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It's in! Of course, we had to kick off the year with dinner at Naswa. May head out for some night swimming before the weirs fireworks.. There are a few issues...of course... It appears that the o-ring on the gear oil plug may have a nick in it as every few minutes there's a wisp of oil sheen from the outdrive. The engine isn't running perfectly, but it's running better than I thought it would. Really rich at idle, though... And the trim motor appears to be displeased with something - it works one minute and then not the next - the relay is clicking, so I know the wiring is fine. Maybe when I painted it I did something to the brushes? Anyways, I'll definitely need to address that. Last thing is the shifter adjustment may need the slightest of tweaks. Checking it once or twice in the driveway must not have been enough to run in the new cable and shifter.

For the next 10 hours or so I'll be kind to the motor and then after that I'll change the oil and flog it a little.

Nice to see her finally on the water. I have no doubt you will get all the little issues resolved! Have a great weekend!

Hawt DAMN!

Very sweet. I put black tape on the threads then roll the oring on. Ive seen many warnings about that oring. Never reuse it either.
Glad she's in the water. Nice job Sir!

She looks nice....Congrats on completion. Don't be hard on yourself. It's a ton of work doing what you did and I think normal to have a couple of hiccups. Enjoy the time in the water and you'll take care of these issues when you can.

Shawn

She looks peaceful in the water. Boats always seem to shine a little more when they are in their element. Great work sliderule. Now is tome to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Thank you all for the words of encouragement! Net-net, the first day out was a resounding success.. It didn't start smoothly though.. The launch ramp I usually use (at the marina where I bought my trailer) was not allowing anybody to use it. The next closest 'public' ramp was only about a 20 minute car ride, but closer to 45 minutes-1 hour boat ride back, whereas the first ramp was only a 10 minute boat ride to our mooring. That was not what I wanted for the maiden voyage and it stressed me out like crazy. But mostly everything went OK.

The night swimming with the underwater lights was a huge hit and surprisingly, the boys still had enough energy for the midnight fireworks. I'll have to figure out the easiest way for me to deal with the drain plug, but it appears that the trim motor is just bum wire connection right at the motor. While we were anchored for the night swim, I had my wife press the switch while I manipulated the wires and it started working immediately. So, at least I know what the deal is.

Great updates and great pics!

Boy that rear deck looks good!

Awesome job! I had an 83 Chaparral that I put my heart and soul into tinkering and always improving before we bought the 2004 226. It was definitely a labor of love with that old girl. I hope you enjoy the boat as much as the tinkering! You are an inspiration.

I pulled the boat back onto the trailer yesterday to take it down to get a new custom cover. On our way to the ramp, with about 3/4 tank of gas and 2 adults into about a 15 mph wind with a little chop, I decided to give it full throttle for a little bit. After about 10 seconds, we hit 55 on the speedo (I didn't have the mfd on the correct screen for gps). I think if I let it wind out and I trimmed up, we would've hit 60 into the wind and easily 60+ with the wind. Pre-rebuild, the top speed it saw was 48 on calm waters. So, I think that my rebuild is ok and now I just need to work on the tune in the computer a bit.

I'll post some pictures when I get it back with the new cover. He's going to make the rear wrap over the top swim platform step where the storage hatch is, to help keep that hatch from filling up with rain water and getting all grimy.

Overall, we're a pretty happy family. I got compliments all week on how clean sharp the boat looks and even more on how nice the swim platform with the Aquamarine deck looked.

You can see some bubbles in the pad that showed up after I had installed it. I took a sharp utility knife and made little slits along the edge of the black 'grout' lines and flattened the bubbles right out. You can't even tell that anything went wrong. When I have a moment, I'll relay some tips on my experience of installing the pad, as I did run into a couple of issues.

Happy for you slide....youve done a shit ton of work and seems finally paying off. She looks great!

Just read Nola’s thread.

Thought you were good pal ? I’m sure she’s broke in after a couple of heat cycles.
May have to see if your valve heights were off when the heads were Done as you suspected . Some machine shops assume old school lash on big blocks so if they get tight..... Welllll it can be an issue. We pedistal shim small blocks when this happens. May have to go adjustable set up if it winds up being the problem. No biggie

The idle is a little lumpier than I expected and she still is running pretty rich - especially at idle (mid 11's on the AFR). So, I haven't broken out the iPad or vacuum guage to check vacuum the last few times out on the boat to see if vacuum is coming in, but with the idle richness I suspect it isn't (fuel pressure regulator is probably not getting pulled down at idle like it is supposed to).

I'm planning to give it the first oil change on Friday, so I'll inspect the oil visually and when I fire it up I'll see if the vacuum is any better than before. Maybe I'll try making some adjustments to the tune to see if I can lean out idle a little manually. At cruise, the AFR is right around mid 13's and leans to around 14.0 at throttle close. Don't really see it get a whole lot leaner than that when I'm watching the AFR gauge. So, the good news is that I'm not worried about burning any holes in pistons, but fouling plugs could be a potential problem. I did gap the plugs at .045 instead of .060 based on some success with that in the truck world, so that *should* stave off plug fouling a little.

It did hit 55 (gps) again during a short full throttle jaunt with my son last weekend (maybe 15 seconds or so at full throttle), so I think in the right conditions and with 'full' trim, it's a solid 60mph boat as-is, so most likely nothing major is wrong with the engine... but as you can probably tell, I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist as well as a worry wart.