Dillon Laker 14/16.5 Wooden Tunnel Hull Build/Mod Project

[gomopar440]

I'm a relatively new guy here on the iBoats forum, so I figured I'd use this build thread as an excuse to introduce myself. I'm a retired Navy Machininst (MR1/20 yrs) with a lot of other gearhead type projects under my belt over the years (cars, bikes, trucks, etc). However, this is my first ever top to bottom boat build. Back in July I picked up a set of plans for a Dillon Laker 14 after looking around for an interesting project to take on. http://www.dillon-racing.com/Laker14/plans.htm

I've been collecting everything I'll need for the build ever since then. I also signed up here on the iboats forum, as well as over on Scream and Fly, shortly afterwards to try to educate myself on the basic ins and outs of wood boat building. I've been lurking on both forums reading other build threads for tips and tricks to make my build go easier. The general attitude just felt more comfortable to me here on iboats, so this is where I decided to start my build thread.

The boat's designer, Bob Dillon, specified a 60-80hp motor with a max weight of 300lbs for this hull. I searched for quite a while to find a suitable motor within these parameters, but wasn't able to find anything locally that was within my budget. Then I found an ad on Craigs List for a 1984 Mercury 115HP inline 6 cylinder. The seller was willing to trade it for some stuff I had and wasn't really using anymore so budget wasn't an issue with this one. I emailed Bob Dillon and asked him if the Laker could be modded to accept the slightly heavier (315lbs) motor. I suggested lengthening the hull 2' to help offset the additional weight, as well as adding a few extra knees to the transom to help hold the extra 35HP. Bob gave me his consent to go ahead with the plan and offered some tips to help scale up the hull to get the extra 2' of length. With that sorted, I went ahead and made the deal to pick up the "Tower of Power". According to the seller, all cylinders compression readings are pretty close to each other (all around 125-130psi), but there is a stumble off idle. I'll be going through this motor completely before putting it into service. I already picked up a factory Mercury Service Manual for it so I won't have to be guessing at anything when I dive into it. Overall the motor looks to be in excellent shape for it's age and appears to have been well taken care of. One thing I did notice right away when I picked it up is that the CDI switch boxes are different from each other. From what I've read so far, they should always be replaced in pairs. This could be part of the stumbling issue, but I plan on getting a matching pair of new switch boxes first before I start trouble shooting it in earnest. The top part of the cowling is missing the latch at the front, so I need to find the small (NLA) parts to fix that as well. This motor has the squarish front cowl cover, but I like the other older looking styled piece that was also used on these motors around the time they came out. The stickers on the outside are all faded, and I'm not a fan of the brown tones they used on them in 1984. I'm planning to change the look up a bit with custom stickers and swapping the squarish front cowl cover for the older looking one. Here's a pic of it the day I picked it up.


I'm also building a DVA (from info found in a thread on this forum) so I can check the CDI readings properly. The parts have already been ordered for that and I should be getting those in the mail soon. Here's a link to the thread on how to make a DVA in case anyone wants to try making their own as well. http://forums.iboats.com/forum/engin...=1474578564048

While scanning Craigs List one day, I came across an ad for various old boat trailers that mentioned they had free boats available. I figured I needed a boat trailer anyway, so I called them up and made an appointment to go look at the trailers (and boats). We did a little horse trading and I was able to pick up a pretty nice 22' trailer for less then they were asking. The catch was I had to haul off the three old hulls from their property in order for them to accept my offer on the trailer. Everyone got what they wanted in the deal so it was a win for each of us. All three hulls were missing the motors, controls and all the expensive stuff, but they all had some good bits left on them. I've been stripping all the salvageable parts I could off them and cleaning them up before storing them away. The big blue one just got cut in half today and the back end is going to be used as a basement door cover (wife's idea) before the snow starts flying here in Montana. The green and white one is a Larson glass boat that has contributed a few nice deck rail pieces, a full width angled windshield that looks like will fit the Laker and a rack and pinion steering unit (minus the cable). One nice find in this hull was the old style looking front cowl cover that was still in nice shape and actually fits my motor. Score! The smallest hull had a few nice pieces I pulled, but right now it's more of a dumpster for the scrap from the other two hulls. Once those two first hulls are broken down and hauled off to the dump I'll start on the little blue and white one. It's actually still nice enough that I may just find a decent motor for it and keep it.


