1979 SRV 240 Weekender Resto

Took the boat out last week! It is the first time this boat has been in the water in over 22 years! It ran great with no issues once we got the timing and idle setup. Ran it off and on for about 3 hours between 2500 and 3000 RPM. The longest time length was around 30 minutes non-stop. The motor temp was just a little above halfway on the gauge. Not sure what kind of mileage or speed to expect seeing as I don't have a flow meter on the fuel line and the speedo on the boat was not working the day we had it out. I think I discovered the problem with the speedo. It had a plug of dirt in the end of it. I cleared it out and I will see if it works next time we are out in it. My buddy said we were going somewhere around 25mph at 3000 rpm. I am usually a good judge of speed on land but have no clue on the water but 25 seemed like a pretty good estimate. Anyone know what to expect speed and mileage wise for a boat this size with the Mercruiser 260 in it?


CAM00717.jpg


At Castaic Lake CA. cruising at about 2600 rpm, looks like about 20+mph maybe a little more

[video=youtube_share;IHFaaRuFp0o]http://youtu.be/IHFaaRuFp0o[/video]

Any information would be appreciated,
Robert
 
She's coming long nice. Wish I could get my brother (JC_Weekender) to get his 77 240 restoration back on track.
 
Looks great. I grew up with late 70's Sea Ray 220's and 240's in the same color scheme. Takes me back! You had a question about what to expect in performance with the 260MerCruiser in your boat. I would expect if propped right you should see low 40's. 43-44 MPH. I don't remember what the fuel burn should be, but if you run about 3000 rpm or so, just before the secondaries kick in on the quadrajet, that will be your best cruising. Good luck and I love the fact you are going back as close to factory as possible! Too many have ended up redone with pontoon boat furniture!
 
Thanks for all the nice comments and yeah I figured it would be a lot cooler to have the boat looking more like the factory setup and so far it is pretty close to stock. The only thing I am changing unfortunately is the drivers and main passenger seat. I wasn't a huge fan of the way the stock seats look but I still wanted to keep them. I took the factory seats in to see what it would cost to have them redone like stock and was quoted a price of $800 each!!! :wow: The wood on the inside of the seats had rotted out so it would all have to be replaced. The guy also said there was no guarantee that he could find a similar vinyl so it might not match the factory cushions. The harvest gold color is real hard to find in vinyl these days. I am going to go ahead and buy a later model set of Sea Ray seats that will still work with the stock interior and not look to much out of place. Both the seats with the adjustable pedestals will cost $150 less then having 1 stock seat redone.

I took the boat back out on the lake today and ran it with all the seating in the back with the motor cover on and it ran really good and much quieter with it on. Took my car GPS with me to see what the speeds were on the water and it looks like the boat will max out at about 35 mph at around 4000 rpm. I didn't take it that fast but figure that will be close to a safe top speed. I tested it at 3000 rpm at 25 mph and 3500 rpm at a little over 30 mph. It seems to cruise along nice! This is the first time my kids have been out in a boat LOL.

[video=youtube_share;HzYZYPz4HXc]http://youtu.be/HzYZYPz4HXc[/video]
Robert
 
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Ok I installed the new boat seats and I only have a few more things left to do before I will be pretty much done with a majority of the boat restoration. I still need to pick up a GPS/Fishfinder. I have the old fish finder which is pretty much brand new but it is from the late 70ies and a pretty simple device and I was hoping to have something a little more updated to use plus I gotta have a top notch GPS. I am most likely going to pick up a Lowrance Elite 7 HDI Gold with the 1000 foot transducer in the next few weeks. I still need to pick up the rest of my Stereo parts as well. I am installing a West Marine 3000 CD/MP3 player with remote and a Kicker 4 channel MX350.4 marine amp. I will be running one amp channel through the rear stereo fader on a set of West Marine 6.5" pro speakers and also a set of the West Marine box speakers at 2 ohms in the Cockpit/Outside area. The other will be hooked to the front fader on another set of West Marine box style speakers in the cabin area at the standard 4 ohms. I also want to recover the cushions inside the cabin as close to the factory tweed as possible. I found a place that sells an extremely similar fabric but they want $45 a square yard! :wow: The current fabric still looks decent but it is extremely brittle and is starting to come apart. Does anyone know how much fabric I will need to recover the inner cabin cushions?

Any Advice would be helpful,

Thanx

Robert

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Wow, awesome job!!! Nice work.:thumbsup:
 
Hi! Very very Nice!
I have a 1977 WE240 with the OMC235 (Ford 351) engine.
I went through the West Boating catalog for my carpet which is a Royal Blue.
And you are right on about the swim deck being a pain to paint.
I did the sand and varnish route and 3 years later it looked like I never touched it.
Teak has this natural oil that seems to do a number on Varnish.

These boats have a great wake! just right for tubing, wake surfing/boarding.
I have yet to use it for the original purpose, fishing. Maybe this year.
I got a Fishfinder 2 years ago with a builtin GPS and I haven't installed it. Maybe this year.
Mmmm, I'm starting to see a theme here. . . maybe this year.
Do you know where your father-in-law got the canvas?
I just have tatters of canvas left of mine and have not had any luck in getting a decent quote on
something that would fit.
I'm looking at maybe a Hard Top Bimini instead now. Maybe this year?
 
