I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

[jasoutside]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Man has to have his priorities...

 

[Bwana Don]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Zepplin rules man! My number one all time favorite band. The Who and The Doors round out my top three.

Rock On Paparoof and don't forget a lighter.

 

[paparoof]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

I'm convinced Murphy has it in for me.

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=509014&p=3427153#post3427153

 

[paparoof]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Didjya ever notice how much Jimmy Page looks like Julia Child?

Okay fixed the issue with getting the shift cable nut all the way in. As luck would have it, my former roommate (the guy still living in my old house where I'm working on the boat) recently installed a 220 circuit in the garage so we now have access to a big air compressor and a welder! I'ver never tried welding and he hasn't done it in 10 years, but I got him to weld a big ole lug nut to the top of the deep socket I was using to install the shift cable into the bell housing (this is actually what Mercury recommends). This made the socket tall enough to fit entirely over the nut so i could get a real grip on it and that was enough to get it fully seated in the bell housing. Whew! That was actually making me sick to my stomach worrying about that last night.

Then we fired up the air compressor and tried out my new air-powered rivet gun:

WOW is that thing cool. I used it today to put the big V shaped seat top back into the cabin. Works like magic. Of course I got it from Harbor Freight so I'm fully expecting it to explode in my face, but hey....

Then I got my new trim pump hose installed and got the gimbal housing all cleaned up and ready to install all the new bellows.


Then it was time to go see the Zeppelin tribute band. They were... alright. Zeppelin is a mighty tall order for a cover band. The Robert Plant was pretty weak, but what other human being could ever do justice to Plant's voice? No one - that's who. They all had wigs on and tried to dress the part, they had the right gear; the amber visalite Ludwig drum kit, the big Acoustic bass cab with the blue stripe, Marshall 4x12 with the ZOSO logo on it, dood even had the double neck SG. But the Jimmy Page kinda took the easy route - left out all the cool embellishments and just played everything with bar chords. Lame!

Trying to take tomorrow off so I can get those bellows in place.

Then I'm gonna pull the foam back out, wash out the inside one more time, put the foam back in, get the deck riveted down, put the cabin walls back in, re-mount the helm and... and... and...

Dive into the wiring harness. Good lord this is never gonna end is it?

Yes. Yes it will. I will get there. Hammer of the Gods. I'll drive my ship to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

 

[64osby]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Didjya ever notice how much Jimmy Page looks like Julia Child?

LMAO - Maybe someday my kids will get Zeppelin, there 10 and 12 now.

Air rivot guns are great, keep some oil in them and it should last. I used to put number tags on outdoor chairs with them, 10,000 seats = 40,000 rivots, couple guys 2-3-days

Keep up the great work, your like a diesel engine I used to own.

 

[jasoutside]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Page/Plant was actually the last real concert I ever saw, late 90's. They were pretty good.

Second to last was Pink Floyd at the Silverdome, Uh, that one blew my mind.

Don't do concerts any more.

Glad to hear you got that shift cable set, sounds like that was a real pain buddy.

 

[paparoof]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Got the day off.

The new bellows are in and the gimbal housing is reassembled!

WHEW!

That was a big step. HUGE feeling of relief - just had to let y'all know. Pictures tonight after I get home. Gotta get back to it. The dog is staring at me.

 

[Bwana Don]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Congrats papa, I need to climb that mountain myself. More pictures are better for me. This is a huge accomplishment, way to go.

Pink Floyd at the Silverdome, too cool. I saw Mitch Ryder and the Detroit wheels at Harpos, a few years ago. I was going to see Ozzie at Ozzfest for my 50th, but sadly I didn't. I'm just not that guy anymore I guess. My fighting/running skills have diminished to the point I need bodyguards. I'm afraid I'll break a hip in the moshpit! It's probably not called moshing anymore, oh well.

You are rockin' paparoof, getting the consumables on the outdrive done is a major accomplishment. Rock On My Starcraft Brother.

 

[paparoof]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Today I turned a corner. I am officially in Re-assembly Mode.

First up this morning was bellows and reassembling the gimbal housing.

