1979 Schiada RC, The Boss

[X Hoser]

I know nothing about the angle and function but I have always been warned about reversion. Maybe the angled helps drain whatever water gets into the tails?

 

[BamBam]

I like option 1. It's probably personal preference, but it looks right to me.
I was taught that part of the reason to angle them like option 1 was to help the water run out as well as keep the surge from rushing up the pipe when you come off plane. Racey and his pops have been installing tips like option 2 for many years and don't seem to have any issues with that set up so go with whichever one you like best. You're the one who has to look at it.
As you fabricate the inner tubes make sure that Imco will be able to slide the outer tube over everything you create. These are typically laid out and welded in sections with outer over inner in steps to ensure bends fit over bends as you go.

 

[RaceTec]

What about Option #2 parallel to the plates but with a cut end that matches the transom angle? Or maybe the same angle as the risers coming off of the bar?

 

[counterpart7]

I like #1, but I think it would look cleaner if the tips were shorter. Even an inch or two would clean it up a lot.

 

[78Southwind]

Option 1

 

[SoCalZero]

Option 2 to be clear of my first response.

 

[Toolman]

Option 2 although the seal that’s in there that keeps the water out of the boat will now be gripping around an ellipse instead of a circle. It probably doesn’t matter but that’s the only thought I had.

 

[FrznJim]

Option 1 It’s the classic look.

 

[X Hoser]

My vote is for option 1. The only one you need to please is you tho

 

[lenmann]

Option 2 although the seal that’s in there that keeps the water out of the boat will now be gripping around an ellipse instead of a circle. It probably doesn’t matter but that’s the only thought I had.

Yeah, you're right. I am making my own rings and seals so getting the silicone lasered to an elliptical shape isn't a problem. I drew the whole deal on the hull CAD model today and the inside ring gets pretty funky looking. The ellipse ends up off center to the OD because the holes through the transom are normal. Its on the inside so not all that visible.

I am printing some prototype rings to test it out.

 

[lenmann]

I like option 1. It's probably personal preference, but it looks right to me.
I was taught that part of the reason to angle them like option 1 was to help the water run out as well as keep the surge from rushing up the pipe when you come off plane. Racey and his pops have been installing tips like option 2 for many years and don't seem to have any issues with that set up so go with whichever one you like best. You're the one who has to look at it.
As you fabricate the inner tubes make sure that Imco will be able to slide the outer tube over everything you create. These are typically laid out and welded in sections with outer over inner in steps to ensure bends fit over bends as you go.

Thanks man, this is at least the second or third time you have stopped me from making a mistake, thank you. I had planned on fully welding up the inner tubes, I will just tack them.

 

[BamBam]

Thanks man, this is at least the second or third time you have stopped me from making a mistake, thank you. I had planned on fully welding up the inner tubes, I will just tack them.

Only cause I've made plenty of mistakes myself.
If the bends are gentle enough you may get away with building the whole thing. I just didn't want you to build it all and have it not work out

 

[lenmann]

Classic it is! I appreciate everyones input, it helps a lot when I find myself on the fence with aesthetic stuff like this.

The decider was of course the wifey. She liked Option #1 best and reminded me that the theme of a the boat was traditional aesthetics with modern running gear.

I fabbed up some turbo flanges from laser cut rings and some tubing to provide a clean landing spot for the inner and outer tubes on the exhaust tails. Once again the pulse feature on the Miller Dynasty offset my marginal torch control abilities, technology to the rescue.

One benefit of the traditional angled down tubes is there are half as many bends, pie cuts and welds.

Tubes not cut to length yet.

Hillbilly tube clamp provides access to the joint for tacking while holding both pieces firmly in place. If I did a lot of this stuff I would be tempted to buy the high zoot professional units. This worked well, I only tacked the clamp to the tube once.

Headed to Fred at Imco for finish fab and polish.

Control cables and power steering hoses are in so time to dive into the plumbing, cables and wiring.

 

[BamBam]

Classic it is! I appreciate everyones input, it helps a lot when I find myself on the fence with aesthetic stuff like this.

The decider was of course the wifey. She liked Option #1 best and reminded me that the theme of a the boat was traditional aesthetics with modern running gear.

