it be compared to a 6,000 pound, 27' twin engine offshore boat? LOL, I know, I will curse that statement before it is over.

Will be asking some questions in the other categories on technical stuff, going to try to save this one for the restoration work and findings.

Let the fun begin....

Brian

 

Welcome Brian,

What type of core are you planning for the boat?

jim

 

Hello Brian,
Welcome to the Hydrodyners! Thanks for keeping a piece of history out on the lakes.

Tim

 

Brian - you can go two ways on your restoration - inexpensive (relatively) using the same materials originally used. You would want to use end grain balsa for the core instead of the balsa planks in the original. You could at greater expense use modern composite materials and have a much stronger and lighter boat. I am a bit past half way on the latter route. Labor and time are about the same. Good luck and welcome to the forum.

 

Thank you for the welcome.

First thing is to get the boat sitting on the new cradle and wheel it into the garage. Right now it is rather cold and nasty in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Once it is in the heated garage, we will start the inspection and my questions will really start. I finished welding up the frame on Friday, today someone was finishing painting the corners so I could bring it home.
I am planning on the core being shot, or at the least wet and damaged. At that point I am planning on replacing it with end grain balsa. I have plenty of composite experience, so that does not bother me in the least. The current long grain has lasted this long, I figure anything I do should last even longer which will make it none of my concern at that point. But I am always up for other possibilities.
As mentioned, my plan was to replace the transom and convert it over to the 3.0L mercruiser and alpha drive. After a surface inspection of the Volvo, I at least want to see if I can get the Volvo running and determine the condition of the drive. I really does look in decent shape other than the shift cable and bellows dry rotting. So my first question:
How do you remove the drive? I printed off the owners manual for the AQ100/110 drive package, but it does not go over maintenance items like pulling drive to replace bellows.

Also, is the core 3/4" or 1.5" thick? I thought I read 1.5" in a magazine review of the 1960 custom deluxe, but did I read a 3/4" on a restore thread? Or was that a different era dyne? Either way, I will figure it out once we get the chance to dig into it. The review had a lot of good things to say about the boat, the one exception was it was only rated as average on styling! That made me chuckle, it is why it stands out now.

 

I like the end grain core idea. If properly done it will last a long time. We have at least one member that used a composite core and he has already posted on this thread.

I like the 3.0L Mercruiser too. The Volvo will frustrate you trying to get parts.

Just as a side note, I converted my 18 from a Mercruiser 898 to a Johnson 150 outboard. The boat lost 630 pounds and everything got better.

jim

 

A little hard to follow, but keep paging:

http://boatinfo.no/lib/volvo/manuals/aq100drive.html

jim

 

Jim, thank you for the manual. I like the simplicity of the outboard, but this thing is a boat with a hood scoop! I have to keep that! So mercruiser it is.

Read the article again, they discuss the layup used and it is 1.5" strips of balsa, not 1.5" thick balsa. Total bottom thickness outside keel should be about 1 1/8" thick, so something in the 3/4" range does make sense. My initial thought is to clean it down to bare glass and then add another layer of lapped roving spray rail to spray rail. This will provide a good surface to bed the balsa into, maybe go with 1/2" this time due to extra roving. The top will then be covered with the same cloth and roving layer as original. But I am thinking of the thinner balsa due to using an additional layer or two of cloth for extra strength and to protect the balsa better. Be stronger than original, lighter than it has been in awhile, and solid.

Final decision will be made once I get into it and have a better feel for it. Still need to add reinforcement to the bottom due to the front mount of the 3.0L mercruiser. Motor has more HP, but it weighs more also. Some knees in there will help too.

Article I found the layup schedule in on fourth page:

 

The strength and stiffness depends less on the thickness of the top and bottom skin and more on the distance between them (core thickness). This is basic beam theory.

I would go with the original core thickness which is probably at least 1 inch. I would also go with a raised flat floor to give something to bolt the seats to.

The engine and drive weigh about 800 pounds. A V-8 drive weighs 950-1000 depending on whether Ford or Chevy. My 150 outboard weighs 370.

jim