If I understand your original statements at the beginning of the thread, you can understand people putting time and money in restoring, or rebuilding an old Hydrodyne hull, but you cannot understand not putting a modern fuel efficient motor on them. The new motors, although nice, and economical, are expensive, and heavy. If you put a few hundred hours of use on a boat a year, it makes economical sense to spend 10 or 15 thousand dollars per motor to upgrade. If you are an average boater, you put maybe 50 hours of use on a boat a year. You can buy a lot of gas, at $4.00 or even $5.00 a gallon for $10,000.
Mark summed it up nicely. For me, running with my 1968 restoration with original hull and i/o is all about respecting and honoring what Ab Crosby & Co. attained at that time with the revolutionary 18 Dyne. It's fun to share it with other who appreciate it as well.
Interesting thread. IMHO, as far as restoring these boats, it seems to me that more people are "hot roding" these boats with newer motors and instrumentation rather than actually "restoring" these boats. I'm not saying that one way is better than the other, but to actually restore one of these boats would be to "bring back to a former, original, or normal condition". Of course, you wouldn't have much to work with if you didn't have a good hull to start with. For example, you could "hot rod" an old 1974 Mustang by installing the biggest block that you could fit under the hood, or you could "restore" the Mustang and keep the original factory motor. I guess it's more a question of what you wanted to get out of your old 1974 Mustang. As they say, "whatever floats your boat". For me, bringing an old Dyne back to life was a great way to share an appreciation for these boats with my kids, and to teach them that newer isn't always better. Guess which boat Jr. has to ask to take out, and gets covered up each night? Kevin
With restoration of classic cars and boats, its really a personal decision as to what the project will be in the end. I'm more of a purest and appreciate and have more respect for the born with/factory delivered, period correct restorations for both vehicles and watercraft over and above a lot of the "day two" stuff out there (day two.... modified to ones personal taste, the day after delivered). That being said, budgets, parts availability, intended end-use, and budgets (I know, said it twice usually win out in the end. Kevin, I like the side-by-side pics of the old school and newer version. Cheers, Kevin-
None of the modern motors can come anywhere close to the power to weight ratios of the 6 cyl inline Mercs. They sound like a Ferrari too. jim
Kevin, What the picture doesn't show is the hundreds of pounds of elbow grease that went into cleaning up the old Dyne (but that was half the fun). Jim, You were the first guy I called for help after I pulled the old Dyne into the back yard two years ago. I remember standing on the lower unit of the motor, shaking it to check for transom movement with one hand, and talking to you with the cordless phone in the other hand, all the while the wife looking out the back window of the cottage thinking that I had finally, totally lost it!! Here's hoping that this summer is just as much fun as the last two. Kevin
My wife and daughter (swvski1) have probably considered me a little around the bend more than once. :laughing: jim
I always try to start interesting threads and this one is interesting to me. The weight difference in engines matters more with smaller boats. On the new style 20' Dyna-Ski until you put two motors on the boat there really isn't much difference in the handling if you have a 150 or a 200 on up. A 20' Boat with one motor handles different than one with two motors. A 20' boat with two small block motors handles different than one with two big block motors and the wake is smaller with the two lighter motors vs the larger motors. Same thing is true with three 150's vs 200 Big blocks and up. The 17.6 model's handling and wake also changes with motor weight of the single outboard. Although again it isn't very much and many folks likely could not tell the difference. You might have to put a lot of hours driving one combination and then switch to tell the difference. The difference is obvious to me but I have logged a lot of hours pulling skiers in 17.6 & 20' Hydrodynes and Dyna-Ski boats as you might suspect. Pulling skiers at slower speeds is where the difference is most noticeable. The smaller the skier and the slower the speed the more difference it makes. One thing I'll have to ask about is steering. When you restore an old boat do you stay original or upgrade this with hydraulic steering, etc.?
