G'day from down under!  A little project my husband and I have been working on. Introducing our 19" Hallett Hustler known as 'the black boat'. I believe this hull is known as a 'Jetster' in the U.S??. This boat has been in the family since the 70's, and because of its huge sentimental value, is being restored as close to original as possible. While i was still a twinkle in my fathers eye, i believe the boat had a 454 and overhead pipes. Since as long as i can remember the boat has had a very standard 350chev, no big pipes,  and a 1970's Australian built jet drive know as a 'Ski Jet'. As a boat used mainly for towing skiers all day, this set up worked well.

Heres a pictures of my parents and my uncle back in the day.



In about 1996 ( i was 14), the jet was damaged. The jet manufacturer had long gone out of business, so parts were very hard to find. Another boat was purchased for skiing duties, and the old black boat was retired to a farm shed until a solution could be found for the broken jet housing. Eventually someone was found who could fix the jet. While the jet was in getting fixed, the workshop burnt down and completely destroyed all parts 

Fast foward to 2013. My constant bugging, and interest shown in the boat payed off, and the reigns were handed to me to get the boat fixed if i wanted to use it. After a lot of hunting, and detective work i managed to find a complete original jet unit. The restoration begins!!

As the boat sat the day it went off for paint restoration. Seat removed and sent to be restored.






to be continued..

Thanks Joe!

In the next picture you will notice the dodgy repair job done to the cut out section where the original pipes used to come out.



Now all fixed. Old damaged milky Gel coat now removed, while retaining the original sparkle paint underneath. One coat of Gel put down.

After many months at the painters we were finally able to bring the boat home. The wait was worth it! We also had new fuel tanks made.

Thanks for the support!

A couple of weeks ago we took the boat down to the upholsterer to test fit the new seat moulds. Unfortunately the original seats were lost/thrown out, so replica seats are being made.



sitting the engine back in the boat so the seating can be fitted up just right



cocktail seats starting to take shape



engine cover getting some love. Originally the boat didn't have an engine cover, but one was put in when i was a kid for safety reasons.



Carpet will be going in tomorrow hopefully.

Great work so far! Looking forward to the finished product 👍🏻


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Looks like a Grant 836 or 838

http://www.grantproducts.com/products/browse/steering-wheels/marine/

I can't believe there isn't a Grant distributor local to you.

http://performancewarehouse.com, Summit Racing, and Jeg's should all ship international.

Also try

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=Grant+Performance+836

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=Grant+Performance+838

Great progress.  Over what time period has this work occurred?

Cheers,

Joe

Thanks so much for those links Joe. Grant looks almost identical to what i have. Old boat restorations don't seem to happen much here in Australia compared to the socal community, so finding the right parts has been tricky due to the supply and demand thing.

The paint work took about 3 years to do. Long story short.. the only guy we trusted to do old school sparkle paint ended up having health problems so progress was much slower than we would have liked. We got the boat back from the painter a couple of months ago and are working towards getting the boat floating again in December.

Nice job! Beautiful work

Nice work, she is coming out awesome Keep posting the pics 

Progress came to a stop just before christmas. Unfortunately sitting around for over 20 years hasn't been kind to the engine. On the plus side, the engine is currently getting some nice new parts!



Thanks to the shop staff!!

Might be tough to find a matching one. There's a lot of old school guys on here that might have something laying around. VDO is still in business (they have a website anyway). Maybe they can make one for you.


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Thankyou Steveo909!. Hopefully something comes up. The gauge is really the last missing piece to finish off the restoration.

The old school Jet unit restoration is complete!