I fabbed up some turbo flanges from laser cut rings and some tubing to provide a clean landing spot for the inner and outer tubes on the exhaust tails. Once again the pulse feature on the Miller Dynasty offset my marginal torch control abilities, technology to the rescue.
View attachment 1126215
View attachment 1126214
View attachment 1126213

One benefit of the traditional angled down tubes is there are half as many bends, pie cuts and welds.

View attachment 1126216

Tubes not cut to length yet.

View attachment 1126217

Hillbilly tube clamp provides access to the joint for tacking while holding both pieces firmly in place. If I did a lot of this stuff I would be tempted to buy the high zoot professional units. This worked well, I only tacked the clamp to the tube once.

View attachment 1126218

View attachment 1126219

Headed to Fred at Imco for finish fab and polish.

View attachment 1126220

Control cables and power steering hoses are in so time to dive into the plumbing, cables and wiring.

Beautiful work.
One more suggestion is to add (or have IMCO add) O2 bungs in both. It’s nearly impossible to add them in the future on the jacketed pipes. O2 sensors are a fantastic tuning tool for carbs as well as EFI. If you move to EFI you will definitely need them.

 

[lenmann]

Beautiful work.
One more suggestion is to add (or have IMCO add) O2 bungs in both. It’s nearly impossible to add them in the future on the jacketed pipes. O2 sensors are a fantastic tuning tool for carbs as well as EFI. If you move to EFI you will definitely need them.

Great idea, I will have them incorporated into the build.

 

[lenmann]

Time for an update. I am closing in on the last couple pieces of rigging, control cables are all in, pretty much wrapped up the plumbing, and have started the wiring.

First up, the exhaust: Imco fabricated a beautiful set of exhaust tails with a georgous welds and a mirror polished finish. Their process used my mock ups as a template to build a table top fixture and not as the inner tube of the exhaust as I had originally thought. Once the fixture was set up they cut the turbo flanges off my mock ups and built both the inner and outer tube in parallel starting at the turbo flange and working out to the tail. Once I installed them on the motor I could see that the end result was pretty close but not perfect. The port side was off center at the transom hole about 1/8" and the starboard side was off about 5/16" almost hitting the side of the hole in the transom. The turbo flanges I made for the exhaust are pretty beefy at 1/2" thick so I was able to carefully grind material off the face of the flanges to get the tails lined up with the holes in the transom. A .005" change to the face of the mounting flange moves the end of the tail about .060". The trick is removing material in the right place and keeping the flange flat so it seals correctly on the turbo housing. This was huge pain in the ass. I should have listened more closely to what @BamBam was trying to tell me in post #402 above.

So a brief public service announcement to anyone reading this thread in the future thinking about having exhaust tails built off the boat, DON'T DO IT. I should have just sucked it up and taken the 10 hour tow down to SoCal and had IMCO build them on the boat. They would have been perfectly centered in the transom holes and I could have spent a couple of days at the beach while they did their magic instead of a couple of days dicking around trying to get them to fit right. Lesson learned.

The end result looks pretty good though.

 

[BamBam]

As always, the work you are doing looks fantastic.

 

[HighVoltage329]

Exhaust looks great. The trim rings are really cool!

 

[Brokeboatin221]

Looks amazing Len!

 

[Boat211]

Just incredible. The attention to detail is nothing short of amazing.

 

[poncho]

Good Lord

 

[poncho]

Good Lord

 

[Hammer]

Pure artwork. I’d enjoy taking a peak during the build process. Thank you the update. It is turning out amazing

 

[EPL]

Lens boat is coming out awesome, looks even better in person !

 

[Backlash]

Amazing work Sir! Where's that bow-down emoji when you need it!!

 

[lenmann]

Next up: Driveline guard.

My boat came with this driveline guard, basically two pieces of steel tubing that were chrome plated, one sliding into the other. It was hacked up a bit on the trans end with a cutting torch to clear the tail shaft bushing lube line and the chrome was peeling pretty bad from rust. Regardless, because of the new strut angle the v-drive was much further forward now making the original guard too short, so off to the scrap yard.

