1963? Hydrodyne custome deluxe 1700 restoration thread

The port side is already very flexible since the core is rotted. If the 2x's were not under it with 5" spacing, I could see me falling right through. I also have access to lots of angle steel at work. I could just screw a piece to the underside of each 2x to make sure it was straight. That actually sounds better and better since I am going to be putting the core in and then weighting it down to make sure it bonds to the hull. That weight would push it right into the 2x4's, as long as I know the 2x's are straight and not going to sag.

All good points.

And Lake Milton is only 4 hours away, not a terrible drive. Could do a camping trip over there and take the boat! When it is running...... LOL.

Brian

 

Sounds like a plan.

jim

 

When you glue the core in it is critical that the hull is true with no hooks or bends. After that you have some latitude but with your bunks there will be no problem.

 

It is good to see some winter activity here.

jim

 

Well, I pointed out for my son where to cut the bow glass out so we could get to the core up front. He worked for awhile and while we couldn't get the glass to break free of the core in the starboard front, I did learn that I was 100% wrong about no core in the middle under the seat. It was just the shape of the hull and the thickness of the glass I guess, but there was the core there all the way to the toe kick. And the oak boards are not 8' long, they range from about almost 10' to just over 11 I think. Either way, wow was I surprised!

I was also surprised at how poor the core adhesion was! Most places you can still see the wood grain from the balsa where it was pressed into the resin, but there are a lot of areas that you can see the weave of the roving, the balsa wasn't even touching the glass. Guessing here, but it is looking like 15% or higher of the area? Surprised at that with having seen a picture of the jig they used to hold the core in.

 

Wow, my night to be wrong I guess. Luckily, 20 years of marriage have prepared me for this, I no longer remember what it feels like to be right.....

I do not have the side draft carbs on this thing. It is an Aquamatic 110 earlier prod variant. It has the twin zenith type 36 VNP carburetors on it. NOT the Zenith-Stromberg 150 CD.

Been playing around with the engine a bit tonight, going over the electrical system, cleaning the fuel system of the 24 year old fuel , and turning it over with some oil in the cylinders. I think I am going to try and see if I can get it to fire up. I am removing power from the helm, as when I had my head under there today I found some stuff. One was the key to the ignition switch! Cool! Also learned that this thing has a starter button, not the switch type. Another cool! I also noticed some nicely charred wires where it looks like the steering rack housing wore through some insulation, not cool. So I will connect the batter to the starter and run a separate switch to the solenoid. If it seems to crank over, I will do the same for the ignition circuit and see if I can get it to cough to life. Who knows..... Gotta at least try to see if this old 1.8L Volvo will run.

 

Trace the idle fuel circuit. If you can get that clear, it will probably start. The idle fuel restrictions will probably be where it is plugged.

I have a set of 60 through 80 drill bits that I use for that. I use the butt end of the bit and carefully go up in size until it is clear. I am careful not to remove any metal.

jim

 

Brian - you are lucky that your project is at home. Mine is at my cabin 4+ hours away. You get to work on it every day if you so choose. I am constrained to long weekend vacations to the cabin and further constrained by my wife's dislike of the smell of cureing fiberglass as my shop is attached to the cabin. Your old core is exactly the same as mine was and of course it all had to go. Even if your transom appears to be good I would drill some small test holes to check that transom. If it checks out you are indeed lucky but with that boat's age and the amount of work you are already doing a new transom would definitely be in my plan. However if you can do this without taking the deck off (which is also major) and the transom checks out you will save some serious work.

 

My Formula I had planned to do with the family more than I did. The shop I used was 10 miles from home, but getting the kids there rarely happened. they help wash it and work on it in the driveway, but that is nothing compared to restoring one of these old boats. So the fact that this one is taking up 2 bays of our garage, is a bit of a pain with the cold weather, but so far 4 of my 5 children have helped on it. The last wants to, but she just turned 4 so she "helps" where she can! I keep the garage heated, so it is usually 60 to 68 out there, not bad for work. So far the worst smell has been the old gas smell, but wife hasn't complained yet. By the time I get to glassing, I am hoping for some nicer weather so we will have the garage open. Wife won't like the smell in the attached garage for sure, she knows the smell all too well. I have been playing or working around composites since I was 17.

