Don’t you just love the look of a Lloyd hydroplane?!
I guess it is obvious by this purchase it is my all time favorite!
Here are shots of the hull on the trailer the day I brought her
home. The amazing thing with this restoration is the amount of original
parts which are still part of the entire set up. With Agitator I
had to make over 100 custom parts from scratch to get her back on the water…….at
first glance it appears I will only have to make a handful.
An original 265 Chevy engine still sits between the stringers. It is
a rusted solid hunk but it appears it can be saved. I have learned this
exact engine was built by a famous east coast Chevy builder - Bob Bernard
of Silver Hill, MD. I’m trying to track him down as I have been told he
is still around. I have also met the last owner who raced the hull in the
1970’s – Randy Bushaw. Upon tracking him down and calling him he made an
unbelievable comment I thought I would share. He said “Ya know…….I can’t
remember what I had for breakfast yesterday but I do remember I ran
#64 jets in the carburetor on that old 265 Chevy”. Upon hanging up with
Randy, I carefully chipped open the old carburetor and there rested the
#64 jets still in the same place where he had put them almost 31 years
before!
The entire hull was stuffed with leaves, sticks, chicken bones and
about a 3” layer raccoon and rat poop! The picture on the left shows under
the seat after I used a small shovel to get the ‘stuff’ out so I could
see the wood.
The picture shows the front end of the hull which seemed to have been
the home of at least a dozen raccoons! I don’t wish this job on anyone
but you must be careful when dealing with ‘waste’ like this. I had an entire
‘body condom’ on and ended up with about 4 full garbage bags of waste when
all was said and done. After that I put one serious bleach bomb throughout
the entire hull.
The trailer is rusty but solid. The last number the hull raced under
is still painted on the side of the trailer. It appears at one time the
trailer had hydraulic disc brakes and a pivoting front tongue. Must have
been state of the art for its day!
The cockpit is still the traditional Lloyd layout. One interesting
point to the hulls originality is the kill switch was still dangling from
the steering wheel! Even more interesting was if you look real close the
fuse block contained the hack sawed off end of a bolt in place of a fuse……..I
guess that is what you do when you can’t find a fuse!
Overall evaluation. The boat will need a 100% restoration – complete woodwork
inside and out, complete motor rebuild, complete trailer restoration. I
appears from the pictures you can just paint it and run it but that is
far from the truth. The bottom is painted a dark brown probably hiding
a multitude of patches. The boat was apparently only run once in 1980 by
its last owner and promptly flipped. It appears most of the decks were
blown off in the incident and many of the frames were shattered. Unfortunately
somebody just tried to slap on ‘paneling’ for the deck and used very inexpensive
wood for framing. Some of the inside frames have since rotted and upon
closer inspection the sponsons have extensive rot also. However, again….everything
is there to pattern to complete a 100% restoration of the hull.
The restoration begins: The first thing to do was to pull the engine and get the rest of the
‘stuff’ out of the hull. Here is my father inspecting the engine as we
pulled it out on the hoist system we put in my shop.
I
also pulled the gas tank which is an original Charlie Lloyd hand welded
stainless tank. Actually....it was a large sludge encrusted cylinder covered
with layers upon layers of varnish. I stripped the entire tank down with
a brush-on chemical stripper. Once I was down to the bare stainless I polished
it out on my buffer. I started with a spiral sewn buffing wheel and emery
rouge. Once all the large imperfections were taken out I had a matte finish
on the tank. I then switched to green rouge (specifically for stainless)
with a spiral sewn wheel to bring out the luster. I always wipe down the
part with lacquer thinner in between different rouges so you don’t mix
the grits. Make sure to use different wheels as well. I final once over
with a canton flannel buff and then I sealed my work with Wenol Polish.
Total buffing time of 2 hours – the result is the picture above – one shiny
original gas tank. I personally polished every piece of hardware on the
Agitator
using a similar method (depends on the base metal you are polishing and
the amount of oxidation/corrosion) and 2 years later everything still has
a nice shine on it! I finished the job by painting the gas cap with gloss
black Dupont Imron. The first piece of the restoration is ready to go……only
a few thousand more to go!
It is a nice feeling when you are putting in the 'last piston' from
a total rebuild.
Pistons are .060" over and matched/balanced.
In she goes!
I ported and polished the heads myself and I also put in teflon guides
with the new valves.
Thanks to Carl Wilson for letting me borrow his valve spring compressor.
I really need to buy one of those. It makes the valve job a snap.
What a difference between the rusted hunk I had 4 weeks ago and what
I have now! I decided to paint the engine the original 'Chevy Red'
which was the factory color for the 265 V8 in 1956. It is now a complete
#'s matching engine and I even found a manifold with the same month date
stamp as the block. One rebuild kit later and some polishing and I installed
the1956 Rochester 2 BBL with the proper tilt shim. Check out the brass
throttle linkage.....who says this isn't a 'high class' set up!
A new distributor and rebuilt 1956 starter get put on as well. The
headers will go out for black ceramic coating from a company called Jet-Hot...they
do fantastic work. I hope to melt some Michigan snow when I fire
up the Mighty Mouse Motor!
I
also pulled the gas tank which is an original Charlie Lloyd hand welded
stainless tank. Actually....it was a large sludge encrusted cylinder covered
with layers upon layers of varnish. I stripped the entire tank down with
a brush-on chemical stripper. Once I was down to the bare stainless I polished
it out on my buffer. I started with a spiral sewn buffing wheel and emery
rouge. Once all the large imperfections were taken out I had a matte finish
on the tank. I then switched to green rouge (specifically for stainless)
with a spiral sewn wheel to bring out the luster. I always wipe down the
part with lacquer thinner in between different rouges so you don’t mix
the grits. Make sure to use different wheels as well. I final once over
with a canton flannel buff and then I sealed my work with Wenol Polish.
Total buffing time of 2 hours – the result is the picture above – one shiny
original gas tank. I personally polished every piece of hardware on the
Agitator
using a similar method (depends on the base metal you are polishing and
the amount of oxidation/corrosion) and 2 years later everything still has
a nice shine on it! I finished the job by painting the gas cap with gloss
black Dupont Imron. The first piece of the restoration is ready to go……only
a few thousand more to go!