Once again CL had me driving across the state to pick up another free boat project. This one was dumped in the guys driveway by a "friend" after his girlfriend said she wanted a boat. The problem is they were in the middle of packing to move out when the boat showed up one night, without a trailer. With friends like that, who needs enemies? lol. Anyway, this one was a lot more complete than any of the other hulls I now have, and it came with a title and a complete Evinrude outboard. After I drove an hour and a half to go get it with my trailer, I was told it had no title and the outboard was missing that little thingy at the bottom that holds the propeller (lower unit). :facepalm: Well, parts is parts I guess, and after driving that far I wasn't coming home empty handed. The boat was full of water from being stored outside, uncovered and with the bow pointing down hill so the drain hole was higher than most of the water. There was a slow leak under the forward part of the keel, so I guess that was helping a little. That thing weighed a whole lot more than any of the other three boats I had hauled on the trailer to date, so I was taking it VERY carefully on the way back home. By the time I was halfway home the boat had gotten considerable lighter, and I'm pretty sure that all the cars that got too close behind me got a free car wash from all the draining water.:lol: No pics of this boat yet, but it's another Larson FG hull. This one is a mid to late 60's All American. The Evenrude is a StarFlite(sp?) V4 90-S from the name on the cowling. I didn't find a manufacturer tag or the engine #, so I don't know what year it is yet. I just stripped it all down to nuts and bolts below the power head. The power head was left complete and just got wrapped up tight with a tarp and put out to pasture for now.

And since I'm in Montana I had to find a place to set up shop for the build. I bought a 10'x17' tent garage from Harbor Freight to get me by for now until I can put up something a little more permanent. I anchored the legs in concrete and lag bolted the bottom of the north side legs to the barn to make sure the wind didn't carry off the tent. Once that was up I was finally able to actually start working on the boat project itself. I started out with some 1/4" ACX exterior grade ply sheets and started lofting the sponson bulkheads. Once the first side was completed I cut them out oversized and then screwed them to another piece of ply. Then I cut out the other bulkheads for the other sponson using the first ones I drew as templates. Next I drew all the locations for the various battens, stringers, sheer clamps, chines, sponson keels and beams. After I was happy with how they looked. I moved on to the 3/4" x 12" x 8' piece of wood and started working on that. It was a good straight, clean and clear piece of Fir I used to make some 3/4" x 3/4" and 3/4" x 1" stock. I took a stick of 3/4 x 1" and made cleats to attach the bulkheads to the inner sponson sides. Those were glued and clamped in place and left to cure for a day before the clamps came off. And yes, I'm already familiar with the forum rule - "Pics or it didn't happen", so here ya go.
*missing pic*

And with that, everyone is all caught up on what I've gotten done with this project so far. I'll make new progress posts as soon as I have some more progress to report. That way it won't continue to read like an encyclopedia like this first post does.:sleeping:

 

[Baylinerchuck]

I'll be following along as this should be a cool build. I love the horse trading for stuff you can use.....nice find with all that stuff!!

 

[Patfromny]

I'm in for the ride, permission to come aboard Gomopar.

 

[archbuilder]

ditto what pa said!

 

[sphelps]

I'll climb aboard too if there's room !!
Looks like a real cool project .
Btw , I am a member at s&f also but I have not posted much .
Iboats is 100 x. Better place to hang out IMHO ..

 

[gm280]

Can I tag alone too? I promise to be good. opcorn::wave:

 

[gomopar440]

Thanks for the warm welcomes everyone! I'll do my best to keep everyone entertained and informed with this thread as I make progress with it. It may be a somewhat slow build given my limited budget and weather/temperature limitations. Working inside a tent in winter in Montana is going to be a challenge, but I need to try if I want to meet my goal of having this thing ready for the water next summer. I have some kerosene heaters, a couple stand alone ones and a torpedo type, but I don't know yet how well that will work in an uninsulated tent. My other work spaces are a 20x20 barn with a wood barrel stove (works good), but it's packed full of tools and other stuff. The doors on it are also too small to get the boat through once built, so that option is out for the majority of the build. I also have a 10 x 20 gunsmith shop with a small potbelly wood heater in it. For tools I have a Bridgeport J head mill with a DRO, A small 7x14 mini lathe, a Lincoln HD3200 MIG welder (Flux core only ATM) and most types of normal wood working equipment. With all that at hand, I should be able to tackle just about every part of the build myself.

The responses to my questions I've emailled to the boat designer have all been answered very quickly so far. I'll be glad to have that feedback available when I need some guidance. From what I've seen in the other threads I've been looking at here on iBoats, I'm sure I'll have just as much good luck getting help here as well if I need it. I'm pretty sure I probably will too since this is my first ever boat build.

 

[Patfromny]

Well I'm sure you'll get alot of good info from the people who have subscribed to your thread so far. I am a tinny guy so I'm just along for the education/entertainment value. The few you have on board so far are some pretty slick builders though. Good luck and remember you've got company here watching along. Keep the updates and pics. Coming

 

[archbuilder]

Looks like you are off an running! I was wondering if yours was a switch box model....I was thinking it would be. I didn't like the brown stickers either...what were they thinking? So I bought the older blue stickers from a guy in Canada. They look so much better!

