Clark Abalone 14FT Boat. "Alestorm II"

Brodie

Gold Coast, Queensland
DTT SUPPORTER
So after a lot of careful budgeting and planning for the GS750 I received a call from my Grandfather. He had bought another boat, and the only thing he wanted off it was the engine.
After a bit of chatting he asked me if I wanted it as a project/upgrade. Of course I wanted a bigger boat, but that was before I knew what I was in for. He said he would throw in his old engine, a Johnson 35hp and I could come pick it up on the weekend. I asked how much and he replied "Merry Christmas, don't expect anything else"

Once I arrived at his house I saw the boat and the first thing that went through my mind was "Dammit what have I gotten myself into" which was about the same thing that happened when I saw the GS. After a bit of chatting my Grandfather told me the boat had been sitting under a tree for 7 years and had not seen water for longer.

So here I am in the middle of the strip down and I am seriously considering buying a hand held sand blaster. In fact I think that might be my first stop tomorrow.

The boat is a 1980 something (I think around '85) Clark Abalone 4.3m/14ft center console that is in dire need of a revamp. At the least it is going to need a good blasting, still unsure if I should re-paint it.

Anyway here are the before pictures. We cleaned the outside before I took it home, as seen in the second picture. The last two show the inside AFTER my Grandmother had gotten in and cleaned a lot of the crap out.
 

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That's one funky boat :) plenty of potential, maybe strap a jet ski set up in the back :eek: mini Bond style ;D
 
Nice, you can really make her pretty. Looks like a solid aluminum boat. It wouldn't be hard to put a small motorcycle engine in there for an inboard. If you weren't using the Johnson

-sent from sea via corked bottle
 
Screw blasting all that with a home blaster. It will take EONS.
Well worth the couple hundred bucks to have it blasted at a shop!

Check out Tim's thread, he has his soda blasted.
 
Soda blasting mine was great - not cheap, but man, mine was a mess of 10 layers of paint.

Acid washing has been recommended as well to me - something about how big-rig aluminum trailers are cleaned. If you can find someone who does that, I'd bet the boat would be like working on a toy to them.
 
Cheers guys, she is a bit ugly now but I will get there. Nothing like motivation from your Grandfather to get a project done by christmas lol.

From what I hear you are right Ronnie, after reading reviews and asking all the old fishing blokes I know these boats have a rep for being able to cope with ridiculous weather. One bloke even said he had one that would get quite a lot of air after hitting a wave as he had a 70HP on it. The Johnno has just been rebuild by my Grandfather and he has run it in last week. He is a marine engineer and outboard mechanic, but does not have much of a clue about the new 2T engines or 4T for that matter.

As for blasting the whole thing I went and bought some stripper called Citristrip which can be painted on and let to sit for 24 hours, I will see how that works as I got a quote to blast it yesterday and after a bit of chatting the cheapest I could get was $700 if I get rid of most of the paint and help the bloke on Sundays when he feels like it. The original quote was $1500.

I had my GS engine Soda blasted and whist it came up great it was expensive at $200 for an hours work. Which makes me wonder just how much the boat will be. I was chatting to a few blokes at work when I found out about a large pressure blaster that is used to clean truck engine parts. From what I understand the bloke who owns it uses kerosene through it to help with the cleaning. Might have to find out a bit more about that and use it one weekend when no one else is around.
 
Jeez, didn't know they even had abalone in Queensland! Thought it was a U.S. West Coast shellfish - and for those of you who haven't had abalone, try some soon!
Citrisolv uses d-limonene concentrate as one of dissolving agents, not too great for the flesh, so wear the appropriate protective clothing. Also, depending on the paint job(s) on your boat, works to varying degrees and sometimes not at all.
Love the look of the hull, nice lines, external strakes help you get some air and keep the water out of the cockpit, the pulpit is cool, we had a lot of small commercial fishing boats on the Great Lakes -especially Lake Erie - with similar configuration.
Honestly don't know much about Aus boats but looks like you have a great little boat there. Keep us posted on the progress.
Regards,
Pat Cowan,
Vintage Motorcycle Fiberglass
 
I got mine done for 3 hours blasting labor at a big commercial shop. Had to pay tax and everything. Was caked with layers of paint inside and out. Couldn't stomach doing it by hand and didn't have any pressure washing equipment or anything like that to help.

