Maintenance Time

Decided to do some of the usual maintenance items last night.

The tear down - tank & seat removal. Cleaned some dirt and crude off first, more to clean while it's apart. I then adjusted the valves, added a new spark plug, cleaned the air filter and cleaned out the gas tank. I can see the dirt being in the tank, but weeds too...really?



Next up....Sub frame removal to get the rear shock out for servicing and a new Eibach spring.


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Man, she's looking clean!

Thanks for the reminder. It's that time on this end, as well.

Dave

'67?

Bump wrote:'67?

2 words...Awe - some!

I've had it since 86'. 3rd owner all from the same town.

Currently has a 427, 4-speed with a 3.73 12 bolt rear. Black w/ black bucket seat interior.

Focker may remember it from our High School days.

Absolutely awe-some!

Man, those are sweet rides. The memories.....

Dave

Backwoods Boogie wrote:Focker may remember it from our High School days.

Remember Brian Corder's yellow 2 door? I tried to get my Dad to buy it for me when it sat in the Buttrey's parking lot for sale one summer. 4K in '87 (I think) was too steep for him. The next school year I met Brian and we were class buddies. One day we went to lunch and he said he'd drive...I about pooped my pants when we walked out to the lot and he had my yellow car. It's too bad he didn't respect it because it got thrashed during his ownership. Randy Jameson SR bought that car a few years after high school and as far as I know it's in a container stripped and waiting for body work and paint...It'll never happen.

I should go buy it!

My first car was a 1971 SS454 Chevelle, blue, black stripes, black interior, buckets, cowl induction and so forth. I raced that car so hard so many times and places I don't think I'd want it back!

My dad and some guys I pitted on boat teams for helped me rebuild the engine and it ran hard after that.

Nice '67 for sure!!! Good story too.

And that's a clean Coleman Stove there too!

Focker wrote:


I should go buy it!

Definitely worth investigating!

I had the yellow, 2 door version, as well (and a '68 and '70 SS). Nothin' special with the 283 and powerglide tranny, but it was still a hoot, and a super clean ride. I sold her to a buddy and he thrashed it, eventually abandoning the gem in a SoCal alley. Still bums me out, maaaany years later.

I need to go take a pill. Depression is setting in.

Focker wrote:Randy Jameson SR bought that car a few years after high school and as far as I know it's in a container stripped and waiting for body work and paint...It'll never happen.

I traded him a Super T-10, linkage and Hurst shifter in exchange for a nicely built Turbo 400........guess what, it never happened.
That deal ruined the friendship I had with his Son.

Bump wrote:And that's a clean Coleman Stove there too!

20 years and counting........I've only ran unleaded fuel through it.

...isn't interesting to me any more. Street racing is a felony here now!!! Plus, I kinda think the Gottlieb's reached the pinnacle with Big Red. There's nowhere to go now. I've no interest in a trailer queen. I'd want to really personalize it, race it. I had some plans to do something unique (as far as I know) with a '32 Ford Roadster with my father but he died just as we were starting ti put it all together and buy a car.

So instead I'm restoring an old race boat my parents bought for us to ski behind in the early 70. A friend asked me to post the story on another web site so I'll link to it if the post here doesn't work out. It took me like an hour to write it all and post the picture links so I can't do that all over again...

I've got a few questions I hope can be answered.
What happened to the molds and all at Aquacraft after Skip's death?

I have a 1967 Wickens Whirlwind. My parents bought it in 1973 from a guy in Covina (I think it was Covina). It was all white with a burgundy stripe target the color of Cold Duck sparking wine. And the name on it was Cold Duck in yellow I think. It had a 425HP 427 out of a 1967 Corvette. I think the guy did the rigging himself but like all this stuff it was nearly 40 years ago so I can't be certain. He used what I think were good parts at the time. Lots of Edelbrock stuff and everything else was chromed. It had family seating for 5. 2x20 gallon fiberglass gas tanks using the inside gunnel for one wall. Family deck. On a Zieman trailer with beautiful (to me) curved frame rails. I think the guy had a Ford pickup with a camper and the pickup was painted the same color as the boat target-I think.

We skied the heck out of that boat all over the place. Mainly at Parker where we stayed in the Blue Water Trailer Park. But it also skied us at Golden-we actually skied up the river there then, it's all silted in now. Also Naciemento and San Antonio lakes. Salton Sea. Mead (parents loved Echo Bay and it's maiden voyage for us was there) where we took it far up into the Grand Canyon. Past where the Park buoy is now I think. And a few other places.

