74 Spectra 20 V Drive

[Sanger_Spectra]

I have been working on this for longer than I want to post, have a couple threads on some other sites going already and I have really enjoyed and benefited from the feedback and insight this boating community provides so I decided to test the waters over here as I am seeing a lot of V Drive cruisers on this site. This is my third boat to restore, the last two have been Sanger flats and I have not gone to the depth of restoration as this thing. Complete trailer rebuild, split the boat new stringers bulk heads, strut relocated, extended center strakes etc etc etc....A ton of work for an old boat but also had a blast doing this with my Dad, Uncle (not blood but he is my family) Brother in law and friends. on the down hill side doing rigging now targeting mid late summer completion.

[Sanger_Spectra]

More pics... had a hick up at the paint shop ended up finishing paint in my garage.

[GotHalos]

Very nice! :thumbup:

[Sanger_Spectra]

Rigging at Dad's shop on the Farm

[djunkie]

I can't wait to see this thing finished. I know it's been a long time coming for you. Hope I can see it in person someday.

[SnoC653]

Beautiful job. How did you determine where to move the strut to and how much to add/remove to or from the strakes? I've had the little voice in the back of my head tell me to someday convert the cruiser from jet to V-drive, but you have a lot more energy and gumption than I do. That looks like a lot of work and you started with one that was already a V-drive.

[78Southwind]

Lots of hard work there. How far up did you move the strut and how far down did you extend the center strakes?

[Sanger_Spectra]

Beautiful job. How did you determine where to move the strut to and how much to add/remove to or from the strakes? I've had the little voice in the back of my head tell me to someday convert the cruiser from jet to V-drive, but you have a lot more energy and gumption than I do. That looks like a lot of work and you started with one that was already a V-drive.

I had been talking with a few guys with similar boats one in particular was a howard VD Cruiser I believe out of Virginia. He did the same thing and i believe went an inch more than I did. I moved 8" forward, no science just advice and experience from a good friend who had done this over the years to several boats. We brought the center strakes back just under 4' they now stop just before the strut. These boats are bow heavy and we wanted to try and lift it as much as we could. Looking forward to see if all the work pays off, I have a friend with the same boat looking to see if there is a performance change, should do something.

Changing that jet over is more money than work... my friend with the Spectra (I posted a pic of his boat below) had a 19' challenger jet boat, he started coming skiing with my family and all the flat bottoms, only took him 1 summer to realize he had the change churches. I am not biased towards v-drives though :)

[WESTERNAERO]

Wow, this is really looking nice. Good job...:thumb:

[SnoC653]

Changing that jet over is more money than work... my friend with the Spectra (I posted a pic of his boat below) had a 19' challenger jet boat, he started coming skiing with my family and all the flat bottoms, only took him 1 summer to realize he had the change churches. I am not biased towards v-drives though :)

I have a couple V-drive projects to finish already, but the nice thing about the Jet boat on the Mississippi is 1) I don't have to worry as much about the stuff floating in the river (logs mostly), and 2) those jumping carp don't jump when a jet boat goes by, just when a boat with a prop goes by. Last thing I want is to get hit by a 30 lb carp while doing 50+. But I do love the mini-day cruisers in either Jet or V-drive.

[Sanger_Spectra]

First quarter has been brutal with travel for work and kids Baseball is in full swing so my great plans to get some time on this boat have not worked out so well but i snuk away for a day and got the ski tow roughed in. Still need to do a little shapping on the base and rig up the mounting bolts but i like the look. This ski tow was part of a deal i got when i purchased my Sanger 16 years ago and I have been wanting to use it, glad to finally see it on a boat and off my shelf!