A couple of notes on the tower from experience. Mine started and ran fine on the stand but had some issues under load. I rebuilt the carbs, which helped, but the big difference was when I replaced the switch boxes. Then she came out of the hole like a rocket, then stumbled after a few hundred yards. It turned out to be the fuel pump diaphragm had a pin hole in it. Ever since then no problems and tons of power.....and who wouldn't like the smell of burned two stroke oil in the morning

The only other issue I had was it doesn't come with a voltage regulator. I forget, but I think it had a resistor or something like that to deal with over charging, but I kept having issues. I talked with a company named CDI, who makes a lot of electrical parts for them. Very knowledgeable folks. Bought one of their regulators, simple to install, no more problems.

They are pretty bulletproof motors as long as they have compression, water and two stroke oil! that reminds me, for sure change the water pump impeller!

Looking forward to watching the build! opcorn:

 

[gomopar440]

Yea, from what I read online, the US OB manufacturers got sued by the Japanese OB makers for using crank HP ratings instead of prop HP. The US mfgr's lost the case and had to start using the actual prop HP ratings. 1984 was the first year the Mercury 115 inline 6 was a true 115 HP at the prop. Your Tower of Power being an '86 is actual prop rated HP just like my '84.

I snapped a few pics today since I hadn't been taking any since I didn't have a build thread before now. Here's a little more detail on the build stuff and my work area.
Here's the last boat I picked up, the Larson All American. It's still sitting on the trailer I picked up not too long ago.

Someone did a VERY scary steering mod to it, but the rack and cable pieces seem to be fine.:embarassed::facepalm:

Inside that boat I found an old OB remote control like I've never seen before. I cleaned it up and repainted it as well as got it working smoothly again. It's a single cable setup though so I'm planning on using this as a gear shift only in conjunction with a seperate foot throttle. I'll move the trim switches up to a pair of steering wheel buttons. The newer dual cable controls that came with the motor is sitting next to it for reference.

This will be my project work space for the foreseeable future.

Hey Arch, do these tubes look familiar? They are cardboard tube reinforcements glassed over for reinforcing the forward deck on both of the Larson boats I have.

Here's a pic of the big blue tub cut in half. Took a LOT of work to get it that far and I still need to get the edges trimmed up so I can use it for that basement door cover.

This blue and white hull in the middle is the smallest of the fleet and is still in fairly decent shape. I may save this one, but it'll be after the Laker build before I do anything with it if I decide to keep it. According to the emblems and tag on it, it's a 14' Rambler Silver Line built by Moorhead Plastics Inc in Moorehead, MN.

Well, that's all I got for right now. I need to pick up some more wood to make the beams and sponson inner sides before I can actually start working on putting the hull together.

 

[archbuilder]

That is interesting, I didn't realize that any of the factories used cardboard tubes. Its amazing how well they work to stiffen up things! The blue and white boat looks pretty cool! I wonder if there is a way you could insulate your tent? It sure would make a big difference this winter.

 

[gomopar440]

I've got bunch of pieces of 1.5" to 2" thin fiberglass insulation mats (R5 or R8 IIRC) left over from an old mobile home that was left on the property when we bought this place. It was in no shape to trailer it off the property, so we tore it down in place and saved what we could from it. I'm thinking of taping that insulation up to the inside of the tent walls and tent roof when the temps start dropping. Paper lining side facing toward the work area of course. I've got a bunch of big plastic sheets I can use to cover them up and seal it as well, like you did on your paint booth. Then the biggest thing to worry about would be figuring out how to keep the ends of the tent from riding up on the poles like they are doing now. I've got about a 1' gap at each end right now. Once there is snow on the ground, that should help to hold the ends down in place. I'd like to come up with a more reliable plan for to seal it up though so I don't wind up with snow drifts in my work space.

 

[gm280]

You could look at a heater to place in there too. I use a K1 Kerosene heater in my shop and it does a pretty respectable job. You could find one used or cheap on EBay and have a heated tented work area. Sure would beat the freezing temps. JMHO

 

[gomopar440]

I've got the Kero heaters pretty much covered. I have three stand alone units (one small round one and two larger rectangular ones) and one torpedo type. I also have a couple of dual burner propane tank (20-25lb?) top heaters, but they're gas hogs. I usually just use those propane heaters in the barn so I can get a little instant heat while trying to light the wood stove. That torpedo heater is the bomb though. It heats that tent up so fast I haven't been able to leave it running it long enough to have an idea how much K1 it consumes. About two minutes with it on and about 15 minutes off was my limit with it during the last little cold snap we had here. Insulating the walls should help with retaining the heat once it's in there. I'll probably set it up so the stand alone heaters are running constantly when it's real cold out and I need to epoxy stuff. I'm just not too trusting of them to leave them unattended overnight yet. I rebuilt two of the stand alone heaters already, but haven't touched the newest one I picked up. I got all of them from thrift stores so they all needed a thorough going over before I could use them.

