Another New Owner

[gotchacovered]

Hello, I recently purchased a 1970 Nineteen. (At least that?s what the title says? I?m not so sure.) My wife and I are really excited about this boat. It is turquoise in color and equipped with a hardtop. We are naming it ?Gotcha Covered.?

The boat was owned by an older gentleman who hadn?t used it in years. He sold it to a young man two years ago who did not have a good experience. He replaced the water pump, fuel pump, exhaust boot, prop and many other items before the steering cable broke and left him up the creek. That was the last straw? so I own it now.

Attached are some pictures so I can get your feedback. I would like to know what is original and what is not. I know the steering wheel is not original and hope to talk to Scott in Atlanta about a new one. Also, the grilles are missing from the blower intake and exhaust ports. However, the interior is in surprisingly good shape and the dash is really cool.

The boat is powered by a 120 Mercruiser. One of the biggest problems the previous owner had was the fuel tanks. I can clean and line the front tank easy enough but is there any way to access the rear tank without removing the engine?

Your opinions and insight are most appreciated.

Thanks, Dennis

 

[ziggy]

Re: Another New Owner

congrats on your new boat man. yer gonna like it a lot. specially the hardtop part. to me, it's an idea that should be incorporated into new boats of today. but alas, only the few that are lucky enough to have an aristocraft can be hip.. love that robin egg blue too. cool, i think your the first that has the full colored hull that i know about. i like it... yer right too about the dashes, arsitocrafts have cool looking dash boards. if ya go over to their www, ya can see they advertised it as a sports car like dash i believe is how they put it. and it is, i think.

good that your in contact with scott. he's the man. nice guy and helpful for sure. he'll know whats original on your boat i'd bet. i'd like to comment on what is and what isn't, but i've been finding out that aristocraft made minor changes over the years to the nineteen. if yours is a 70, i think it's 1st or second year. my 75 looks somewhat different than yours. i'm kinda amazed really at the differences. if it is a 70, i don't know how you'll find out for sure the year since they didn't have to have a hin till 73. look right above the drive on the outside. i have a hin molded into the hull at that point. yours being a 70, it may or may not have one.

some initial differences that i can see between my 75 and your 70 are.
your floor is different, your dash is different, bow rail different, from past experience talking to a couple other 19 owners, i think your bow light will be different. your back seating is definitely different. if you have some kinda cover over your vent system, that would be different, i don't have any covers. just open holes.

as for your fuel tank. ya got a pic of it? since your back is different than mine, i can't say, but sure looks like that hole seating assembly has to come out to access the fuel tank. there's got to be a way to remove it in case you need to pull the engine. i don't know why your wanting to pull the tank. fwiw, i had rust dust inside my tank. it kept plugging up my fuel filter. so i just kept replacing the filter. after a couple of years now, my filter looks much better and doesn't plug up any more. just food for thought. interesting you say your fuel tanks. i only have one, do you have 2? if i was going to remove my tank. i think i'd need to remove my port rear seat frame, then i think it would slide out towards the front. mines 18gal. and sits right under that seat.

sounds good to me that your steering has been replaced. to me, it don't look easy to run the cable from ft to back. if yours is like mine, theres a conduit on the starboard side that allows you to run your wires and cables to the back. on mine, it is the only access to run anything from the inside the boat, to inside the engine bay.

i'll guess that your horn, glove box w/cover is not oem. i just have a hole in the dash with a board in ft. of it for a glove box. my horn on my 75 was aftermarket for sure. the button to operate it don't look factory either. so my guess is they didn't come with a horn. good that both our boats have a horn though. sound producing devises are required equipment by uscg. i like your twin horns, real cool looking...

so is your transom flat or curved? nineteens are curved, eighteens are flat. eighteens were only made one year i think. 68 maybe. the eighteen seems like it was a transition boat for when they went from the funliner to the nineteen.

anyways, congrats on your new hip boat. hope you like yours as much as i like mine. anything i can do to help out i'll comment. need any pics of what mine looks like let me know, i snap a few pics off for you.

don't know if you have the aft curtain for your boat, if not, scott posted up that they were making a run of them. get one if you don't have one. put that on and be full enclosed. a real plus for spring and fall boating. i don't see side windows in your hardtop. last time i looked at the arsitocraft website, they were available too.

since it's been a couple years since your boat was in the water, ya may want to look into replacing your impeller in your drive at the very least. all rubber should be looked at. main bellows is most critical too. check them good, leaking bellows can be as painful as to only need to R&R them + ujoints shift cable, ft. seal in the drive and yoke. or bad enough to sink you as the bellows is all that's between you and the outside water. so they're most important. over heats are really bad for your engine. so i'd do the impeller for sure. piece of mind.

you've found the right place for help here at iboats too. these guys on the site are great. there's much experience here. i just can't tell you how much they've helped me, let alone the bread they've saved me. go to the i/o forum too and look at the adults only sticky. almost all them stickys will have relevance to you, and me too. check out #9 at the very least. you can get a service manual for your engine and drive there. you'll want number 1. a very large file, but worth the wait since it'll have the facts in it about your engine and drive.

again, congrats on your fine looking new boat... way to go...
got any more pics? i love to check out pics of other folk's nineteens. they are too cool....

