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1962 Roamer 35

Discussion in 'Chris Craft Roamer Yacht' started by nemehoto, Oct 19, 2010.

  1. nemehoto

    nemehoto New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2010
    Messages:
    16
    Location:
    Orangeburg SC
    spent the last couple days doing a removal work to get access to the bilge for proper repairs...

    I don't have a before pic on the bow and this was rough done with a grinder that is a little "too" potent for this old woman to handle so I am buying a 4.5 in grinder and putting away the 7 inch 1 hp 15 lb monstrosity. it's a quarter size hole in the bow... I need to get inside to finish prepping it for welding so... I started removing the vberth components and walls... and found things I am still scratching my head over...

    I have a before and after pic of "patch" I took off on the keel area midships. I haven't done any grinding on it yet. Just chipped off the body putty... but there is a "HUGE" amount of body putty in the bilge I have to remove so this is dry enough to work on and prime...

    The other two pics are of the vberth... the outstanding condition of the hull walls contrasting bleakly with the rusted areas where water stood for more years than I care to ask about. Surprisingly most of it is surface rust.

    .

    Attached Files:

  2. Laurence

    Laurence Senior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 30, 2006
    Messages:
    248
    Location:
    Chattanooga TN
    Same here!

    I feel your pain. Cutting out today, welding in tomorrow.

    Attached Files:

  3. doug p

    doug p Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2009
    Messages:
    38
    Location:
    PNW
    I am using por 15.....www.por15.com

    This can be used over rust if you are lazy. :)
  4. nemehoto

    nemehoto New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2010
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    16
    Location:
    Orangeburg SC
    Snicker.... lazy is when this ol' girl is still floating 40 years from now when I can tell my grandkids to fetch me a soda while I am kicking my feet up on the back deck in my bunny slippers :)
  5. nemehoto

    nemehoto New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2010
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    16
    Location:
    Orangeburg SC
    It's been murderously hot the last week (95 has been the coolest day in the last 7 days) so I haven't gotten much accomplished other than tearing down the vberth and getting some surface rust taken care of on the outside. It's like an oven inside even with fans going, and since I am trying to keep as much of the paneling as possible for restoration and patterns, taking it apart has been slow, power screwdrivers strip the screwheads so I've had to take them out by hand. Here a few pictures of the internal progress so far.

    Attached Files:

  6. Oneiros

    Oneiros Member

    Joined:
    Dec 17, 2006
    Messages:
    299
    Location:
    lulea Sweden the land of the midnightsun
    Hello check my job on my steel roamer .. I have fix 20m2 of the botton.
    Erik the crazy swed
  7. nemehoto

    nemehoto New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2010
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    16
    Location:
    Orangeburg SC
    Erik,
    I read the whole post about your reconstruction on your roamer that was quite a feat :) and a great job :) I'm hoping my little roamer turns out well. right now I have a minor issue in the dis-assembly of the interior... A bird has decided that the trash can on the boat was a great place to protect her nest from cats. So I a avoiding chemicals right now in the interior till the little guys leave the nest.

    Attached Files:

  8. nemehoto

    nemehoto New Member

    Joined:
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    16
    Location:
    Orangeburg SC
    Well the baby birds finally flew the nest, so the noisy work resumes. Finally got the entire Vberth down to metal frame, surprisingly without breaking anything as I was trying hard to preserve the wood as most of it is in good condition. Scratching my head about some other "lovely" issues we discovered. It seems like a previous owner lifted the salon up off the deck and 1) didn't screw it back down tight, 2) put nothing under it as a gasket, no wonder it leaks like a sieve from the deck. I'm till awaiting the plans from the mariners museum as the bench seat boxes and the storage cabinets have me scratching my head where to take them apart safely. (It's the wiring, steel in the bilge area and the wooden walls around the windows that are toast, and well... the pilot house in general.)

    I figured I would rewire it totally once all the walls are out. It seems I have to rip out all of the old bituminous coating as it has surface rust under it and it has bubbled up around the limbers. *sigh more work* oh well... I've just about gotten about a gallon of body putty out of one section of the forward bow. (about the 4'th limber down) Annoyingly cramped place to work. So far so good though. No rot beyond that one hole in there. Looks like a puncture to be honest and not a rust out., the one about the 8th's limber is a rust out though... annoying place, but about an 8x10 plate aught to do it. I was grinding around it today and was pretty pleased to see how healthy it was overall.