 

[archbuilder]

Could you put a board across the bottom on the ends to attach the plastic tarp to? Maybe even a 2x8 or something taller?

 

[gomopar440]

I'll probably sandwich the bottom of the tarp edges between some 1" x 2" boards and bolt them together. The weight of the boards should be enough to keep it held down The tarp should survive if I use a board on each side. The screws would just tear through the tarp if I only put a board on one side. I'll probably also round over the edges of the boards with a router so they don't poke through the tarp material.

It was a nice day outside today so I started demoing the red and white Larson. I want to have all the parts stripped from all the hulls and get the remains hauled off or burned before the snow starts to fall. We usually see the first snow fall around here by Halloween.

I found out another reason why that red/white boat was so heavy. The floor was rotten so the PO used the "Band-Aid for a bullet wound" method of repair. They just screwed some of those very heavy fake wood boards made from recycled plastic over the original rotten floor. The demo went pretty easy compared to the other boats, which was a nice change of pace for once.

Here's most of the stuff I pulled out of the boat today.

And this is how far I got with it for today.

 

[Patfromny]

Everyone is doing trex now mopar.:facepalm:

 

[gm280]

Oh yes, cover over the problem and it goes away. :facepalm: I see you did remove some...whatever. But now the real demolition actually starts. You will still have rotted floor and stringers and transom to go. But it all is how rebuilding boats goes.

 

[sphelps]

Hey save the trex ... You might could build a small deck for your grill or something ...

 

[gomopar440]

That's the name of it! Trex. I couldn't remember it for the life of me. The wife already claimed all of it for her chicken coop projects though, so I don't have to worry about that stuff anymore. These pieces were recycled from some other project before the PO used them on this boat from the looks of all the old screw holes in them. They'll still be fine for a chicken coop though. I might make a couple of swim decks for the Laker out of Trex (much) later on. One on each sponson end. If I do use Trex for something like that, I'd want it in a different color anyway.

And sorry guys, this isn't going to be a Larson All American rebuild thread. I'm just stripping this one for parts like the others. If anyone is near western MT and wants to try their hand at restoring it, just say the word and it's yours. The parts I'm getting off it aren't all that valuable to me so I would even throw in all the factory parts I've removed so far. The steering was the biggest thing I wanted off of it, but I already have an identical rack and pinion helm from the other Larson hull I have. The steering cable on this red hull moves fine, but the PO cut the end off of it when they did that hack job mod on the steering and transom. So, I'll need to get a new steering cable to go with the helm I have set aside for my Laker anyway. BTW, I'm serious about letting someone have this for free if they want to take a shot at restoring it. The hull isn't too bad overall aside from a weeping leak along the keel toward the bow. The transom and floor are shot so it obviously wouldn't be a simple buff it out over a weekend project to get it up and running again. I'll hold off on going any further with the tear down for about a week. That'll give anyone that might want it time to contact me. If I don't get any takers by then I'll need to go ahead and finish stripping it for parts. I want to get all of these old hulls stripped and gone before the snow starts falling here. I'm still thinking about holding onto the Rambler since it's in such good condition, but I could let someone else have that one as well if someone is interested in restoring it. Both the Rambler and the Red Larson would need titles as I had them given to me without paperwork. That might be an issue in some states, but here it's pretty easy to get a bonded title for them here in MT. Basically the state puts a paperwork lien on them and after two years (IIRC) if no issues come up they send a normal title to you in the mail.

And speaking of titles, today I went to the courthouse and picked up the paperwork to start that bonded title process for my boat trailer. It was a home built trailer with a state issued VIN tag on it and was last registered over 20 years ago according to the plate that was on it when I got it. It was left at a storage place for years before the storage place decided to sell it off to cover the unpaid fees. So, obviously they didn't have the old title, but maybe I'll get lucky and they can find the VIN in their system. If so, I may not have to get a bonded title for it after all. To title the Laker I'll need to get a HIN from the Fish and Wildlife guys and get it inspected before I can do the paperwork on it. One pretty nice thing about registering vehicles here in MT is you can pay a bit more and get your registration plates marked "Permanent" and you'll never have to renew your registration ever again. All my currently plated vehicles and trailers, except for my sand rail, have permanent plates on them. I'll put permanent tags on the rail after I finish making it street legal. I believe it's the same way for boats here, so the Laker will get permanent registration when its done as well.