Did some work on the Southwind today. 

Cleaned and conditioned all the vinyl.  Came out pretty good but still needs to be replaced.  I used the Maguiar's three step oxi remover/ polish/ wax kit today, that stuff is pretty damn sweet!

I removed this faux fir crap that was on the underside of the deck. 

New weather stripping on the windshield (old stuff was the way wrong style).

Found some slack in the throttle cable and moved the pedal forward to accommodate my long legs. 

Cleaned up the wires under the dash and rewired the stereo (old owner had it wired to be plugged in to the 12V adapter cigarette lighter). 

On the list for tomorrow is polishing, polishing and more polishing...  Fun, fun!

Here's a few pics after the wax job:

Hope I can get Brad to do some vinyl lettering for me...  Need some SCJB stickers, new CF numbers and want to get a name on her.  Any ideas would be considered and if chosen have karma points... and beer when we run into each other out on the water.  I was thinking "Mellow Yellow" would be a good one.  So long as there's not too many other boats running around out there with that name.

Someone want to educate me on what pump unit this is and the pros and cons of it, please?  Is it a 12 JG??

Thanks for all the kind words guys!  You're making me feel all mushy or something.   

I feel like I got a pretty good deal.  It needs some lovin, but that was the idea.  Get a boat for a good price that runs well and should be semi-reliable but still has things to tinker with and work on to make constant improvements.

Doug - Camp Far West is not too far from me and I have a buddy in Roseville that I was going out on the river with all last summer, so that's very realistic sometime.  I'll check on the Father's Day idea and let you know.  Any links to a thread with info on this weekend or others to get hooked up with?

So far a few things I'd like to do to the boat are:

Polish all the chrome and aluminum, give it a bath and buff it all shiny.  New steering wheel, new gauges, clean up the wiring under the dash.  The trailer wheels are buggin me, would like to do something about them if I can find a good deal somewhere.  Speaking of trailer, I need to fab some inner fender panels to protect the hull  (previous owner made some pretty decent sized scratches on the bottom of the hull from hitting the inside of the fenders).  A longer throttle cable to move the pedal forward cuz I'm a tall guy.  Interior will be sometime probably in the winter, although I do frequent Baja several times a year and was considering taking the interior pieces down there to get done super cheap.  I know some good contacts, we'll see about it.

Here's some higher quality pics I snapped this afternoon.  Still haven't washed it, little dusty from the drive home (dude lived down a country road).

Cool, thanks for checking me on that.  Wasn't sure.  Very familiar with the two B's by now though. 

Just got home from picking up my new float..   

It's a 1980 Southwind Mini Day Cruiser (yet another one on the site), BBC 454, Berkeley (someone educate me on the model), pretty basic.  In nice shape for being nearly thirty years old.  Newer wood and carpet, the vinyl could use to be redone soon (maybe next winter).  Wet tested it at Black Butte Lake near Chico, it's a runner!  I'm stoked!

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics, tried to take some digi's but my battery was dead      Will get some better quality pics up in the next day or two.

Craigslist search tool that works excellent: http://www.jaxed.com/cgi-bin/mash.cgi

Hey, that will save me a hell of a lot of time!  Thanks for that link.  Cool stuff.

"My ex-wife screwed my damn boat down to the trailer!  Tried to launch it and couldn't figure out why the hell it wouldn't float!"

"Guess this is what I get for 'going fishing' for the weekend and leaving my damn tackle box at home."

http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/boa/1121372692.html

This chick is HOT!

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e306/randycj7/ghj.jpg

All I have to say is, Wow!  You are the man, Tom.  I missed that scoop before, looks freakin great!

'78 Sanger picklefork project...

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/boa/1114919878.html

What's going to Utah in seven days?