1979 SRV 240 Weekender Resto

rawright · May 5, 2013

Been 3 years since I posted here. I finally moved our boat to a storage yard right down the street from our house about a year ago. It was previously stored down the street from my in-laws house about 60 miles away from us which made it impossible to work on. Over the last few months I have really been trying to make some head way with the boat. I have been spending at least 4-5 hours every Saturday working on it with my middle son. I recently bought a $400 Carver semi-custom cover for it which is going to make it a lot easier to get it finished now that the inside of the boat won't be exposed to the weather. It is a really nice cover. The boat runs good but it needs to have the carb rebuilt or replaced. I was considering switching to a Edelbrock 600cfm Marine carb. Mistake? The leveler is currently not working either. I am not sure what is wrong with it.

I have all the outer cabin teak and vinyl torn out of it. I am refinishing it as close to factory as I can get but I will be doing all the teak in high gloss and semi-gloss varnish. I just finished rubbing compounding and heavy waxing the entire boat and I am very pleased with how good a shape the gel coat is in. It still has a really nice shine to it! This morning I installed all the refinished bow teak back on the front of the boat and it looks pretty good! The bow hatch was falling apart so I bought some new 3/4" teak to make a new hatch door. I will be doing the new hatch in high gloss varnish to match the rest of the bow wood. Should look killer :grin:. Unfortunatly all the outer cabin carpet is falling apart and I don't have a clue where I might get some that matches the factory color. It is like a brick reddish brown color. anyone know where I might find some that's close to it?

I will put more pics in this thread as I get more of the resto completed,
Thank you for checking out my post,

Robert

cmount1 · May 6, 2013

The Teak looks good.

I have been using the Edelbrock carbs on mine with no issues.

moparlvr4406 · May 6, 2013

need an anchor locker lid ??

rawright · May 6, 2013

moparlvr4406 said:
need an anchor locker lid ??

I might :smt001, I'm having a friend do the wood working on the 3/4" teak I bought to make a new one. If he messes the wood I supplied him up, I am not going to be spending another $100 to buy more teak wood LOL. What do you want for it?

When my son and I were working in the boat yesterday he slipped and fell when climbing out of the boat and sure enough his hand crushed the plastic ivory bilge blower vent on the rear port side of the boat. I am guessing I am never going to find a factory one anywhere :smt089. Now I will have to replace both so they will match. Anyone know where I can get some that are the right size for our boats?

Robert

cmount1 · May 7, 2013

This guy is parting out a '78.

http://clubsearay.com/showthread.php/59217-Parts-Boat-avail-1978-srv-240

moparlvr4406 · May 7, 2013

Pay the shipping + a few bucks for gas and you can have it.
There is no hinge but its not broken.
Pm me if you want it...its just laying in the garage

wjamwhitis · May 7, 2013

Check on ebay, searayman13 is the seller, I bought some factory plastic vents for my boat this year from him.

rawright · May 21, 2013

Took all the vinyl top out of storage and cleaned it. Boy was it dirty! Apparently my father-in-law had it fitted right after he bought the boat and never used it, so it collected a lot of mildew and grim through the years sitting around. Spent all day Sunday cleaning it and test fitting it on the boat. It was a very tight fit! It must have shrunk a little over the years LOL. After test fitting the cover, I resprayed the front dash flat black because the old paint was worn through in some areas and looked kinda shabby.

I put the last few coats of varnish on the wood that was hard mounted around the helm and galley today. Gonna install all the freshly varnished parts in those areas tomorrow after it drys for a day. I did the flat surfaces in West Marine's semi-gloss varnish and the teak trim and rails in Epifanes high gloss to give it a little depth. I also did all the teak stepping surfaces in semi-gloss so it won't get scuffed as much from traffic. I will post pics of it tomorrow.

The top

The back is not totally snapped

The dash after a fresh coat of paint

I will post the finished cabin wood in the next day or so.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome,
Robert

KC_Sundancer · May 21, 2013

Coming along nice! :thumbsup:

moparlvr4406 · May 22, 2013

lookin' good !! :thumbsup:
suggestion... don't leave the port side pass-thru to the cabin open for a long time...
the dash will sag a little and it is a B***ch to close again.
mine got left open winter before last and I had to "lift" the top of the door opening with my shoulder to close it
now it works fine unless you leave it down for a couple of weeks then it gets tight to close

rawright · May 22, 2013

Yeah galley hatch has been out for a while unfortunatly :smt009. I refinished most of the parts a year or so ago and ran out of money to finish the rest of it. I am going to put it all back together today. Hopefully it isn't too bad.