Then the boat left my folks and got a garish (to me) rebuild with gold anodized hardware, candy colors, giant Dooley hood scoop, 2x
carbueration, junkyard 454, and so forth. It lost its name but it probably would have been Wool Magnet at this time. Then it disappeared
for awhile. Then showed back up in the Trader about five years later in sad shape. The guy had dismantled it mostly and had installed aluminum gas tanks using 2x4s and roofing cement. And more-too painful to talk about... He had a lot of stories or excuses but the bottom line is it doesn't cost anything to wash your boat. The owner was going to prison so he was surprisingly motivated to sell. I guess there are no flatbottoms in the grey bar. He wanted $3000 but the name plate was missing and pink slip was too. I told him I would give him $1500 if he could come up with the name plate otherwise it was $750. I knew every owner of the boat so I wasn't worried about the title. The guy was kinda funny too. He waxed poetic about how the boat was a K-Boat Champion and had been re-glassed and on and on. He said he was trying to turn it into that Wickens that was in Hot boat in the 1980s called Blind Faith I think-it's been long time... It was a blown Wickens and the guy lived way up north somewhere like Canada or Montana. Any one remember that article? We spent the rest of the day looking for the name plate. Went through his house and garage, two storage rooms, his mother's place (where we found the title-yea!), and then finally he remembered he lived in the barrio section of Santa Ana when he bought it and the boat was stored in a field where kids played next to the main house. We drove there. Luckily there was a large wood pile where the boat had been. So we got to move a few cords of wood. Then we raked through the dirt and debris and there it was. It was still in good shape too. I bought it back but I was in college so I had no place to store it. Heck, I really couldn't even afford it! I think I ate fried potato burritos three times a day for a few months after that. But having it back felt really good. I used to go see it in storage at least once a week. What a freak... It sat in storage in Long Beach for about a year. Then some parts started disappearing off it. So I stored it under tarps at the back of the storage lot at Echo Lodge for years. Then we bought an acreage in Fallbrook and we stored it there for years. We planned to begin restoring it in 1996 but bought a 24' Spectra daycruiser instead. Then we planned on restoring it when we bought the acreage in Fallbrook but geez I'm not certain if I owned the ranch or it owned me! And I
didn't really know where to take it for restoration. Worse, a good friend, Rick Cline, stoked my desire to track down and buy an old drag
boat that was always my favorite. So I wasted a few years there trying to pry it out of some guys garage. I spoke with a guy in Bellflower who restores old boats. But I wanted something a little more performance oriented than period correct and show quality. I wanted my family to be able to enjoy as much as I did as a kid. It sat under tarps until about 2004 when I started restoring it. At that point we sold our Fallbrook place and brought the boat with us up to Sonoma and really started looking for someone to rebuild it with us.

We decided to take it to a family we've known since the 70s. Don Cucci used to have a shop in Torrance and we knew him through Kay Sissel and Mike Wicen. We kept our daycruiser at Red Rock when the Cuccis owned that "resort". So we took the boat to Don and Joey in Havasu and they work on it when they have nothing else to do. I've been gathering parts since then. My dad was really into Can-Am racing at Riverside and took us there as kids often and was offered a job as a BBC guy for John Surtees. So I decided to fake a Can-Am BBC. Except I found a real Can-Am block out at Sears Point. It's a 1969 Reynolds Aluminum BBC that is 510ci with a .25" stroker or 482 with the 427 crank I got with it. I got the whole short block in pieces so I could check it all out. The engine ran in the UOP Shadow Can-Am car. The guy I bought it from managed the car in vintage racing for years. There were three versions of these blocks and this one is the lightest. From there I tracked down some other parts from the car. I got the original steering wheel which I plan on using in the boat and some other stuff. Now I'm looking for some magnesium parts like a water pump, dry sump pan, mechanical injection, and so forth. I've tried to keep all the original parts from the boat. In order to keep the original Casale v-drive (straight cut gear whine!) I think we are gonna install a racing Powerglide to have a better way of going in and out of gear-we want to ski with this thing!!! Can't wait to wake my kids before dawn at Parker midweek for a dam to dam to dam run.

The boat is almost completely back together. All the parts have either been polished (or media blasted when we wanted less of a showy look) and sealed or re-chromed. At this point we are waiting to find the rest of the engine parts so we can assemble it and then rebuild the interior. That and I'm not rich so I have to find some good deals on stuff.

We did a lot of work on the trailer too. I really liked those old curved frame rails and it was otherwise in great shape so I wanted to
keep it. Zieman must have used some good steel-not that I know anything about metallurgy-cause it had good integrity. We added a 2nd axle. I found some old 1960s wheels and Al Reed make them like new again. Added polished stainless flatbottom style fenders too. Added a 2nd brake light on the back (2 on each side now). Originally it had three equal length chains that secured the bow eye. And it had a piece of channel running up the center that always hit the lower bow (around the breakwater at idle) of the boat upon floating onto the trailer. So we re-engineered that a bit.