So this weekend we pretty much got everything opened up pretty good. Got the 12 gallon fuel tank removed, HA! 12 gallons. My Formula has 135 gallons in it and it will drink that in a day. I am not sure I could cruise around at 25 mph for an hour and only use 12 gallons. This will be a nice change.... Now, the fuel tank is secured on the right side of the motor. After the core was done, a piece of 1/2" plywood was laid down and tabbed in around the edges with mat. The mat only went about 3" in the whole middle of it was bare. Of course that piece was soaked through and falling apart. Gas tank is in good shape, but that wood was sad.

On the other side was the battery spot. Same thing, piece of plywood glassed in, mostly covered but the middle was thin and had split open, maybe from the weight of the battery. Either way, that was saturated. The bolts to hold the battery in were loose in rotted wood and this sat right above the area where the worse wood damage was. It looks like the bolts for the battery hold down were mounted into the core, or wore a hole through the core covering and leaked water. About 75% of the core was wet and about 50% of it was rotted. All of the oak board had separated from the bottom skin except for the outer and first one in on the starboard side. It looks like the water had barely made it past the third oak board from the right as I can not get the balsa out past that board. I will have to go back to that and see what to do.

One of the pieces of oak feels suspect to rot in a part of it, but most is solid. It really was rot resistant. Not sure what I will do with it, but I have a drier at work that runs about 130 to 140 degrees for 9 hours a day, I could just hang them in there until dry. Only took one out so far, so I do not know what i will do yet. They are not new, but I really question the theory of how much strength they added. If they were put in for strength, they would have used clear oak. As it is, there are huge knots that go all the way through and take up 1/2 to 2/3 of the board and right on the edge. Anyone who works with wood knows that knots will kill the strength of a thin board like that. One reason I was wondering if the newer boats went to an all balsa core. The Balsa core is also stronger than the foam cores. So if foam cores work as a replacement, balsa cores should be just fine. Either way, I figure I will be safe as I plan on another layer of glass first to get good adhesion of the core to the hull. Then a heavier layup over the core. I also plan on doing it in phases and will tie the top to the bottom by wrapping the oak boards with glass before inserting the balsa between them. This will keep wood separate from each other for any water intrusion and create a mini I-Beam effect to stop future core delamination, which has always been a potential problem with cores. Especially when you start off with adhesion voids to start.

To be fair, these Dynes were probably ahead of their time with the core layout and lighter layup. You look at boats from the 80's and they were resin buckets, just add more resin and glass so they are strong. Cores took awhile to really catch on and be done right. Heck, they still have some problems with them yet today with delamination happening on race boats. Not a critique of Hydrodynes, more of the glass techniques of 50 years ago. It is amazing some of them have survived and points out how important care is on these.

The second picture is the port side in back next to the engine. I removed the third strip of oak to inspect it, that is why it is not shown in the picture. The port side was the worst side, due to leak starting probably where the battery tray was. It wicked right up the long grain balsa and only the oak strips slowed it down. The outer starboard side was still dry and all the balsa was pretty tough to the starboard side of the keel. Even if wet and separated from the hull, it was still balsa and not mush.

 

Oh, in above picture the core design is as follows: The center has a strip of oak on each side of center. These pieces are about 12' long, all one length and NOT clear wood, it has knots. I need to remeasure, but I think they only measured 3" each, maybe a bit more but seem to be thinner than a standard 1x4. I have not pulled them up yet but have been informed that they are attached to a keel piece of wood. To the side of that double oak boards are 3 strips of balsa core, each 1.5" wide x 3/4" thick. Then comes a tapered piece of oak. This starts at the back of the boat at almost 3.5" wide and tapers to about 3/4" at the front. Then you have another 3 rows of balsa (4.5") and another of the tapered strips of oak. The outer row is two strips of the balsa with a thinner strip of oak that is beveled at the edge for the glass to join with the hull again. The tapered oak pieces causes the core to get thinner as you go forward, with the whole thing being about 38" wide at the back of the seat base, which is about 7' forward of the transom. See pic: Seat base started where glass starts, transom is above the top of the picture, bow down. again, notice the lack of core adhesion of the outer balsa strips on the right hand side.