Robert

rawright · May 22, 2013

I guess I should post some before shots so people will know where the boat started after I got it. A little history first. The boat was bought brand new by my father-in-law in November of 1979. He used the boat in the ocean for several summers and then retired in 1996 and moved to Oxnard here in California. Surprisingly he never took the boat out again even though he was literally 4 blocks from the beach. Prior to putting the boat in storage he had the motor and outdrive rebuilt even though it only had around 90 hours on it. The boat had the original cover on it for the first 2 years in storage but then it gave out and for the next 15 years he was putting a new blue tarp on every fall which means it was exposed to the ocean air for about half the year because the blue tarps didn't last long in the salt air. The boat was given to me and my wife in 2011 after my father-in-law passed away. The pictures below were taken the first time we saw the boat. Keep in mind my wife hadn't seen the boat in over 22+ years when she was in her late teens.

Here is what we saw :wow:

Looking from the cabin hatch

Boat layout from the 1979 Sea Ray Brochure

rawright · May 22, 2013

Just got back from installing all the refinished cabin teak. I think it came out pretty nice and it looks 100x better then it did! I have all the wood refinished now but I won't be installing the rest of it until I get the new carpet installed. I still haven't had any luck finding any burnt orange marine carpet yet. I sent an email to Sea Ray today to see if they had any suggestions. The sooner I can get the carpet the sooner I can get it finished :grin:.

Here's a couple pictures of the new cabin wood installed :smt038

Thank you for checking out my post, any suggestions are welcome!
Robert

Paulie Walnuts · May 22, 2013

Looking Great!

KC_Sundancer · May 22, 2013

Very nice! :thumbsup:

moparlvr4406 · May 30, 2013

your anchor locker lid should be on it's way Rob

rawright · Jun 2, 2013

moparlvr4406 said:
your anchor locker lid should be on it's way Rob

Thanx a bunch Jim I really appretiate it!

2 weeks ago one of my best friends Dave came over and helped me get the outboard leveler and the trim tabs working. I still need to figure out why the up button doesn't work but gonna get that going in the near future. Last Sunday morning me and my Son Sean took the swim step off the boat and he and I spent all day Sunday and a good part of Memorial day sanding it down. I spent the rest of the week after work prepping it and putting several coats of semi-gloss varnish on it. What a pain in the ass! I had to get between every board! In the long run it was worth it though, it came out killer!!! By request I am gonna start working on getting the engine bay cleaned up next. My wife and best friend Dave, who is a long time boat guy have been giving me crap because of how bitchen everything looks and we still can't use it LOL! :huh: So, I am going to work out the bugs and get it in ship shape and water worthy :smt001.

Here's a few pictures of the just finished swim step and a reference point of what it looked like before we started.

Thanx for checking out my post, will post more soon,
Robert

rawright · Jun 6, 2013

Just finished rebuilding the Quadrajet carb. Was gonna buy a replacement but a bunch of people have said there is nothing wrong with the factory carb and I should give it a chance after a rebuild. It sat so long with no fuel in it in the salty Oxnard air that the carb had some pretty bad build up inside. I cleaned up all the crud inside and put it back together and I am hoping it will work fine. I also noticed a bit of rust inside the intake runners on the motor. I am going to clean it up prior to putting the carb back on but it does make me worry a bit about the engine internals. My neighbor who is a professional mechanic said don't worry about it and just run it. He said to just make sure I change the oil after the first day out in it.

Robert

rawright · Jun 6, 2013

My boating dream for sometime this year is now over :smt009

I installed the carb today and figured I would crank the motor over just because it hadn't been turned over for almost 2 years and to my utter disappointment it wouldn't budge even with a freshly charged battery, I just got the dreaded "CLICK"! :wow: I broke out a big wrench and tried to turn it over by hand but it wasn't moving at all. I felt sick to my stomach as I pulled the dipstick out and sure enough, there was water in the oil! :smt089 The only thing I can figure is the last time I ran it with the water hooked up in Oxnard something must have given out. I am guessing the entire bottom end is going to be screwed and I'm gonna need to pull the motor now and do a complete rebuild.

This Sucks!

Robert

rawright · Sep 4, 2013

Got the motor lock up fixed thanks to a good friend. He checked it out and told me that the rings were a little stuck and wouldn't be a problem to free up. I also corrected the problem with the float I was having. Turns out the older Mercruiser carbs don't like the little float clip they supply in the new rebuild kits. I removed the clip and problem was solved. The motor now runs great! I also installed a new impeller, gear oil and completely clean motor oil.

[video=youtube_share;JI7xzt47gEA]http://youtu.be/JI7xzt47gEA[/video]

I removed all the carpet from the cockpit area and did some work on the floor to get it ready for new carpet. I had one small spot where the wood was a little dry rotted so I used some GetRot and re glassed the bad area to fix it. I also re glassed the factory areas where the glass had split and they had put cheap filler. It came out killer! Got it all prepped for carpet now. Here are a few shots of the stripped out carpet and some work I did refinishing the dash. Eventually I am going to redo the dash switch panel completely with upgraded switches and new woodgrain.

Thanks for checking out my post, I am actually a lot further along on the restoration but I haven't had time to upload the photos,
Robert

1979 SRV 240 Weekender Resto

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