Mods, not sure if this belongs in the Ranger forum or the restoration forum. Or both.
This post chronicles a two year restoration project on a 1987 Ranger 375v. I posted bits of pieces on my social media and other forums, but I figured that you guys would appreciate a complete retrospective. Hopefully what I document here will be of some help, or at the very least, of some entertainment. I'm not the first person to restore these great boats and I certainly won't be the last. I've split this up into categories on the boat I fixed. It won't be chronological. The work was not continuous mostly split up into two parts, early spring 2018 and early spring 2019, as I wanted to use it as much as possible
************************************************** ************************************************** ************************************************** ************************************
Background
Ever since I started bass fishing, I wanted a bass boat. I humped the shores as a kid. In college and a little after, I bought a kayak. Lots of people might've stopped there. Kayak fishing is taking off and constantly evolving. But me? I had to have that bass boat, needed to be able to feel like I could go anywhere. Wanted something to hold all my tackle. Wanted the fish finders, the trolling motor. Wanted the satisfaction of pulling fish out of the livewell, not even necessarily for tournaments, just for pictures. Wanted to hear that motor turn up, get on pad. Nothing I'm saying here is particularly unique, I mean this is a bass boat forum and we all had that itch.
Now bass boats are not cheap. We like to pretend that throwing down 50, 60, 70, f***, 80k towards a boat ain't no thang. But it's no shame to admit even a 20k new aluminum boat is a big purchase. So around February of 2018, after months of waiting and searching, I found a potential candidate. I wanted a used boat, something for cheap that looked like crap, but was a diamond in the rough. A gentleman was selling a 1987 Ranger 375v for $2200 that belonged to his son. It had a same year Yamaha Pro V 150. Due to some various obstacles, he had to sell the boat. The picture was blurry, and he made it clear that the boat was NOT in good condition. But $2200 is hard to pass up. It was at least worth a 20 minute drive.
I don't have a lot of detailed pictures of the original state, but it's not hard to tell that it was a mess cosmetically. The owner left it in a field for 5 years with a tattered boat cover covering it.
-The carpet so bad it would have been better to not have any at all. Chunks missing, discolored, torn etc.
-The middle seat was completely rotten and could not be salvaged. I suspected the other seats had some rot as well.
-The wiring seemed to be shot to hell, a lot of switches didn't work.
-The fuel lines also were completely worn from ethanol and would have to be replaced. Water separating filter too.
-Trim and tilt did not work. The seals were leaking and the owner said I would have to purchase new caps and seals
-Trolling motor was in a barely usable state. Fish finders were 20 years old at least. So yeah those would have to be replaced as well
-The cover apparently didn't do shit as the entire boat was oxidized.
-Boat was not sitting at a good angle and had a ton of rain water just sitting in the bilge. I jacked it up a little higher and watched water pour out to my amusement
-pedestal seats and pedestals needed to be trashed and replaced
As we were going over the boat you could see the owner (his name was Gary) deflate more and more. There were so many issues, who in their right f'ing mind would buy something like this. Just to get it on the water would require a ton of work. Every sign screamed to walk away. Fortunately for Gary he was dealing with a 26 year old lacking in sense. More importantly, there were a few very critical points that kept me interested:
-The water in the bilge was alarming, but it also told me there weren't any leaks. I had inspected under the hull before and it was dry, and in pretty decent condition.
-I checked the transom the best I could. Brought a tiny hammer, manually lifted the motor and pounced on it. No indications of any flex. I damn near bounced that boat off the trailer. Also important, as you can see in the pictures, the transom didn't have any sign of damage or cracks. These Rangers man.....
-You can see in the pictures the hull was actually in decent shape. Some chips here and there but nothing that couldn't be covered with a keel guard or fixed with marine tex. Overall the hull was in good condition
-The motor started. Granted, there were some issues that I'm going to explain later, but it started relatively easily.
