Woot! Its been just a little over a year since I started rebuilding the boat I grew up with.

I have battled the beast known as QUADRAJET.
Vanquished the dreaded IGNITION with cunning and generous application of new parts.
Endured the miles of crumbling and shorting WIRES.
Laid waste the plains of OXIDIZED fiberglass.
Smote the queen of the DRY ROTTED woods.

And now claim the right to christen her "The Gunship Lily"
(long story, but the name of the ship in my sci-fi story I've been working on for the last 15 years)

So next Sat, I am going to do a shake-down cruise around Lake Minnetonka.
PM me if you want to come along.

Well had a successful shake-down cruise this weekend.
Had trouble getting her started in the morning. Turns out the negative coil lead had come loose. Tightened that down and she started right up. Ran around the lake for about 2 hours and found that she was taking on a little water. Think its coming in around the rubber drive shaft baffle. Guess its pretty common for that to dry out and crack. A little water is no problem. but my bilge pump wouldn't pump out the water. I could hear it run, but nothing came out the water exit port. Cheesed because the pump is brand new. Maybe something got stuck in there. Have to disassemble it and test it in a bucket of water.

Ski desk is coming along well. Cut all the wood this evening. Need to stop at ace hardware and get some 1.25 stainless steel screws and face washers. Decided to make the boarding ladder out of the left over wood. Should look nice all stained and oiled.

Got the slats and supports cut. Still need to sand the edges off each one. Then I will router a half round edge on the end caps and the last slat.

Still cant figure out whats with the bilge pump. completely submerged it and still would not catch and pump out. Hate to say it but have no confidence in it anymore and will just get another one from a diff manufacturer. Bilge pumps should pump anything water oily water, even sandy water.

Bilge pumps suck.

oh god, slow day. lol'd at that one

Wakeboard platform dry fitted. The aluminum transom bar is mucho overkill, but hey it looks cool, and acts as an stern drive/transom external support.

Now to fit the bar to the boat. That's going to be fun since its not sitting on the trailer perfectly level.

Houston, we have a problem!

I had a hunch that the drive baffle had a crack in it, because water was coming into the engine compartment. So yesterday I pulled the stern drive off, and yep. That bearing is trashed. Call into a repair place and got a quote to fix it (already have the replacement bearing) and the labor was more than the specialty tools needed to teardown and install new bearings and new baffles.

With much blood, bruises, sweat and cursing, I got new bearing and baffles installed on the stern drive. Turned into a full weekend job, but it finally went back together.

Pre-flight tests on all the mechanical repairs all checked out. Ready to take her back out into the water. Need to install new trim sensors, that just came in, but should get to that tonight. the hardest part of that is finding a new location for the trim gauge. I commandeered its spot for the depth finder, since the gauge hadnt worked in years because of the bad sensors.