 

[ziggy]

Re: Another New Owner

the more i look at your boat, the more i wonder if it ain't a eighteen. is the transom flat. that will be the identifier i believe.. there seems to be many differences between our boats.. sole, underside of the hardtop, rear seating, dash.
i wonder if your upholstery is original? may have been replaced (looks nice and new too), all my seats have an aristocraft logo on them + seamless stitching on the seats... a few pics of my boat in these threads.
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=228881 pic of hin number in this link.
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=222039
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=257372

oh, great name for your boat. don't forget to christen her proper after ya name her..

 

[gotchacovered]

Re: Another New Owner

Thanks for the input. I sure like the looks of "Lime Time". I've got a lot of work to do! I was thinking it was an eighteen also because of the amount of area between the rear seats and the stern seems to be about a foot less than most of the pics I have seen. It has about an inch of curvature in the stern so I'm not sure if that is flat or not. the only # I have found is stamped in the aluminum trim left of helm. wouldnt you know someone drilled a hole through one of the letters.

 

[lowkee]

Re: Another New Owner

Welcome to the forum!

That is one awesome looking boat! From the helm it looks like you could ram an iceburg and keep moving. That interior even looks great! Hehe, my first though of a custom mod for that boat, the second I looked at it, was.. power windows in that blank area

 

[ziggy]

Re: Another New Owner

I've got a lot of work to do!

what's ya gonna do to it?

looks like she could be easily seaworthy as she sits..

heres a pic of the curve of a nineteen transom..

also in the pic of my hin, you can see the flat in the transom that the drive is flush up against because of the curve.. hope that helps...

thanks for the compliment on lime time. she's starting to show a little wear from my use and i've only had it for 2+ seasons... but i sure been having fun with it. i got it to use anyways, not to look at...

 

[gotchacovered]

Re: Another New Owner

Mine must be an eighteen. it's definitely flat from that view. Also the guy at Aristocraft thought it was a '68 because of the color. that means its older than I am. The # on the dash is 22300?0. One question I had for you is what do the slides for the hardtop look like? Someone riveted some steel pieces on mine that fit down in the channel loosely. Doesn't slide very good. Should it have wheels? or maybe plastic pieces? I have a machine shop and I'm sure I make something to improve this. Thanks again.

 

[ziggy]

Re: Another New Owner

i'm thinking 8-teen too. did ya check this out off the aristocraft web site....

http://www.aristocraftboats.com/fiberglassbrochures/8-TEENCover.pdf

http://www.aristocraftboats.com/fiberglassbrochures/8-TEENpage2.pdf

sure looks a lot like your boat.....

here's some pics of my slides.. the amber color slides on the bench are from scott a year or two ago. these are the replacements that are for what i believe to be original slides on my top. of course, yours may be different being the 8-teen.. looks like i got a flaw in my hardtop in that pic... reckon i'd best look at that a little better, i know it had a few, but that pic sure makes it look bad... hope it ain't growing and bet it ain't getting smaller... , anyways..

man, if thats a 8-teen, i'd think ya got yerself a real special boat. can't be many left. a one year transition boat in a long line of very popular boats... very nice find man....

edit, oh, the original slides appear to be somewhat flexible hard rubber of some kind. the knobs are threaded into what i'd assume is a metal center core of the slide like the amber one end pic. the amber ones are hard. not plastic, some kinda resin mix would be my guess. though i know nothing of resin.. with the slides i got now, the top does rack some when slid back and not supported by the windshield.

 

[gotchacovered]

Re: Another New Owner

Well after two months of TLC, we launched our eighteen last night. Since we bought her, we fabricated a new fuel tank, installed a new helm and GEM steering wheel, welded on a new skeg, added a new Blue Sea fuse panel and fixed mutiple electrical problems. We also made some new slides for the hardtop from the pics that Ziggy posted for us. Everything went smoothly except shifting. She doesnt want to go into reverse. Hopefully I can get this adjusted tonight. On the bright side she ran strong and floats!

 

[MikDee]

Re: Another New Owner

Wow! Lots of luck with the new to you Aristocraft! I remember when they first came out, a classic boat with the innovative sliding hardtop. It looks to be in Great shape. Plus, That is my FAVORITE COLOR! for a boat, ever since I painted the inside of a small old wooden runabout I once had many years ago, that color. It's sort of an Aquamarine It is just like Ziggys classic boat

 

[ziggy]

Re: Another New Owner

that's one sweet looking eighteen man. your work is really paying off. sweet.
hope your reverse problem don't get as bad as what i had to do to my drive. which was pretty much everything gen. maint. wise. including a new shift cable. it did make it shift real smooth though.

 

[gotchacovered]

Re: Another New Owner

We took her back out tonight. Went a little further and ran her a little harder. Lake was really smooth and great conditions to work on shifting. I had my daughter take the helm and I unhooked the shift linkage and operated it by hand. She used the neutral lever on the antiquated control to keep the engine running as slow as possible and I was able to shift in to reverse. my biggest problem seems to be when I go into reverse the throttle cable revs the engine up simultaneously. I'm used to the newer controls with the neutral button. I'll post this in the merc section and read the manuals some more.....God knows I couldn't of done anything without this forum! thanks Ziggy for your help!