I posted last fall about converting my 89 Pirata to a v drive. I got screwed by a guy on ebay selling a BW 72C with v drive (ebay did refund my 1200.00) and lost interest in the project. Now I'm back to it!

The plan is to convert to both a vdrive and open bow. I've had a few open bows before and have never liked the walk through option. I converted a mid 70's Tahiti jet into a step over open bow and loved the front "bench" seat that that offered. I'm doing the same on this hull, a step through the windshield, over the bulkhead format. I'm mounting a curved open bow windshield in place of the flat plate original and wow, it brings the look of this hull into the 21st century!

For the v drive, I purchased a Crusader unit for cheap. Its a 12* box with 15% gears, water cooled. I've pulled the engine/tranny, fuel tanks, interior, prop, prop shaft and strut. I'm now working on shimming the strut to give me the 12* angle instead of the 15* stock set up. It looks like the v drive box will be about 18" forward of the prior location where prop flange/BW mated up. With any luck, the v drive will fit completely under the floor. If not, I either fab a funky raised cover for it or build the entire floor up a bit to cover the v drive. I plan on using the original fuel tank as the rear seat base. I've purchased some Bennett trim tabs so plan on some type of trim-able wake/cavitation plate.

The hull has bottom paint on it which will be a PAIN to remove. I've read where Soy Strip works well but have yet to try it. I'm also hoping to completely re gel coat the entire hull to some custom design.

Progress will be slow as I have a full time job as a high school counselor (former wood/drafting teacher) and sell salmon at the local Saturday farmers market. I commercial fish in AK each summer and this year had a National Geographic camera crew on board and will be one of four boats featured in a 6 episode series called Alaska Fish Wars being shown on NatGeoWild in February! Didn't make a dime off of it but it was fun to be part of the program.

Question: With the 15% gear box I can go either over driven or under driven. All of the current wakeboard boats are under driven by around 25-50% (1.25 or 15.:1). I wonder with the flatter shaft angle if I can run 15% over? Any thoughts?

Lance

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