I picked up a more contemporary stainless steel guard from @025 a couple of years back but it turned out to be too short as well. I was going to simply buy a longer inner tube but I got to looking at some of the Brummett and @Racey setups that used machined collars on both ends of the tube eliminating the pinch clamp piece shown in the pictures and decided to go that way.

@Toolman machined up these really nice end collars that capture the stainless tube and secure it to the trans and v-drive. The longer collar slides back on the tube when un-bolted from the v-drive to access the flange bolts on the driveline making both the guard and driveline removable. I sanded the tube with 320 grit as prep for polishing but will leave it as is for now because I need to get this damn boat done before the rapidly approaching end of summer. Over the winter I can pull it back out and send it out for polish and get the collars anodized.

Happy with the way it turned out. Ultimately the boat with have full interior so this will be hidden from view with a removable center floor cover, so maybe not the most efficient use of capital but it looks cool and works good. With any luck I will never have to test its primary function.

 

[Racey]

Next up: Driveline guard.

My boat came with this driveline guard, basically two pieces of steel tubing that were chrome plated, one sliding into the other. It was hacked up a bit on the trans end with a cutting torch to clear the tail shaft bushing lube line and the chrome was peeling pretty bad from rust. Regardless, because of the new strut angle the v-drive was much further forward now making the original guard too short, so off to the scrap yard.

View attachment 1144621

I picked up a more contemporary stainless steel guard from @025 a couple of years back but it turned out to be too short as well. I was going to simply buy a longer inner tube but I got to looking at some of the Brummett and @Racey setups that used machined collars on both ends of the tube eliminating the pinch clamp piece shown in the pictures and decided to go that way.

View attachment 1144693
View attachment 1144707

@Toolman machined up these really nice end collars that capture the stainless tube and secure it to the trans and v-drive. The longer collar slides back on the tube when un-bolted from the v-drive to access the flange bolts on the driveline making both the guard and driveline removable. I sanded the tube with 320 grit as prep for polishing but will leave it as is for now because I need to get this damn boat done before the rapidly approaching end of summer. Over the winter I can pull it back out and send it out for polish and get the collars anodized.

View attachment 1144696 View attachment 1144698
View attachment 1144695
View attachment 1144694 View attachment 1144697 View attachment 1144699

Happy with the way it turned out. Ultimately the boat with have full interior so this will be hidden from view with a removable center floor cover, so maybe not the most efficient use of capital but it looks cool and works good. With any luck I will never have to test its primary function.

Turn some o-ring grooves into the mating parts to dampen vibration.

 

[Boat211]

Totally diggin this Len.

 

[lenmann]

Turn some o-ring grooves into the mating parts to dampen vibration.

Great idea! I'm on it boss.

 

[025]

Turn some o-ring grooves into the mating parts to dampen vibration.

Exactly!

Looks great Len

 

[Backlash]

Looking at all of your marks, measurements and notes on your painter's tape gives us a sliver of an idea just how much time, effort and money you've poured into this project! This is one of the most incredible builds I've seen! Thank you for sharing this with the rest of us!!

 

[lenmann]

Finished up the wiring this week. It’s not DCB level aesthetically (i tried, need more practice I guess) but it is safe, clean, fully functional, with all crimps adhesive shrink wrapped, and wires, cables and devices all labelled. The switch panel is temporary as the high zoot backlit LED pushbutton switches I ordered have been supply chain fucked since April. I left lots of wire length behind the panel for re-wire once the Chinese finish up my switches.

As seen in the pics I located the batteries under the rear seat instead of in the engine bay to keep the area alongside the engine cleaner. I cut through the floor and fabbed up stainless battery boxes and then aluminum plates that hold down the battery boxes as well as locate and retain the rear seat base. I located the Perko, relays, and fuses on the port side plate. As you can see, there isn’t much spare real estate. Putting the batteries under the seat will also help avoid having dead batteries trapped under the motor actuated rear hatch.

I still need to make a temporary cover for the relays so they don’t get drenched or stepped on until I get the boat back to Havasu to have the interior finished up at Arko/Conquest.

I also had a chance to finally install these really trick adjustable seat mounts that Matt @025 made. With the pull of a pin the drivers seat can be moved 4 inches fore/aft and the passenger seat reverses for skier observer duties. It’s a pretty slick setup.

