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Our 76' V Mate I

S

silverbullet

Member
Hey guys. I'm brand new here because my wife and I just bought our first Checkmate last weekend. This boat is very solid, just needs a bunch of maintenance and TLC. We're getting it back in to good reliable running condition to get through the rest of our season here in Holland, MI and then this winter we'll be setting it up with a custom interior, getting rid of the bow rail, doing some gelcoat buffing then maybe some graphics and other customization. Looking forward to getting to know some people here and sharing our experience!

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Congrats! I was checking out that boat on Craigslist not too long ago.
 
Well, we worked on the boat again all day. Still not in the water...

I got the entire throttle box rebuilt last week and it's flawless now. Got the throttle working smooth on the engine side too. I just keep finding more we need to fix... The wiring harnesses (inner and exterior are totally rotten out so I'm going to try rebuilding what we've got. The previous owners really did a horrible job wiring their own accessories in so I just stripped all the wiring out of the entire boat and tonight we started over... When it's done it will be done right and I'll know it for sure.

We figured out the 115 Merc is a 1972 today. We pulled the bow rail and will be plugging the holes w/ some button head screws for a while (still better than a rail). The wife scrubbed the carpet and got it looking pretty good too. She also soft scrubbed all the stained looking spots and got the thing almost perfect again. Now we just need to get on to buffing.

My next issue is one of the tilt hoses is leaking horribly. I would really like to replace all of them while I'm at it with some stainless braided lines with AN fittings... I'm more of a car car guy than a marine guy though so I don't know if this is really feasible. Does anyone have any recommendations here as to where to go with this? Can anyone tell me what the fitting sizes are before I pull it all apart and start measuring? Is it possible to adapt to AN fittings? Or am I crazy to mess w/ it? lol

Here's some pics.

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:welcome: To the Forum ... Here is a link to a new set of Trim lines for the old inline six Mercs . I have a V-mate I myself and in the process of trying to wrap up my restoration ... I like the color of your mate . Never seen that color combo before . Ive also never seen a bow rail on one of these like that before either . cant wait to see what you do with it ......:thumb:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/270686459371?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
 
Thanks for the link! I've checked out your build and I'm impressed. It have given us the confidence to take this one on... Hopefully this one will be MUCH less work! ;)
 
Nice boat

This is my kind of boat. Good luck, you'll find a lot of useful info and helpful people here. I too say keep the green. Very sharp.:welcome:
 
Thanks! I just joined..

Update - Last night I rebuilt the inner wire harness with solder, skrink wrap and the proper color wires. The new trim hoses came in yesterday too. Thank you to Will30 for the link!

This weekend we'll be putting new battery cables in the outer harness, installing new trim lines and relocating the trim pump. After that I still need to remake a harness for the accessories and stitch it all up.

Our plan is to run the boat labor day weekend for the first time. If there's time in between finishing all the necessities and floating it we'll work on buffing the gel coat out a but too...

Thanks!
 
This weekend was good. We got the engine harnesses rebuilt, the accesory harness rebuilt and rigged up, the new trim hoses installed and bled, the trim pump remounted and the temp seats put back in. I got a little cocky and wired the entire boat and cinched up the harness before testing everything and it all ended up working with the exception of some junk Chinese switched I decided to reuse untill we have time to build a custom dash this winter.

It appears we are ready for the maiden voyage now but just ran out of time this weekend. The plan is to try it out after work sometime this week.

Here's some pics of the progress. The one shows my dad whos' been helping a bunch when needed and my beautiful wife who's been doing a TON of work on this project. :)

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