My local shop charges a little under $200 per hour for soda blasting, so yeah, I was into $500 and change to get mine done. But there really wasn't much choice. I also only have $400 into the boat/trailer as it is, so I had some room to pay for labor.

I should be in the water with my 1956 Johnson 30HP and some aluminum repair work being done for well under $2,000 so I'm pretty happy with that given what other boats would have cost me, and this boat is full of character.

The gold is anodized, so it's not going anywhere anytime soon. At some point I might try removing it with oven cleaner or something and polish the exterior.

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hmm

now a jet ski 50 hp jet a cx500 cdi motor in 4th gear (1-1)

a lovejoy coupling and some water cooled headers running off

the bleed on the jet drive

and a heat exchanger and away we go
 
I am glad there are others out that that think like me. I would love to one day build an 8ft boat with a motorcycle engine in it. Just simple rudder steering and such, would be a blast.

As for this thing... I have spent every moment that I am not at work on this boat and I am getting there. Nearly all the paint is stripped from the outside and I have removed all the flaky paint from the inside so it is ready for repainting. As for the outside I plan to leave the upper half bare and paint the lower with black antifoul.

And now I shall slink back past the sad looking bikes and continue work on the boat. 1 month and 3 days to get her done lol.
 
Hi Brodie,
Back in the '30's there was a racing class of boats here in Canada / USA that used motorcycle engines - low cost, due to the depression I guess.
The 2 biggies were of course the Henderson and the Indian 4 cylinder motors but I have a boat building book from the 1930's which had plans for a racing hydro with a V-twin (Indian?) pusher propeller - like a swamp boat, didn't have a water prop at all. Don't know if anyone ever built one, but a neat little project to say the least.
I shall shortly be receiving the records of an old boatbuilding shop that closed up 50+ years ago and it will be interesting to see if any of the "bike engine boats" were ever built by them.
Don't know what you have for water down there, but a lot of the old hulls didn't take kindly to rough seas - flat bottoms, hard chimes, all that sort of stuff, so might be a bit of a ride unless you can find some flat water.
IMHO, the best motor to use would be an old SOHC or DOHC first gen Jappo 4, especially if you could find one with a busted gearbox or engine cases bad in the arse end, but good in the engine area. A bit of alloy welding and there ya go, repurposing something that no one is able to ride again...
Keep us posted.
Pat
 
I think this boat is a bit big for a motorcycle engine. I have a freshly rebuilt 35HP (521CC) Johnson that will push this beauty along.

As for the water around here, there is a lot of every kind.. except fresh. Here are some pictures of the lovely scum hole I call home.

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Brodie said:
I think this boat is a bit big for a motorcycle engine. I have a freshly rebuilt 35HP (521CC) Johnson that will push this beauty along.

I dunno man, a 1000cc sportbike engine putting out 100 somthing horses could be fun 8)
 
Hmm I do have a 772cc GS engine sitting there, That should be about 75HP...

That might be an idea for an update on the engine. GS1100 engine. They claim 100HP and I am sure that would be a hell of a lot cheaper than a 100 horse outboard.

Or maybe an R1 engine, I see a lot of those crashed around here.
 
i knew the r1 is lol i have one

but you would have to transfer the computer system and have to bypass the exhaust valve and sensors

it would be a big PITA
 
that is why using a jet works so well

here i can buy a blown up pwc for like 100 with the jet still working

so i rob the jet drive and steering and reverse

a new ring and impeller under 200 and away you go
 
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