[Sanger_Spectra]

Took advantage of a bye weekend with Baseball and spent some time at Dad's shop working on the boat and hanging out with Dad. Got the cavatation rod seal housing in and all shaped and polished and finished my fab on the rudder brace. Wanted to use the original brace but did not want to just bolt it to angle bolted to the rails. I have never welded aluminum so what we thought this would be a good project! I am very happy that aluminum grinds easy because I had some ugly welds even after practicing on several scraps for a while... I love the way you can fill hole and notches and just grind and polish, I almost bought a new rudder brace because of all the holes that had been drilled in the original, no isses filled them up and she is looking great. next trip going to tackel Steering and foot overide build, getting closer and I love hanging in the shop with dad

[Sanger_Spectra]

Down to final weeks of baseball, bitter sweet as this is my youngest and his last year at a great league (Los Altos Cal Ripken) we have been there since 95' both boys and my daughter, but they are expanding so hopefully we can field enough older boys to fill a few teams next year... any way, got on some polishing, engine and trans mounts and wip guard and a floor brace.
Making progress on the engine found some 049 heads, they are at the machine shop.

[Sanger_Spectra]

Steering post is done, I picked up a Morse dual rotary system a few years back from Andrew (River Games) when he was changing his 20' schiada steering. I liked the long post set up he had but wanted some more support for the rotary unit and to shorten up the post just a bit. Had my BIL build a bezel that will receive the post like a cup and let me push the post behind the dash and get a little more room but keep the look of the long post also help ancor the post. I also flipped the post from the original orientation, good thing my machinist works for beer. Going old school with the wheel it matches my Sanger, may have to go with a flater wheel once I sit in the boat or just loose 75lbs. The third piece in the shot is the base for my ski tow.

[Sanger_Spectra]

Spent a couple days up north working on the never ending project...

Foot pedal assemblies 90% done, my mock up worked great they feel good sitting in the boat. I was able to get all the Cav rods under the floor and have just a bit of the assembly showing. Need to shape and polish some aluminum and we should be good. By going under the floor I have to push the rod rather than pull it, so I need to build a bell crank that will pull as I push, should be easy and the bell crank will use the same mounting holes as my throttle assembly. I hate having a bunch of holes on the stringers so trying to multipurpose as many holes as possible. The boat had no plates to begin with when Spectra built her so I am going w/o a lock out on the cav plates and just having a down pedal.

Throttle assebly will be built out of 3/16 aluminum plate, bends wont be as tight but shape will be sililar and it will be cut down quite a bit probably only about 6 inches tall vs the 9" that it is now, I used 1/8 inch for the mock up.


The steering finally came together, I dont want to see any of cabel mounts and went back and forth on using a Splash well mount on the outside of the stringer. I will have a floor in the back as well and need to mount it some how, so finally it worked out in my head (Dad's idea a month ago) use the mounts I have and run a piece of aluminum angel flat side up and mount the steering under and the floor to the top. It is right at the end of the floor so i still have access to inspect and get to bolts and nuts.

Next issue is i am still deciding on a Cam shaft and flopping back and forth on tunnel ram or single four. I had in my head the entore time to run the RAM but I did the same thing with my flat and ended up going with a single four, so simple runs up to 6k and it starts every time... I just dont know if i want to scre with the tunnel ram even thouh they really look cool.

[HB Vic]

Coming along nicely, thank you for the updates and pics.

[Sanger_Spectra]

one step closer, still the slowest guy around rigging this thing... built my go pedal base out of 1/4"ended up with a real nice bend, also all mock up on engine, trans mounts done now just shape and polish. I set up a little different than I have in the past, instead of using just on piece of angle to attach to the mounts we are using two and not bolting to the bottom of teh angle but thru the side, backing it up with a 5/16 plate against the stringer.. a little over kill but once its shapped and polished hoping it will look beefy. Next trip Looking to start setting up mechanicals that will run off the inside transom, fuel pump, bilge, and filters, and run steering cables and finish that once and for all.