-Compression was good. I bought a gauge and taught myself how to do it, so we did it right there on his farm. 110 psi on all cylinders with maybe 1-2 variance. Really good numbers.
This brings us to a point I've held. A boat is a motor and a hull. If both are sound, then everything else can be replaced or repaired without a lot of fuss. Carpet can be replaced. Accessories can be replaced. Wiring can be routed again (at least in these older boats with forgiving wiring channels). Trolling motors get swapped out. Fuel lines, hydraulic fluid, seats....y'all get the point. This is something that most of you know and I know intimately now since I'm done. However, rewinding two years, this was something I was convincing myself of as I stood there talking to Gary.
Gary agreed to lower the price to $2000 (as an aside, he was an honest man and down to earth, never got the feeling he wanted to cheat me, which helped me make the purchase). However, due to some circumstances he couldn't lower it any more. After a couple days doing some research, consulting some folks online, I pulled the trigger. This would be a good learning experience and I would gain a ton of knowledge about boats. Or so I told myself. I knew I was taking a risk but I'm young and like I said, I had that bass boat ITCH.
So now I have a busted looking Ranger sitting on my driveway, with a billion problems. I'm not going to lie, sitting in my car I was feeling VERY overwhelmed. Where do you even start? So I sucked it up and made a list and believe me it was long.
The goal at this point is to get the boat to a usable state. That would mean getting the bilge pumps working, trim and tilt working, steering hydraulic fluid refilled, and motor up to speed. Being able to run it successfully was the first priority.
Bilge/Fuel Tanks/Pumps
First on the list was getting the thing clean. From sitting in a field, it was dirty. I'm surprised I didn't find any critters in there. The bilge was the filthiest so that's where I started.
Yes, that's the battery tray, covered in sludge. Same with the bilge.
All cleaned up. You can see the lids had to be wiped down with some mildew eliminating compound. You can also see all the struts were shot to hell. The latches were all toast and rusted.
With the bilge cleaned, I could finally see the guts and it wasn't that bad. In these older rangers, you have to remove the battery tray to reach the pumps. The bilge pumps (there were two) needed to be replaced, as well as the rear livewell pump (the front livewell I was going to convert into a cooler). The 375v had two gas tanks in the bilge, routed to the tank selector then the water separator. I believe the 360 series had the tanks under or behind the seats. The wiring you can't see but is just under the ledge at the front of the bilge. Accessories are routed through the starboard side and the trolling motor cables are routed port. At this point I figured that the circuit breaker was completely shot and needed to be replaced. The fuel tank sending units were also suspect, with torn gaskets and rough connections. Rust will do that. The original circuit breaker was rusted out. I replaced with a simple 20 amp circuit breaker:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Attachment 357934
I ended up not replacing the sending units for a year as I had other priorities. However, I did replace the gaskets, which are standard fuel tank 5 hole gaskets you can find anywhere. When I eventually replaced the sending units, I used these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Attachment 357937
Most sending units have a swinging lever, and as the fuel level changes the lever swings because it has a cork at the end. I liked this sending unit better however, as it has a sliding marker, which IMO is more accurate. The marker shifts the resistance of the sending unit, and the fuel level gauge essentially moves the dial based on resistance. It's important to make sure the sending unit resistance matches the gauge. The most common range is 33-240 ohms which is what the original sending units had. It's also important to get the correct length of the sending unit. You don't want a unit too long obviously as it won't fit. The recommendation is at least an inch shorter than the height of the tank. This is to account for the plastic tanks expanding and contracting due to heat. If you have aluminum tanks, half an inch buffer is sufficient. I opted for 2 inches shorter than the height of my tanks. No harm in underestimating the amount of fuel in my opinion. DON'T USE POWER TOOLS near your fuel tanks. The spark from your tools coupled with fuel vapors can cause very bad things to happen.
