It’s been a while since I embarked on a largish project so a Boat Car it is!

“Constant Hope” belonged to a friend of mine ‘Bartholomew’ who has since moved to a Rib for his nautical pleasures. The boat clearly hasn’t been used for a while and was taking up valuable space in his hedge and thus it needed liberating.

The ‘Arran 16’ is a popular little fishing boat and looks almost identical to an Orkney 16 and I presume the two do get confused.
The trailer wheels have a little play, but I believe the bearings are good enough to do the 10 mile or so trip back to base and amazingly there was still some air in the tyres, although they are starting to perish.

The inside was somewhat full of leaves, sticks needed a good clean. At some point in it’s life it had a layer of paint added to inside the hull, I presume it was some sort of Epoxy/ Polyester paint, but it clearly hasn’t stood the test of time and most of it came out quite easily with a vacuum cleaner. The remaining may need some scaping or even a light media blasting.

The storage lockers are ply and rotten, the same goes for the buoyancy tanks sand thus they will be removed as they are surplus to requirements anyway.

Port View. It is also worth noting that the cabin is removable, which may or may not stay on, but being absent will help make the initial part of the build easier.

And here is the donor vehicle, sourced from Tod’s Garage upt North.
Good find by my buddie Will, a Ford Fiesta 1.3 with a Duratec Engine.

So, basically I have to put the car inside the boat.

My mate Steve was about and he gave me a hand removing the engine and rear axle, he’s very good at that sort of thing.

And TaDa, one engine and suspension unit ready to be fitted in to a boat.
How hard can that be … ?

I was looking at the required support geometry and fitting it in to the boat and it’s going to be a pain in the arse to build from scratch, although I guess I new this already. So before the remainder of the car goes for scrap I have had the idea of just cutting the front end off and as long as it fits inside the boat, all my drive train gubbins would be effectively preinstalled, including the steering wheel and brake pedals etc.
Worth a go.

So part of building a pointless thing is to be able to visualise what it will ultimately end up looking like and whether the parts have any chance of fitting together. This can be time consuming, so in this case, removing the windscreen and drivers door pillar give me a better idea of my next steps.

Both Pillars have now been removed and all wiring looms have now been moved to the front floor wells. I am also contemplating a very slight change of plan; maybe cut a bigger chunk of the chassis off giving me a front seat mount, might be adding a bit to much weight, but I can always trim it down if needs be.

Fuel lines and exhaust moved out of the way and a cut was made.

This assembly now gives me everything that I need to get the engine running, brakes and servo mounted, foot pedals, gear lever and I even get a glove box and radio! Assuming I can get it all in the boat of course.

No project would be complete with a helping hand from ‘Rob the Mon ©’
Currently I imagine the steering wheel end will drop about 10cm, the whole engine/ dash will move forward about 30cm and the front end down about 20cm. Removing the front buoyancy tank should make a lot more available space. The front of the boat seems a long long way away.

Working with old fiberglass isn’t my most favorite thing to do, but a necessity, I need to make more room in the bow for the engine and chassis, so here goes… Inside the tanks were some chunks of what I presume are expanded polyurethane foam for additional buoyancy in the advent of a sinking ship, all now removed and skipped.

Still a bit of trimming to be done, but it’s getting there, the secondary dummy floor may yet need to be removed, which can be seen nearer the camera. Engine fitment try first though.

The Sill’s, ‘well actually the spot welded flanges of the Sill’s’ need to be removed to allow the chassis to sit another 20mm further down inside the boat. When the time comes to make the chassis rails connecting the front to the rear of the car; this new void will be ideal to house the metalwork.

This really didn’t seem right, but it had to be done, cutting a big hole in the side of the boat for the wheel, considering this was a bit of a guess it hasn’t come out to bad. But then the bad news which in honesty I new was coming. The suspension has been fitted as it was in the car, but of course there is not a load on it at the moment, I have about 60mm of travel before the keel bottoms out on the floor, about the amount I expect the springs will compress when loaded.. there are now two options, lower the chassis even more and have the subframe sticking out of the bottom of the hull or reduce the keel depth by about 100mm. I like the sound of neither, but it will have to be one or the other.

Now to the fitting of the rear axle, which also has come from the donor vehicle. Part of the rear seats have been removed as this is where the wheels will be situated including the springs and shock absorber placement.

As expected the keel has got in the way of the axle, so a small area of fiber glass was cut away, not an issue as most of this keel will now be removed to gain more clearance height.