CHRIS CRAFT COMMANDER FORUM ®
.......A photo-intensive technical reference file and ongoing newsletter regarding the original fiberglass Chris-Craft Commander series. This is an independent not-for-profit and non-commercial web site, not affiliated with the Chris Craft Commander Club ~~ or ~~ Chris-Craft Corporation. Our mission here is to "have fun and share information" about the Commander series (and those associated fiberglass boats on the Chris-Craft family tree) for your individual personal use, and by doing so help promote the good name of Chris-Craft, and help preserve, restore, and appreciate Chris-Craft boats. The main reference feature is the ever expanding MASTER INDEX File which contains what we believe to be the world's largest collection of documentation photos and technical information on the Chris-Craft Commander line of boats, (like these original brochure scans, featuring the iconic first 38 Commander styled by Fred Hudson, and many of the great Dick Avery renditions that followed) , (a huge collection of Chris-Craft 427 tuning and specification information), and a few words about how to use the forum.
We extend to you a cordial "WELCOME ABOARD !" Come on in, make yourself at home, we are a friendly group of enthusiasts, and we also appreciate the classic Chris Craft Roamer, Corsair, and Lancer boats too , as they are all on the same family tree and share much in common !
Despite the 40 mph gusts I was out with the Coho for a few hours today. I removed the suspected bad starter on number 2 and with my foot on it against the ground it seemed to spin fine. Reinstalled, removed the spark plugs, and it turned the engine alright though a little slow, so I suspect it's just on its way out. I did pull the numbers off the starter to seek replacement though.
I noticed a little plug by the oil filter and figured that it may be able to pump oil with the starter alone...with the plug pulled it indeed pumped oil just with cranking. I put the plug back and cranked it a while and put my siphon pump back to action on the milkshake. I'll be doing this at least a few more times.
Pulled out some of the junk carpet and padding out of the salon.
What are the views on wood around here? I'll need some plywood for the cabin sole, the side deck core, the edge around the cockpit where the deck pieces sit, the flybridge deck, the cabin superstructure, and the rest of the supports for the cockpit deck pieces (so basically ALL the wood).
For plywood, should I invest in marine plywood? Does the species matter? I found out that pressure treated shouldn't be used indoors (at least with houses but I'll apply that to boats too). Can I just use readily available exterior grade for like my cabin sole, that shouldn't ever be exposed to water? I'm thinking I'll be glassing over the flybridge deck so I would guess that exterior ply would also be ok for that, but what about my cabin structure? My experience comes from the iBoats board where they loooove to coat their plywood with epoxy on both sides but they're usually working with 18' bowriders. What do you guys do? For like the cockpit deck supports should do I really need to use mahogany? Or oak? I got thinking of cutting strips of PT plywood and epoxy-ing them together to replace those boards.