Nice job so far on the resto. Fabric is sold by the running yard so if the roll is 54" wide then a yard is 54x36. 45 a yard is outrageous. Seeing that you wont be able to match it anyway, you should probably do it in something like sunbrella fabric. Sunbrella marine is about 14 a yard. To get a ball park just measure the length of the cushions in feet and divide by 3 regardless of the width. That should give you enough for borders ,cording and waste. Go to Bainbridge international or Miami corporation to see samples. you cant see prices but PM me and I can give you an idea on cost.
Ok I installed the new boat seats and I only have a few more things left to do before I will be pretty much done with a majority of the boat restoration. I still need to pick up a GPS/Fishfinder. I have the old fish finder which is pretty much brand new but it is from the late 70ies and a pretty simple device and I was hoping to have something a little more updated to use plus I gotta have a top notch GPS. I am most likely going to pick up a Lowrance Elite 7 HDI Gold with the 1000 foot transducer in the next few weeks. I still need to pick up the rest of my Stereo parts as well. I am installing a West Marine 3000 CD/MP3 player with remote and a Kicker 4 channel MX350.4 marine amp. I will be running one amp channel through the rear stereo fader on a set of West Marine 6.5" pro speakers and also a set of the West Marine box speakers at 2 ohms in the Cockpit/Outside area. The other will be hooked to the front fader on another set of West Marine box style speakers in the cabin area at the standard 4 ohms. I also want to recover the cushions inside the cabin as close to the factory tweed as possible. I found a place that sells an extremely similar fabric but they want $45 a square yard! :wow: The current fabric still looks decent but it is extremely brittle and is starting to come apart. Does anyone know how much fabric I will need to recover the inner cabin cushions?

Any Advice would be helpful,

Thanx

Robert

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I am pleased to say that I am almost done with my Sea Ray SRV 240 restoration! :grin: I went ahead and took NH Tooner's advise and just purchased some Sunbrella fabric that I liked and used that to recover the interior seats in the cabin. I was really blown away how strong this fabric is! The seats really came out great and because the fabric had a tweed weave pattern on it, it looks very similar to factory. I also bought a Lowrance Elite 7 HDI GPS/Chart Plotter. I bought the one with the 1000 foot transducer. It is a really nice unit and gives me a little more confidence to go out on the open water. The only things I really have left to do is clean the fresh water tank, get the toilet working and have the bow anchor hatch lid redone in teak. I would also like to give a special thanx to Jim/moparlvr4406 for all the info he gave on the boat and for the hatch he sent me. The hatch really helped out to replace the original wood one that was pretty much falling apart. The one you sent has been keeping the weather out while I am trying to get the new one made all these months. Finding someone that works in teak is really proving to be a chore. I will post a couple of videos of the boat all put together. Eventually I will post a high quality video of the boat on the water with a full walk through. It is pretty dark in the cabin on this video but you get the idea.

Any help or advise I can get on getting the toilet or sink working would be great!

Thanx for checking out the post!

Robert

Cockpit Area
[video=youtube_share;U1vJIsbYhog]http://youtu.be/U1vJIsbYhog[/video]

Cabin Area
[video=youtube_share;8WH-LakAxck]http://youtu.be/8WH-LakAxck[/video]
 
I had a concrete RV storage area created at the side of my new house and I am now going to be storing the boat there during the winter and moving it to storage in Channel Islands during the mid spring through late fall. It just didn't make sense to pay for the winter storage at the harbor. The money I save in storage I can put into the boat.

Here is a picture of the boat in the harbor after taking it for spin before I brought it home.


I got tired of messing with the old carb the boat came with because I couldn't get a decent idle out of it even after rebuilding it 2 times. I am guessing a lot of the tiny passages in it got plugged after sitting in the salt air for the 20+ years. The new factory carb runs killer! I am guessing the new top speed will be close to 40 mph. I took it up to 35 at around 3600 RPM and still had a ways to go before top speed at 4200 rpm.

I have a question for anyone that has had a boat similar to mine. When I first ran the boat, one of the wing windows came loose because the little window handles had gotten brittle and broke off. When I opened the window to remove it, it basically fell into my hand. I went to reinstall it yesterday and I could not get it to fit back in the frame correctly. Is there a trick to reinstalling this window?

Any help would be appreciated,
Robert
 
I've enjoyed seeing how your restored boat turned out. Last week I bought a 1978 SRV Weekender 240. It's missing the aft left and right seating and I'm trying to figure out how the original seat was mounted, dimensions etc. I hate to impose, but is there any chance when you are next at your boat you could snap a picture or two. All that I have now is the cushion over the engine cover and the back-rest above it. The rest has been removed. So I don't really know what it looked like or how it was mounted.

Here is what mine looks like now:missing seat.jpg
 
RAWRIGHT - Looks great!



MoleTwin

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In my Dad's 240 I cannot remember if there was another rail on the side of the engine cover or if it spanned across to the top of the box.
The cushion has a plywood backing and would rest on the wood rail in the left of the picture and on the engine cover to the right of the photo.
Looks like yours was reupholstered so it may have been changed or the rail removed. :huh:
 
I will pull the cover off the boat and take a few photos this weekend providing it isn't pouring rain LOL. You are just wanting to know how the rear seats are mounted/setup? Looking at your photo, it looks like it is missing the teak platform rail on the engine cover. There is one on both sides of my engine cover. There is also a possibility that your boat only came with the single motor cover seat. Every boat was optioned different. Some boats only had the single engine cover seat.

Robert

I've enjoyed seeing how your restored boat turned out. Last week I bought a 1978 SRV Weekender 240. It's missing the aft left and right seating and I'm trying to figure out how the original seat was mounted, dimensions etc. I hate to impose, but is there any chance when you are next at your boat you could snap a picture or two. All that I have now is the cushion over the engine cover and the back-rest above it. The rest has been removed. So I don't really know what it looked like or how it was mounted.

Here is what mine looks like now:View attachment 43037
 
see if these help any




this was my before

and after


when the rear seating is done the bottoms will slide forward and the back cushions will lay into the gap in the rear to make a flat sunpad
 

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