    Definitely going to take me longer than I first estimated. Oh well time flies when you're having fun.
  9. bannow

    bannow New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2010
    Messages:
    14
    Location:
    toronto
    never ending

    hi
    i bought a 31 roamer express last year. She gets wet next spring. welded some holes big and small and have finished most of the woodwork.I live in Toronto. How is your beast coming along?
  10. nemehoto

    nemehoto New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2010
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    16
    Location:
    Orangeburg SC
    Well, ran into a few snags and a super hot summer (100 + degrees for about 6 weeks unusual even for South Carolina so working on it was severely limited.) so I didn't get as much accomplished as I wanted to. I have fully disassembled the V-berth and 1/2 the salon area. Been focusing on the trying to get the engines cleaned up and started. New plugs so far and the wiring is toast as are the throttle cables. So I've been focusing on getting them started. Since I found water in 2 cylinders. (it came through the intakes I think since there is no water in the oil ) and they haven't been started since last July at least (over a year) so been more worried about that than anything else at the moment.

    I had to get the wiring diagram from the Mariners Museum since have the wiring is corroded I needed to know how to bypass it to run the engines. ( I got those last week. ) I can't weld on the bilge until I remove the floor because of the area I need to work on. Our tractor shed had to be totally rewired and new 100 amp service run to it so I could even run the welder. That was finally done in September. (I've had a lot done to the farm just to get the chance to work on the beastie) :)

    The boat has a serious personality disorder... It doesn't trust me to get the work done and resists every I try to do to disassemble things (trying to be very careful disassembling everything because while most of the wood work is rotten or at least partially rotten I want to use what I can for patterns to rebuild it) and goes out of it's way to "bite me" or conk me on the head with something. I think I am going to change the name from "Remembrance" to "Psycho Amazon" :D Anyhow... I hope to get the engines started next weekend, I got batteries and with the wiring diagram I should be able to rewire the engine circuits or bypass them altogether. Once their started I can fog them for storage and winterize them. then I can rest assured there is no water lurking inside anywhere to hurt them while I work on the rest of it. I was really unhappy finding water inside the cylinders but at least it wasn't rusty looking or smelled bad. Though it did disturb me a great deal as they must have left the engine hatches open for quite a while for that much water to go through the carbs.

    Anyhow... so far so good... just behind schedule... but with boats... that's normal.
  11. Caledonia

    Caledonia New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2006
    Messages:
    20
    Location:
    Saint Paul MN
    Limber holes 36 foot 1966 Alum Roamer

    Has anyone had any experience with drilling a 3/4 inch diameter hole in the ribs ( i thought 1 inch above the limber holes)to improve the drainage characteristics?
    It appears that the ribs are way conservatively designed and a better (bigger ) drain would be an improvement.
    I have the floor up and now would be the time to do this.
    Any thoughts?
  12. bannow

    bannow New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2010
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    14
    Location:
    toronto
    you asked for it!

    i have 283's in not bad shape so far as i can tell. One was seized, had to take the head off. Got it running eventually. Before I started them i filled them to the top with diesel and let it soak for a week. Hope the trans. are ok next.
  13. nemehoto

    nemehoto New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2010
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    16
    Location:
    Orangeburg SC
    it's been a heck of a weird winter and spring so far. I haven't had much chance to work on the old girl, between storm damage on the farm and school. Now that school's out (college) for the summer I'll be posting some updates soon. I haven't been able to unseize the engines yet but they are soaking in diesel. Looks like they are repairable but we'll see when I can actually have the time to tear them down and take a look. Other than that I did finally get to the floor boards to start cutting out the rotted steel... disassembling the interior has been a nightmare trying to preserve it at least for patterns.
  14. Oneiros

    Oneiros Member

    Joined:
    Dec 17, 2006
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    299
    Location:
    lulea Sweden the land of the midnightsun
    Hi!
    nice to hear from you, hope the boat job gone well for tou
  15. nemehoto

    nemehoto New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2010
    Messages:
    16
    Location:
    Orangeburg SC
    bad several months

    Had some major setbacks last year. Welder burned up due to a faulty cooling circuit, I was in a car accident that put me out of climbing and lifting for about 2 months and totaled my daily driver, my Step mother (I live on her farm to take care of it for her since she can't do the work) has been in the hospital 3 times and has had 2 surgeries so I've been taking care of her, our mule passed away (she was in the family for 37 years), our Lab has cancer now, and It's been one of those Murphy's Law years to say the least and hard on the heart. I haven't done much to the boat since August 2012. I hope to start working on it again as soon as it quit raining and dries up for a few days (been raining for month, 7 inches of rain this month!) Looking forward to getting back to work on it.