1972 Keel Up Restoration

Judging by your stringer placement I am assuming you elected to not go with a well for the driver's feet. If you are over 6' tall like myself I would highly recommend you put one in. Much more comfortable when you are in the boat for a period of time.

 

There will be leg room under the dash but I plan on having the seat high enough for a comfortable fit. I am 6-1"

 

You will want the seat to be pretty low. If you use a regular seat mount you will feel like you can fall out the side of the boat. When I mounted my seat I had to use a very low profile seat slider, and that was even with having the leg well. I have driven an 18' with and without the leg well and I am a firm believer in the well since doing so. Maybe a few others who have driven an 18' both ways will give their take on it too.

 

I like a low seat with a leg well. If you do around the boats you will appreciate a low seat. You will have to duck too. I am 5' 8''.

jim

 

I'm 6'-2" and have (2) 18's, one with the well and one without. Both drivers seats are bolted to the floor, no adjustment. The footwell is a bit more comfortable, but the flat floor is fine also. The biggest difference is one has a 15 degree bezel on the steering column and one does not. The one with the angle is much better.

 

Love that interior set up. Probably the nicest I have seen in an 18'r.

 

I havent done any work lately but have done some other neat stuff. The powers that be make a really neat fitting for rigging hose that lets the fuel line out for a squeeze bulb and then takes the line back in with another fitting like this: Unfortunately this fitting only works for 2" hose and Mercury modern hose is 2.5". So I made my own like this:

I used 2.5" PVC because the inside diameter is just less than 2.5" and a sanding drum on my drill press will make it perfect. I used 1/2" PVC for the fuel line conduit as the outside diameter of 3/8" fuel hose is 5/8". Again some inside sanding will be required with the Dremmel to slightly enlarge the inside diameter of the fuel hose. It should look really slick when I paint them black and install them on the rigging hoseses. I was told on other forums that a fuel pump is a bad idea and so have decided that the squeese bulb should be readily accessible.

 

I also have been giving attention to the instrumentation. This pic is the current plan:
The large gauge in the upper left is the GPS speedometer. Right (and Left that is not depicted) are the tachometers. Small gauges from right to left are the 2 trim gauges - one is the upper - then 2 WP gauges - and in the center an engine synch gauge. The other 4 gauges on the left side that are not in the pic are oil pressure and engine temp. All gauges on the bubble hump will be Smartcrat. The cockpit will be arranged with the most important gauges to the right. Below the bubble for gauges there will be 8 more - 2 Volt, 2 Amps on the right. A fuel guage, water level in the stern gauge, depth gauge, and a power outlet built into the leftover black bezel (which will be painted white to match) from the depth gauge will be on the left.

Everything symetrical. here is a pic of the Wema gauges I will use for the lower gauges:

The right gauge is a Wema and the left is a Smartcraft. They dont look close enough IMO to be mounted side by side so the Wema's will be the lower gauges below the bubble. It will cost a bit more but I am anal about matching things.

 

For some reason I cannot upload the "current plan". Here it is again:

OK it worked this time.

 

Now it is throttle time. I bought 2 of these:

This is a Commander 4000 unit. They come in many varieties but what is important is how may pins there are to connect to the motors. 14 pin is the currant standard and you have to get the ones with the Smartcraft connection. Old Hydrodynes do not have enough space to mount a console control so side mounts are the only way to go. What I am looking at when they come tomorrow is the trim switch. I will take that trim switch out and find out who makes it. The switch is a SPDT Mom-Off-Mom. I will do one of two things:

1 - Find out who makes the switch and look on digikey.com to see if they make a DPDT switch the same size to mount in the handle to do both motor's trim with one switch.

2 - Build/make a swich container that I can plug into the left throttle that will do both motors .

This is what I do in the winter when I cant work on the boat.