I found a post in the motor forum from Don S. saying instead of using Mercury's Bellows Adhesive to use Mercury Power Tune instead. That's what I did. It was very easy to work with, posts about bellows adhesive seem to indicate the opposite. Ask me a year from now if it was a good idea or not.

I think probably the A#1 most important tool in doing your very first bellows replacement is a manual. The order is very important. Trying to figure it out the hard way would have made me insane. This is something I never would have even considered were it not for this forum and the manuals available here.

Here is the drive bellows mounted to the bell housing. You can also see the back side of the shift cable that cost me a day and a half to get installed properly.

The aft side of the bell housing with the shift cable part I haven't bothered to look up the name of - and the aforementioned nut-from-hell. The core wire of the shift cable is installed through the end of this thing, then the little set screw with safety wire keeps it all in place.

Now here's where ya GOTTA pay attention to the manual. Put the screwy parts of the hose clamps in exactly the places they mention in the manual or stuff will not fit right.

Shift cable boot:

Exhaust tube:

 

[paparoof]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Next was the water tube. The kit I ordered came with two different diameters of water tube so I picked the one that fit my application and had to cut down the hose clamp so as not to have extra sticking in the way of other parts:

A couple things to mention in this picture;

The manual didn't say which end of the water tube to connect first. Here I have it on the bell housing first. I ended up removing it and putting it on the gimbal housing first, then connecting the other end once I was smooshing it all together.

Also you can see the shift cable going into the boot here. I had to remove the boot to force it over the brass end of the cable then re-install it. The manual said nothing about this.

There's the hose clamp on the transom-end of the water hose. It was hell getting the hose to squish into the space to the port side of the drive bellows. A couple squirts of Power Tune did the trick.

Ready to start squishin'

 

[paparoof]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

There are a couple fiber washers that go between the bell housing and gimbal housing. Spread a thin layer of grease on one side to stick it to the bell housing and it'll stay there pretty well.

I installed one of the the screws from my ghetto slide hammer so I had a handle on this pull dowel for getting it into place and turning it correctly to get it to line up with the nail that holds it in place.

Here you can see why having that screw inserted in the pull dowel helps so much getting things lined up properly.

And it all comes home:

 

[paparoof]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Hardest part of the whole job was getting the drive bellows to slip into place on the gimbal side. I found jamming my thumb into the folds from the inside to do the trick. Here she is all in place and pretty n' stuff.

Ya need a long screwdriver coming up from the bottom to get this one down tight.

Relief! I was so very impressed with myself at this point.

Red was not even a little bit impressed.

 

[paparoof]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Next up was the floor. I found that since I'd laid the foam in place an awful lot of detritus had found its way into the underneath areas, so out it all came. Hose, screwdriver and zip-tie shoved under the limber holes, shop vac, repeat. Times twelve.

Moved the bottom layer of foam back into position:

Riveted this unnamed frame piece back into position:

Cut and fit the big-huge center chunk of foam:

 

[paparoof]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Loosely laid the forward piece of floor in position - I was smart enough to know that I should lay all three pieces in place to see the fit of the entire deck before riveting anything in place.

Here's all three pieces down with a couple rivets.

I got about half the total number of rivets into place before it got dark and mosquitoes went into armageddon mode and I had to get the **** out of there.

I'm gonna try to get the last rivets into place and get the glass down over the available evenings this week. I figure if I do the glass before dropping the motor back in, I'll have somewhere to stand as I roller-in the last corners at the transom. Then I can plop the motor back in, put the walls back in, re-mount the helm/console, wire it all up and....

I'm not gonna say it. But I have next weekend free and the weather looks perfect.

Wish me luck fellas - but don't say the "S" word. Just let it happen.

Patience is key.

 

[jasoutside]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

That is a huge amount of work behind ya buddy, excellent!

 

[ezmobee]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

don't say the "S" word. Just let it happen.

Sink?

 

[chuckndiscs]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Thats lookin awesome Papa! Nice work, you ought to be proud! Looks like its almost S....howtime!

 

[jasoutside]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Sink?

Oh man, what a punk!

 

[Huron Angler]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Nice progress PR, glad to see you've been working hard on the big tub

I hear ya about the skeeters, they've almost been as bad as the black/deer flies this summer

 

[yooperangler]

Re: I'm an owner! 1975 Islander 22

Great work PR