And now, after almost 7 years I am finally crawling back out of the rabbit hole.



It lives and breathes again….

I filled the fluids, pulled her out of the shop and started it up on the hose to check for plumbing leaks. Prior to start up I pulled the distributor and primed the oiling system using a drill motor just to make sure everything inside the motor was good and slippery. Thanks to Barry @obnoxious and his BBC Build thread for the detailed help on how to do this the correct and easy way.

After a couple of turns of the starter the 540 TT fired right up. As you can imaging I was running all around the boat looking for leaks and anything that might be out of wack and fortunately everything looked good.

With all the rigging, plumbing and wiring done I could now remove the protective wrap revealing the beauty beneath. I had literally forgotten what the boat looked like.

Next up: sea trials. The plan is to run the boat on the trailer on the ramp checking all of the through hull penetrations for water tightness. If that goes well we will launch and test the function of everything else.

Unfortunately (or is it fortunately?) we are headed to Kauai for a family vacation today so the sea trials will have to wait a week or so.

Until then, Aloha!

 

[AZLineman]

Absolutely amazing and congratulations on your soon to be completion. Your work quality and level of patience is mind boggling. Also thank you for detailing out the whole process for us. I frequently look at your pictures in awe. Your quality of work is second to none. I can’t wait to see it in person sometime and I hope you enjoy the hell out of it. Last but not least….. let me know when I can drop mine off

 

[skiracr]

Absolutely stunning...work of art!

 

[Toolman]

HOT DAMN!!!

 

[vdcruiser]

Are you actually going to put this amazing piece of work in the water and use it ?

 

[poncho]

I really enjoy following creative people doing their thing, lost the energy for big projects so more of an arm chair quarterback nowadays.

I told my Wife I'm at the point in life where I want to buy from someone this talented and have something unique.

You should be very proud, I know I would be.

 

[Boat211]

It's beautiful. As you mentioned, so nice to see it all uncovered. Maybe we will see you at the lake for Labor Day weekend??

 

[ChrisV]

Badass man! Thank you for posting!

 

[Backlash]

Goodness gracious what an amazing boat!! There aren't enough words to describe how absolutely beautiful this thing is!! From start to finish, you have raised the bar!! This thread has been one to follow, that is for damn sure!!

STUNNING!!!!!

How much time did you spend wiping it down after you ran her on the hose???

 

[77 SLEEK]

Beautiful boat ! Well done sir ! And loved the build thread.

 

[BamBam]

Oh what a feeling!!! Love the first fire-up.
Congratulations! Enjoy your beautiful work of art. It looks fabulous!

 

[EPL]

Really looks good un wrapped , I'm use to seeing it all wrapped up . Have fun in Kauai , see you at the lake next week !

 

[jstnoc]

Len this came out incredible! Congrats and hope to see it in person sometime soon!

 

[dave29]

Just WOW!!!!!!!!!! Loved this threat and will miss it. Can't wait for the maiden voyage run video.
Thank you.

 

[Bugginout]

Been following since the beginning buddy. You my friend are a talented and patient man. Well done. I hope you run the shit out of it and it doesn’t just sit on the trailer!

 

[One2go]

Beautifully done.!!!

 

[DBR]

It's too beautiful to use. Literally a work of art. Well done and thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[Blownbillybob]

Congrats on a SUPER job !!! MAN!!! A lot of work !!!
Hope to see U on the water !!

 

[lenmann]

Time for an update.

First, Kauai was amazing. Definitely not a party spot like Maui but I really enjoyed the laid back, slower vibe there. Many of our activities were informed and made better by some of the great travel posts right here on RDP. While RDP isn't the only place I get well informed perspectives, I will say there are some good ones to be found here.

Back to the boat. I will preface this post with an editorial comment. Much of this thread to date has been about all the good stuff related to the imagining, designing and building that comes along with a project like this. As this build gets closer to the finish line much of the theoretical becomes very practical in application. In most cases, so far, it has worked as planned. In the case of this post you will see that my steering design did not. I share this with the hope that someone, someday, will read it and learn from it such that they don't make the same mistakes I did. On with the post...


