Its beet since posted progress. Its taking time but making good progress and doing lot more work than planned. Interior removed old "wall paper" on interior panels and replaced with nice fabric as well as new leather seating
bilge work The old stuff on these babies is tough tough tough to get off The tar based sprayed in bilge coating was pressure washed, degreased, stripped using various tools ultimately a small air chisel turned out to work best. Aircraft etching primer as base coat, overlain by a rubber truck bed liner coating to mimic the original texture the coated with rustoluem oil based silver paint
Hi. It looks like you're making progress. Keep it up! A couple of things to consider: oil-based paint will probably soften up and fall off in an oily environment. It's a bit late now, but modern epoxies may be a better choice for the engine room. Also, did you sand the bare aluminum or use Alumaprep before priming? One thing I noticed in your pictures is that you have a conventional Rule(?) bilge pump on an aluminum boat, with a flapper style float switch. This type of bilge pump is fine on non-conductive boats, but both the switch and the motor can put DC current in bilge seawater and contribute to hull erosion even when the pump and switch are functioning normally. If a positive lead happens to get cut or wear through, it can directly short to the hull should the hull coating fail. I believe these boats all came originally with remotely mounted diaphragm pumps and pressure switches that keep the wires carrying electricity at least a foot out of the bilge. You might consider going back to the OE type arrangement. If you do an internet search for pressure bilge pump switch, you'll see what they looked like.
re bare al Yep took it down to bare aluminum and properly prepped and primed. Bilge pumps were what PO had in her and they will all be replaced along with most everything else
expoxies Thnx for comments. Id love to hear comments about others experience as I have found little info on this. True on the modern marine expoxy being better but I have only found it in grey or white. It is also pretty expensive paint as well. I can vouch for the cost as I have a number of coats on exterior using the interlux 2000E system which will show up in a future post The original CC "stuff" was pretty soft or all gone where oily water would stand mostly below the engines so it was not immune to oil degradation but did seem pretty robust for over 40 years of service life. In some places it was hard and brittle. If in a relatively dry location was still in good shape and did not need removed. This was sprayed with a silver paint by CC at the factory, I assume it was an oil based paint but have not found much historical info on the sprayed in coatings The green paint I used is a self etching aluminum epoxy primer, but not specifically "marine", on the prepped bare aluminum as the first coat. The AL fishing boats sold at my dealer are all painted with a similar paint from the factory. The bed liner paint was used to simulate the texture of the original CC tar-bitumen like substance. This coating is very resistant to oil degradation evidenced by many a pickup truck bed with spilled oil. This stuff is about as tuff as it comes and rubber is just bits in the "paint" to give the no slip texture. So this protects the epoxy primer layer quite well I knew the rust-o-leum silver might not hold but previous experience has shown it to be quite durable as well. I assume Ill get a min of 5 years of serviceable life out of the silver coat and if less its cheap to recoat or consider a total loss as it is only cosmetic. I would concur of what you implied though you did not say, is keeping the bilge as dry as possible is the more important objective as standing water does no good in the bilge. In my case most water intrusion was from precipitation not through the hull. More to post on that in the future as well. Ill have to load more pics soon as well
Original Bilge Coating Here is a good pic showing condition in dry area of my bilge back at the rudder shaft and transom. Most just needs good cleaning
Hello! looks good, I have even mounted bearings on the rudder, but the old brass seals should I replace the next sesong
Great work/ideas Love the leather dinette seats, and the sofa looks fab/comfortable as well. Was cleaning out my bilges today, so I know how much work that was redoing yours. Hope all continues apace, and of course have to ask for more photoEz. Cheers! -Eric "Tin Tonic" PS - If I didnt say it before, you prolly have the best AL Roamer name ever coined, 'cept for maybe one.
Thnx for kind words Thnx ATS for comments and all u have done to support the Roamer effort Sittin here waiting to see Buddy Guy play the blues chkin the forum I have done it seems a ton o work with still more to go New hot water heater new elect in engine bay engine bay bulkhead redone new rudders new trim tab controls new merc 357 alpha ready to go in orig trailer almost perfect fit strpped painted hull w epoxy waitingfor final coats of paint working on toe rails and deck Many pics on file ready to load just need to spend some time posting vs reading
