This is a great boat! I am going to look at one this weekend. Based on your experience, what are the key things to look for? I am thinking of putting a T-top on it and setting it up for fishing. Do you think that anchoring the T-top will be a problem? BAL
Probably the most critical thing with a T top would be anchoring....the deck really is not that robust, so you would need to think about what the below deck anchoring might consist of. As with all boats of this age, the wood in the deck, stringers and hull will be suspect (likely rotted) I'm in the middle of a fairly massive gut an rebuild on mine....Deck off....
New Progress photos on the Flat Top restoration - after 1 year with the new gel coat we decided to invest a whole lot more into the boat.... Off comes the top and we are replacing all stringers, below decks wood, reglassing, installing a below decks gas tank Essentially building a whole new boat....
I just picked up a 1969 Flattop with a I/O since I am an electric power wheelchair user. I thought of it as an alternative to a pontoon. Open the front bow section the floor seems to soft for the heavy wheelchair but the main deck seems okay. I think I am going to have to have someone check the bottom hull, but do you have any suggestions for the best way to diagnose? Also, I would like to replace the center console and essentially move it further forward, so I can get my wheelchair between the engine cover and the console. It looks like I am going to need to get a whole different console on eBay something that I can get my feet and knees underneath. Has anyone done this replacing the steering and throttle and extending the wiring? How bad of the job might it be? Any suggestions for closing of the hole where the console used to be? Finally, just had it out of the water for the first time today doing some testing, noticed that the throttle was very hard to control to get it into neutral, essentially had to pull it a little bit into reverse to get it to pop into neutral and very touchy. Can this be just an adjustment or do I need a whole new throttle cable assembly, etc.? And one other thing I noticed was that the trim solenoid seem to be going bad, does anyone know where to get one?
I have found a gelcoat that you can apply with a roller. It comes from FSGI. unfortunately I cannot find it on my home PC. I will post tomorrow from work where I have the site on my work computer.
.....Hummmm....work computer....Hummmm.....Bryan pay no attention to this and keep landing those planes. KevinB-