Before the ramp test I needed to run the boat on the hose again to get the power steering bled. It's a pretty simple process that IMCO recommends, start the motor for a minute, cycle the steering wheel a quarter turn, kill the motor, check the fluid and refill as needed. Rinse and repeat until the cylinder has been cycled through its travel in both directions making sure the reservoir never runs low on fluid. Essentially this burps out any air in the lines replacing it with power steering fluid. I ran it through to full closed on the ram and then started out to full extension. When the cylinder hits the limits of its travel you can hear the power steering pump emit a slightly different tone. When I got to what I thought was full extension I killed the motor and went back to check the fluid level, it looked good so I figured I was pretty much done bleeding the air out. I thought now would be a good time check the lines for leaks and such so started poking around and I noticed that the steering cylinder shaft looked bowed. Now, those of you guys that are old enough to have to wear "readers" know the the lenses can make stuff distort a little depending on whether you are looking at something straight on or a little side ways. Being that I am way into the readers phase of life (2.50's) I immediately think it must be the glasses, there is no way that 5/8" shaft is bent.

Wrong

So what the hell bent it I asked, now that I couldn't blame my cheap Chinese reading glasses?

Turns out the shaft was hitting the edge of the slot in the tiller before the ram got to full extension and the hydraulic force was enough to bend the shaft.

Shit.

The CAD model of the steering system that I drew didn't show this collision. Why was this happening? After cycling the steering ram a couple of times it was apparent that the travel of the tiller wasn't balanced from port to starboard on the boat even though it was equal in the CAD model. After a couple of hours checking and re-checking the dimensions on the steering ram mount (good), the tiller (good), and the steering ram (bad) I realized that I had modeled the ram almost 1 1/4" shorter than it actually was at full extension. This resulted in the fixed end of the ram being too close to the tiller, creating the imbalance, the resulting shaft/tiller collision, and the bent shaft. I am still not sure how I measured and modeled the steering ram incorrectly. My best guess is that, three years or so ago, when I used compressed air to extend the ram I didn't get it fully extended and used a bad dimension when I modeled the steering system at full stroke. Designer error...bad designer. I would fire you if I could.

Shit, shit.

So, how do we fix this? I have a bent steering cylinder and a cylinder mount that is too short. I could redesign the mount and have IMCO rebuild the cylinder, probably the ideal solution. But the mount is a big, expensive billet machined hunk of aluminum that has been polished and anodized. A bunch of plumbing and other parts have been configured around its current size and shape. On top of that it was machined pre-Covid, so replacing it now isn't going to be cheap or fast in the current environment.

The other alternative would be to use a shorter cylinder to better fit the mount. The problem here is that as the cylinder gets shorter so does the stroke which starts to limit the ideal range of 35-40 degrees of rudder each direction. For reference, at this point I have about 30 degrees to port and 50 degrees to starboard.

So, I call up IMCO and see if they can work some magic to help me solve my problem. They think they can pull together the right parts to build a 1 inch shorter cylinder that should get me pretty close to where I need to be. Hooray! I get a call the next day and unfortunately the cylinder /shaft combo they had hoped would work didn't. The shaft was too short and wouldn't bottom out in the cylinder which is a non-starter in hydraulic cylinder land. So, I had them ship me the shorter cylinder with a 1" longer shaft to see if it was close enough. When I mounted it up it helped with the under travel to port but didn't do much for the over travel on the starboard side.

At this point I remembered a post from @Racey where he modified a set of IMCO cylinders by shortening the tube and shaft to achieve an ideal fit on a unique stern drive application. The primary focus of his thread was the challenge of picking up the existing threads and single point threading additional thread length on the tube and shaft using his engine lathe. (thats a lotta threads in one sentence). For some reason I couldn't find his post anywhere on RDP but I remembered enough of it that I was able to successfully shorten the tube 1/4" and the shaft 1" netting as close to the best possible combination given my other constraints. I reassembled the cylinder, gave it a quick polish and mounted it up. Once it was bled, I ended up with about 38 degrees in both directions which was plenty good. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the process, mostly because I was scrambling to get it done and frankly the reassembled steering doesn't look much different other than its not bent. I can say it works a lot better.

So the moral of the story?

Measure twice and cut once?

To err is human?

Hopefully some future reader will benefit.



Next installment should be a lake test.