New World Datsuns...

Well, the freeze plugs came in and we got them installed. Had to pull the motor mounts and suspend the engine from the hoist.

After my dad put it all back together we took it down to the river and ran it on the trailer for about 15 minutes. Sounded and ran great! Temp and oil pressure was great!

Just one problem...water in the oil. Dammit.

The old man did all the work getting it out and on the stand. I went over this morning and helped him tear it down. Since we never found an obvious smoking gun, we completely disassembled it and he took the block and heads to the machine shop to be pressure tested. Should know more next week. They're also going to pressure test the intake and exhaust manifolds.

While he was working on that, I was doing a pretrip service on a guy's Winnebago. Gross.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the crew came up to bury the electrical conduit from the box up to the house. They also carved out for the footings at the low side of the basement.




The next scene was almost comedy. We called the guys who dug the well years ago about whether or not the existing pump would be adequate to push water to the top of the hill. They suggested doing an output test. Since we weren't seeing useful numbers, they volunteered to come out and test it properly. First thing they found was a defective pressure gauge. In the process of replacing that they managed to crack the brass manifold. Well, shit. After they replaced that they discovered that the bladder was ruptured and the tank was waterlogged. Shit, shit! Now I have a new tank too.


Since I was gone when they finished up we still don't know if the pump is up to the task or not.
Now we wait for concrete.

I remember when we were looking for a pump just for the Fountain/waterfall at my house (never happened). Moving that amount of water up that much (30ft) made for an expensive pump.

It's got a pretty burly pump already. I talked to the well guy a little when we got started. Innitially we were planning to leave the system as-is and add a tank in the basement up the hill. Well guy said since I upsized the new replacement tank an additional tank at the new house isn't necessary. Also, the volume in all that water line going up the hill essentially adds to the tank volume. That will keep pressure more constant. I wasn't planning to replace this existing tank but it turns out that it's probably no big deal. Still waiting for results of output test but cautiously optimistic.

Output test on the well came back great. Looks like I'm done messing with the water except for just running a new line from the tank up to the house.
Concrete guys showed up yesterday and started laying out for the footings. Looks like it's going to be 3 pours.


We discussed the retaining wall above the house and at this point it's going to wait until the concrete is done. My back already hates me.


I went over and picked up my daughter from school last weekend and my wife came over late Tuesday night. We've done very little since. Late Thankgiving this afternoon with my parents the girls both go back in the morning.


We tore the boat engine down last week and dropped the bare block and heads off at the machine shop.

They called on Monday to say the block was wasted. What's the fix? Obviously, drive 4 hours to buy another boat.

Just one small problem with this one. It was in a shop fire that burned off the transom.

So at this point my dad is weighing options. Either pull the drivetrain out of the blue boat and drop it in the red one or part out the blue one and use the profits to machine a new block for the original engine in the red boat which was recently rebuilt. Either way the blue one gets parted out after giving up a couple small parts to complete the red one.
It's pretty rare that these old Nautiques come up for sale, really. Very surprising that two come up within a few hours of BFE Idaho only a couple weeks apart. Wasn't really planning on this deep of a winter project but I guess it just found him.

Keeping busy Jess

Good to see things are coming along well

They're sloooooowly coming together. Honestly, I've been super bored lately. My dad needs to get those boats out of my way so I can do some work. Not having garage space blows.

It is still some tho, I do hear you on the slow progress part tho, one gets ansy

not sure why a boat needs to be in the shop, thought they were water proof.

is your dad repairing the floors ? Under stand if he is then. Was the original material marine products ? Shouldn't of not rotted out unless the manufacture cut some corners.

Doing engine swap and repairing floor. The boat is 40 years old and certainly didn't spend all it's time inside so soft floor isn't shocking at all. I don't blame the manufacturer for taking shortcuts here. I'm headed over there later to grab something so I'll snag a couple pics.

He's got the engine out of the blue one now and it'll get dropped in the red one as soon as a new set of freeze plugs show up.

While it was out put some beefier lags in the mounts and added some straps to tie into the sides of the stringers.




Meanwhile up on the hillside...

...not much has changed. Should look significantly different in a week or so.

for a 40 year old boat, I'd say it survived pretty good then. For freeze plugs, galvanized or brass ?

you mentioned a gun safe, assume it's located at the corner nearest in the pic by the extra concrete in that area.

was there any date mention of when the completion date is ?

Brass. Nobody local had any last night. Should have them in hand Monday morning. The ones in there now are crusty and it's waaay easier to do them now.

Yeah, that corner has the footings for the walls for my "safe space". No set date for completion and I'm not really in a huge hurry. Just needs to be done by June when the girls are out of school. Until then brown dog and I have plenty of room in the single-wide.

So is the rear going to be a cement block foundation?

No. Concrete walls on 3 sides. The basement is only under about 2/3 of the house with the rest being crawlspace. There are going to be multiple pours. Basement footongs, basement walls, upper footings, upper foundation. Garage and basement slabs, garage apron and patio.

I actually meant cement block walls, but concrete is basically the same, everywhere the re-bar is sticking up is concrete.
Is soil eventually going to be pushed against the rear wall?

Yeah, lots of backfilling to do. The garage floor actually comes almost to the square pour in the corner but 10' higher. It's dug back that far to be able to add drainage and do concrete waterproofing. It's really pretty tough to get an idea of the difference in levels and spacial relation through the crappy photos.

What is the red thing in the middle, it looks like a pump sprayer.

It is. Not sure what they used it for. Release agent maybe?

I can buy this from a buddy pretty cheap. Photo is about 4 years old.

Pretty unusual car being an Impala (not a Caprice) but having a 6cyl. Previous owner set it up with twin Mikunis and shaved everything along with painting it and installing leather Mercedes seats front and rear. It has different wheels now and needs some work.

the red spray can contains a form oil thats sprayed on the plywood forms so concrete won't stick to it. With out the release form oil the plywood would come off in broken sections once the concrete has set up.

concrete blocks are not the same as solid concrete walls cause blocks are hollow and don't hold up to heavy loads for a long period of time. In time a block wall cracks where the motor is. Then water will seep through the cracks and then the problems starts and gets worse in years to come.

thought I'd put up a image so to understand whats called what. The footing are called exterior footings. Where you see the re-bar sticking through on the footings is where the exterior stem walls go, this is where most of the load is where the house will sit on.
Once the exterior stem wall has been stripped of the plywood, there will be a sealer thats applied down on the outside of the footings / stem wall to prevent any water from seeping in under the house.
Hope I'm not sounding like a know it all, just shining some light on the build. I use to do heavy construction and build homes a while back.