Replacing the bilge pumps was pretty easy. Just take out the original pump. Amazingly, one of the original pumps still worked well so I left it in. The other I took out, you may have to cut and splice new connectors or the new bilge pump wiring directly. So have a good system of keeping track of the wires. Luckily, Gary had the original manual with the wiring diagrams and the color codes. The manual was for all 300 series Comanche/Apache packages, if anyone is interested PM me, or I can post it here later. I still had to tag the wires, as some of them were either very dirty or the colors had faded.
The livewell pump is a similar deal. If you know how to crimp or solder correctly, this is child's play. The only difficult part was detaching and reattaching the plumbing. Ranger really had a tight, solid system so some force was needed. I installed a Atwood tsunami 800 gph bilge pump and an atwood 800 gph livewell pump
Trim/Tilt
Trim/tilt was not working because of a leaky trim seal. Removal of the trim caps required a special yamaha wrench head that cost at least $60 dollars. I decided to try and use an adjustable pin wrench. Then I figured, why don't I just try tightening them first, as the o rings looked okay. I tightened them with my pin wrench and it fixed the issue, i just added more trim fluid. This is NOT the recommended way obviously, as pin wrenches can damage the cap holes, but I was loathe to pay 60+ dollars for a tool I would rarely use. The caps have held for 2 years thus far so obviously it worked out. The fill hole is above the starboard cylinder, you can see the bolt plug in the picture. Each cap has 4 pins that the yamaha tool or pin wrench attaches to.
Motor (Yamaha Pro V 150)
The motor had a couple of issues, the first being it would not turn off. How yamaha motors work is that there is a white wire that when grounded kills the motor. This is how the ignition and the kill switch works. Most wires route to a CDI assembly that you can't buy new anymore but can find used. They run anywhere from 300-900 dollars. Part number 6G5-85540-12-00
Attachment 357941
The fact that both my ignition and kill switch couldn't turn off the engine told me it wasn't a switch issue, so it was either wiring or the cdi unit. According to the mechanic it was both. I had the mechanic replace the cdi unit for $500 total, parts and labor, which was a pretty good deal.
Now that the motor had it's basic functions back, there were still a few things that needed to be done. The previous owner f'd up the timing and carb adjustment, so the engine would sneeze or drop revs during idle. I sourced a Yamaha service manual and was able to adjust the timing myself. There are a few guides on how to do so in this forum, so I won't go over that. That subject is entire long form post itself. Here is a good one:
http://www.bbcboards.net/showthread.php?t=826681
PM me for the service manual. It covers various high hp yamaha outboards around 1991 time frame, and it was applicable to my motor
With the timing adjusted, the motor was still a little rough, so I had to clean the carbs. There are a plethora of guides on how to clean outboard carbs, so I won't go over that. The service manual also helps a lot. It's really not that hard, and anyone with a mechanical thumb can do so. Carb repair kits run around $150 for this motor. The hardest and most important thing to do is to adjust the float properly. That being said, I didn't quite get it right myself. A year later, I had the mechanic do it again, and he said I was very very close to getting it exactly right.
The last thing I needed to fix was electric choke switch. I was able to take off the electric choke solenoid (part 6K1-82574-00-00) and verify it was working. That meant either the toggle switch or a wire was busted. A quick check lead to the conclusion that the wire was busted, so I had to bypass the wire into the motor, as the original wire was in a wrapped harness that wasn't worth the trouble to get out
The green wire is the new bypass wire for the choke. The white wire is the bypass wire for the kill engine. I wrapped the wiring in a nylon cable sleeve for looks and protection.
With the cdi replaced, carbs rebuilt, choke switch working, I had an engine I could use. I was fortunate, the mechanic told me I had a solid engine (as he obviously ran it to test his fixes). Every 6 months I checked compression and it would stay tight at around 110 psi for all cylinders, with maybe 1-2 psi variation on one. I also replaced the spark plugs, water impeller, gear oil. On my second trip, on the Cali Delta, my prop spun out, so I replaced it with a 23 pitch Turbo Lightning.
Here's the motor running on a flush bag, still chugging after all these years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UilReerLGH8
Part 2 coming up......