Don has been a huge help in this effort. He was there back in the day and he's got that Italian eye for what looks good and doesn't. Same for Joey. Great guys.

Once it's done the engine should dyno at 600-700HP. The race cars ran them at 785HP but I don't need anywhere near that. And I want to run pump gas premium. Joey is gonna spend some time testing the boat and sort it all out as if we intended to race it-which we aren't. So we've updated a few things like adding a down pedal. Come to think of it, Joey skied behind it as a kid.

We just moved back to So Cal last month so I'm not sure where the photos are from its original look. I will post some when I find and scan them. But I've got some recent ones from when we took it to Cucci's shop and will post below. They are at least a year old and most are two or three.

I hope no one is offended with this long story but I am hoping Mr. Orrin might recall something about the boat. It's crazy that I lived
just a couple of miles from him for years and had no idea. I could have gotten in line way back then! But Don and Joey have been great! Can't say enough good things about them.

Boat - buried in warehouse in wine country in 2004

Note the very attractive Kragen lighting system. Someone at the warehouse hit their shin enough times on the tongue that he sprayed it orange!






In the 70s the late John kaiser help us update a few pieces that we were having problems with like a rusting cavitation plate. John was
always very good to us. Not many guys would let a couple of teenage boys have the keys to his shop and ask us to just leave a list of parts we took on his desk. If he liked our work he'd say, "Just like downtown boys!" That's the way I'll remember him. I think he told me he was a national go cart champion when he was a kid. Godspeed John.


The engine was long gone but somehow the alternator stayed. Weird. And I found the Holley carb and air scoop when I was going through my father's estate several years ago.


Not sure why the back skeg was greased. :~)


My father had a lot of braided stuff with Teflon on the inside his employer "donated" to the boat. We're gonna go back in with all braided
and some hard line in places.


We have yet to find someone small enough and willing to get inside here to R&R these braces.

There's probably some unfortunate symbolism here but we'll ignore that...


We may use a different piece here.


Don changed our minds on this bow brace but see the area up front with filled in plate and removable tongue. We're still working on this to make it look unique and bitchin. And we'll get a bigger Vise Grip for towing... Probably do it right with a HD Armstrong C Clamp!


Cell phone photo-sorry-Indy Drag Mags:

In Process Photos a couple of years old:


We used to reach out and grab that gas cap when dad would floor it.


Stringers were in pretty bad shape aesthetically. I asked Joey to restore them to looking good. He decided make them sound and to paint
them black. It'll probably look better anyway in the long run. We'll call it an homage to the Shadow car... In the end, I think Joey will have made a much better decision than I did. The black stringers will really go well with the engine and all IMHO. All the lines and fittings
for hosing will be a combination of polished stainless and stainless hard line we think. The polished or colored aluminum stuff might be a
little too blingy for this boat.


Joey suggested the v-drive would look best just media blasted. I agree.


Hey, see Don in his chair at the left?




There's Don again. See Joey behind the camera?




I'm starting to get real happy about this!


Here's the target and color we'll go with when at that point after all testing and sorting out is done:


We're also gonna bring back the name Cold Duck on it. Hence the color above. We're working on a image now of a cold duck.

Some of the engine parts are impossible to acquire like valve covers. They are specific to the car because of the FI linkage. I found a set
of old Edelbrock finned aluminum valve covers like the boat originally had and now I think I'll powercoat them black to recreate the look of
the DN2 car.

Here's what the engine looked like in the car back in 1970:


The engine was a bit of a workhorse and saw duty in the Titanium car as well because of its lightness.

Perhaps the engine in the car at LS. But their memories area as fuzzy as mine. The engine stayed with the car until the mid 90s or so when the car was sold without all the engines-there were several.


Another engine in the car currently and most likely the look we'll recreate:

Nice boat build Bump!

I fit the Eibach spring today, that lock nut was fun to loosen up.

Now, it's time to get it serviced.

I'll trade you my manual holder for yours.

A couple of must have shock tools. Finally got a cheap pair of spanner wrenches, but they work.



*** Sorry for the crap picture. ***

Back together with newly rebuilt and re-valved rear shock & heavier spring. (Thanks to Matt Worbes @ M-Tech!!!)

Just need to adjust the pre-load on the spring to get the sag set right.

I can't wait to give it a rip again.

Backwoods Boogie wrote:I can't wait to give it a rip again.

I guess that'll have to wait a while.

17°F & snowing right now.....

the price of living in paradise.

hey Bump.

Very cool to see your boat engine from the DN2 Shadow.! Even more interesting to me as I own the third DN2 Can Am car and am on the hunt for a correct motor. If you care to get in touch my email is brsc@blueridge.net, and my name is Rodney

Thanks for the reminder. It's that time on this end, as well.

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Diamond Jewellery
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