Another solid day of preparation on the Karelsen. I have built new transom hardware for the boat, Engine hangers and such. I built them out of 1" aluminum with three engine locations on 1 1/2" centers. Good thing too, I had to set the engine back to the middle location 1 1/2" back so I didn't have to cut the rear cowling to clear the distributor. With each new engine location I needed to machine new thrust rods (1/2"-13 Grade 8 All thread) to the appropriate lengths for each setting.
We also had to remove the spray shield, where the coil and brain-box are attached, and build yet ANOTHER bracket in the boat to accommodate that... DAMNIT!!! Now we realized that the outer Bowden cable clamp bracket is part of the spray shield too... Don't get me wrong, the spray shied assembly works really well on the runabout but we need to re-invent all this stuff for the hydro...
My buddy Chad soldered up a new wiring harness for the Thunderbolt ignition to run on 24 Volts, he also reinstalled the fuel tank, and then we had to figure out how to make the rear cowling high enough to cover the top carb. So after some screwing around, we decided to simply tip the back of the cowling up 5 1/2" to see how that might work... BINGO! Now I will make some removable triangular shaped pieces to set the cowling at the right height. Originally I was intending to do a removable fiberglass part to extend the top of the cowling. This is going to be waaaaay simpler than making molds to build a part for a one time event, now I will be able to use flatstock materials and it will still carry decent looking lines. Because the boat can't look stupid for this venture!

Another progress report tomorrow!

J-Dub