re-power of 1963 38' Chris Craft Roamer Offshore

i am struggling to find a solution which is cheap, quiet and fast. I either need to re-power with all new gas or diesel drivetrains, or go exotic with stern, outboard or jet-drives. do you guys have any advice ?

 

Cheap, quiet and fast is totally unrealistic. What's wrong with your powerplants now?

 

after 6 engines, i made it to a great set-up. unfortunately, the starboard v-drive blew and ruined everything in that drive-train. so either i rebuild/replace both Walter V-Drives and the starboard velvet drive and rebuild the engine or ...... this happened on my first cruise with guests of the season. the boat is now dead for the season. i need to find a way to get modern and reliable.....

 

I have a friend who had a '61 Chris, a 30' utility with a single 283 straight shaft setup. He went through two rebuilds then wanted better preformance, particularly maneuverability.

I removed his 50 gallon, transom mounted steel tank and replaced it with two 23 gallon tanks mounted where his engine box was. Next was a Mercrusier 305 and Alpha drive assembly bolted to a reinforced aft quarters. The result was the same top speed, which was expected, as the drag to this hull form maxed out around 37 knots anyway, regardless of HP available. What did change was greatly improved maneuverability, both at low and high speed. A year later, I dramatically cut down the huge skeg associated with this Chris Craft model as well, which slightly improved his top speed and high speed handling, but more importantly cleaned up the flow to the drive leg.

It was a heat exchanger cooling model engine, which was much better then the raw water cooling the original had, with far fewer related issues, mostly because he used it in both fresh and salt environments.

If you can afford the change and know a boat carpenter to make the structural changes to the aft end of the boat, the outdrive arrangement will greatly improve maneuverability and reliability/repairability is commonly available at any marina. Straight shafts and V drive are simple, but take up substantial portions of cockpit space. The outdrive setup places the engine box mostly under the aft deck with a small (12") bump out where the aft seat lives. On the single setup, I cut the aft seat and made two, one on each side of the new engine box. On a twin setup, I'd consider a different arrangement, maybe steps to the aft deck, on the outboard sides of each engine box and a small jump seat between them.

Of course this is a major bit of surgery to the butt of your Chris and the traditionalists will be crying for decades, but screw 'em, if you get all the advantages of this type of upgrade. It also means you'll be EBaying a lot of parts from your old setups, but half of it is toast anyway right.

 

Cheap: Gas

Quiet: Gas

Fast: Gas

Nothing "cheap" about it, but repowering with same and rebuilding / replacing w same drive train is going to be cheaper and faster than any other option.

Switching out anything on a 50 yr old boat is going to be a can of worms and chances are good the costs will quickly spiral up and out of control.

Your current drive train lasted 50 years, switch out w same same or upgrade the walthers to a more current v drive now that one is blown, but any change in drive train will drive the cost up very quickly.

I've seen NEW real GM 5.7 marine longblocks for less than $3,000. No Diesel can touch that for $

Steve

 

i don't know if the boat

was ever reliable. in fact it ruined a life-long friendship of the guys i bought it from. i may have a lemon.

sometimes i wonder if i should go go something slightly smaller and trailerable like a small Bertram.

s

 

Walters and Velvet Drives are as reliable as it gets. How did a Vdrive failure damage the engine? I can either rebuild yours or sell you rebuilt units. Six engines should last more than several lifetimes, unless you are a commercial operator. Seems like there are problems with the setup or the rebuilt units you got before were not done properly.

 

the mechanic looked at the boat and said the flywheel was broken and the ring gear had come off........

i cannot do any of the work myself and this is killing me.....

 

A broken flywheel isn't a trashed engine and a relatively simple fix, for not much money. Agreed, keeping the setup you have is the cheapest route.