[Sanger_Spectra]

I thought that shaping the angle brackets was going to be a bear, turned out to be not so bad. Found some 3" flapper disks at McFadden Dale for small angle grinder, these work really nice as you can control your speed much better than with a 4" grinder or bench grinder. Only a few hours this past weekend to work but hoping to finish them up next weekend, get the radiuses all around and polish

[Sanger_Spectra]

I spent way more time than I anticipated on finishing the angle brackets up but they are done and look like I wanted them to. 1 step closer!

[Sanger_Spectra]

No Travel this week for the first time in 7 weeks!!!!! No coaching!!!! I have a project planned for every night this week, Monday night Finish cleaning up my sterring helm and brace, Check it off the list!

[Sanger_Spectra]

Tuesday Night, Go Pedal mount done, check it off...also ordered fuel fills and oil cooler brackets from the new Dana Marine today, been trying to get them since July

[jdekruyf]

Very nice. Going to be a sweet boat once it's all done!

[Sanger_Spectra]

My pile of unpolished has gotten smaller! Cave Pedal, sterring brackets, transon angle for filters and fuel pump and hatch hinge mounts done. only thing left on the bench right now are engine rails, I need to do these again.

[Sanger_Spectra]

when it comes to boats and many other things, I have always been influenced by my Dad, growing up around his wood decker and watching him build and rig things influenced the way I see things and expect them to look. There was one thing that cought my attention when I was very young that wasnt my dads doing but my cousin Lee.
Lee had a 69 Eliminator Flat with a 426 Hemi, the thing had evey type of induction on it you could imiagine, from Webers to Blowers and twin dominators with a nitros shot, Lee was always playing. The part of that boat that stuck with me all these years were his oil filters, ya oil filters, as a kid riding in the back seat with a blown Hemi and I dug the filters. Lee had two remote filters with cool finned aluminum covers and I was always going to have those too. I have one on my flat but you really dont see it, well I decided that I wated to see them on the Spectra. I am running a remote oil filter and water seperators for each tank, these will mount to the aluminum channel running across the transom. I have had the covers for years but justr picked up the filter heads and they are way cool. I had to do a little shaping on the filter cover and i really like the way they came out, there will be three of these things across the back. Was able to locate a short water seperator that fits inside the cover! I was thinking I would have to cut a hole for the drain plug but these all fit real nice, local NAPA guy is great and found these for me.

[Mrs.K034]

when it comes to boats and many other things, I have always been influenced by my Dad, growing up around his wood decker and watching him build and rig things influenced the way I see things and expect them to look. There was one thing that cought my attention when I was very young that wasnt my dads doing but my cousin Lee.
Lee had a 69 Eliminator Flat with a 426 Hemi, the thing had evey type of induction on it you could imiagine, from Webers to Blowers and twin dominators with a nitros shot, Lee was always playing. The part of that boat that stuck with me all these years were his oil filters, ya oil filters, as a kid riding in the back seat with a blown Hemi and I dug the filters. Lee had two remote filters with cool finned aluminum covers and I was always going to have those too. I have one on my flat but you really dont see it, well I decided that I wated to see them on the Spectra. I am running a remote oil filter and water seperators for each tank, these will mount to the aluminum channel running across the transom. I have had the covers for years but justr picked up the filter heads and they are way cool. I had to do a little shaping on the filter cover and i really like the way they came out, there will be three of these things across the back. Was able to locate a short water seperator that fits inside the cover! I was thinking I would have to cut a hole for the drain plug but these all fit real nice, local NAPA guy is great and found these for me.


Very very cool. Can't wait for more updates on this!


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[Sanger_Spectra]

built the brackets to hang the filters and fuel pump, had to make a 78 degree angel out of a 90. Used a lot heat and hydraulic press and we got it, the filters all hang straight now not laid back. Also finished up ski tow, had to make a stainless plug for the bottom of the tube, welded a 1/2" nut to it and then welded the plug to the tube, the ski tow is bolted down from under the 4 inch angle an the bottom hosing is done the same way.

[waterhorse]

:thumbsUp:Great job on all of the aluminum brackets and mounts.