Freddo's River Queen Houseboat Project

Back door & deck

2011-08-10T09:39:00.004-04:00

The back slider was pretty much corroded all the way around it. The decking under the door and in front of the engine compartment doors needed to come out.

This is the piece I cut out!

You can see it pretty much was ready to fall apart. With it open to the engine compartment I will be able to clean up the channel for the engine doors and deck supports. This segment will complete sealing the cabin to the deck, and keep and water from getting inside... at least from the topside!

Windows

2011-07-20T10:13:00.005-04:00

Windows
When I did the complete tear out I removed all of the windows and I decided to remove the outside support bars off the walls. These bars were 1" x 2" tube steel and gave strength to the long walls of the cabin. You can see in these pictures the blue stripes down the sides.

There was a considerable amount of corrosion under them so I got rid of them. In order to put strength back into the walls like I mentioned in an earlier post, I added a frame around the lower windows out of 2" x 4" tube.

With the frames in place, it's time to get the windows back in.
To keep the cabin cooler and for some privacy, I tinted the lower windows with a 15% black. Up in the helm area I used a 35% tint to block out the sunlight but not to dark as to make it hard to see out in lower light or night light. In tinting lingo the lower the number the less light is allowed in, so the back windows are much darker than the helm windows.

In the meantime...

2010-08-20T10:00:00.001-04:00

While the boat sits there waiting for more material I've been playing with a bunch of small engine parts cleaning and rebuilding. So here's the scoop on the engines. I was told by the previous owner he purchased the boat back in the 90's from a guy who was living on it while his house was being built. That guy never left the dock, or even fired up the engines. So when he bought it he had it pulled to the dock and never even looked at them (the engines). The first winter he had the boat pulled out and they decided to remove the outdrives because he was just going to use the boat as a weekend cottage. Outdrives (Dana 80's) haven't seen water since 1996. For the next 20 years the boat has never been hauled out, not even for winter storage. Yes, the lake freezes over. First couple of years he used a bubbler to keep the ice off the hull, when the bubbler burned out one year he decided to just let it freeze in. The slip was only in 36" of water but he said it went to the bottom a couple of times!! With that in mind I knew that the engines and the generator would be shot. After the tear out I did keep both engines and the generator on stands till I could tear them down and see how bad they were. I was right all of them had cracked blocks and corrosion all the way through them. So I plan on taking the pumps, alternators, starters, and rebuilding what I can for back up parts for the engines that I will put in. So here are a couple of pictures of what I've got done so far.

The Re-Roof Job.

2010-08-12T10:00:00.008-04:00

After everything was removed it was time to start getting this boat back together. I will try to keep the look as close to original as possible, but using a little less steel. My thought was to use 2" x 4" rectangle tube and make a frame and joist floor, this will give the strength and a outside original look. From the inside I will leave the beams exposed,paint them and have the tongue and grove deck boards as the inside ceiling. This will give the feeling of a little bit more room. On the outside I will have the t&g boards then cover those with a plywood and then seal it with a liquid rubber. The band around the edge will be the same 1" x 2" rectangle tube that was removed.

At the same time, you can see on picture #5 some primer paint on the side(s) I removed the 1" x 2" trim pieces, there was quite a bit of corrosion coming from under them. They were held on by screws from the inside of the cabin. Here are a couple more pictures showing the rust, the second one is from the inside looking through the holes above a window.

I will not be putting them back on. The original purpose was to add strength to the wall. Instead I am going to frame out the window openings with some 2" x 4" tube. This will give the strength back to the sides and add a little depth to the look. I'll do a post later when the windows get done.

THE ROOF JOB

2010-08-03T09:05:00.036-04:00

Since I decided to do a complete rebuild, I figured I'd start with the top. From all outward appearances the roof looked OK, paint job and it could get by? From my last entry you could see what was under the ceiling in the helm area. Picture 1 shows here just a little rust above the window, so it was good to pull the ceiling down and see the extent of the rust. So looking a little closer I could see that the roof had a few more spots that were kinda rough. The next 4 pictures show the front edge of the roof, and side walkway section, the small holes were air vents. Figuring that if the inside ceiling had considerable more corrosion that couldn't be seen, I knew that the rest of the roof would be just as bad.

I put a few more pictures of the the roof tear off next. I wanted to reuse the windows so they came out as the roof was being removed. The windows will be cleaned tinted and reinstalled once the top is back on.

This last picture is as far as the tear of will go. The roof was all steel, flat underside welded to the corrugated center and then flat steel on top, with a one by two tube around the perimeter. I kept all of the uprights from the windows and overhang supports to put the new top back on.

Tearout.....Everything!!

2010-07-31T14:33:00.006-04:00

Well it's been a while since the last post so here's the latest update.

The first two pictures are what I started with, first looking forward to the helm, behind the curtain on the left is a pull out couch, and then the second picture is to the back slider with the head and a closet on the left. Really not bad looking, but it's the corrosion in the walls, ceiling and hull that needs to be dealt with. By now I've decided it doesn't matter how long it takes,

(besides I have more time than money) I'm going to completely rebuild this thing. The next two are of what came out, and the last two pictures are the same view as the

first two, just after the tear out! With everything out of the way, including the engines and generator, I can finally get some idea on the size of this project.
I'll see if I can get a couple of pictures of what rust can do to a steel boat. If you didn't know the most damage that happens to steel boat is from the inside out.

These pictures show the rust on the underside of the roof in the helm area, I'm guessing from leakage down the spot light or horns. The front slider and cabin wall also rusted all the way thru and the last picture is what is left of the keel. In the second to the last picture you can see where the keel used to be, this will all be replaced with new 1/4" or 10 gauge steel. So to conclude this segment I have decided to remove the complete top and replace then work my way down the sides of the cabin. If I can make it keep water out from the top down then I don't have to worry as much about new rust starting. Then I can deal with the bottom.

Gettin' her ready to move.

2009-10-23T16:55:00.013-04:00

The tear down and prep work to move the boat to my house was just the start of finding out what was in store for the rebuild. The pictures above are just a little indication what is to come. The left picture looks pretty good, but as I started to remove things the rust and holes started to show. Between the bee hives and the rusted bolts it took the better part of an afternoon to remove the flybridge. I also cleaned out the trash from the inside.
I called a local boat hauler to have it brought to my house, being only 3 -4 miles away we didn't worry about the oversize and just figured it would be home before anyone would know.

What did I do?

2009-10-06T22:18:00.019-04:00

So now that I won a boat, what do I do next? I made several trips up to where the boat was docked and got the background story, extra pieces / parts and got it ready for the pull, yep the engines were shot, down to my town. In preparation for the trip, I used some underwater epoxy to seal a few holes and loaded up a battery for the bilge pump, and a generator to run a couple of sump pumps in case it sprung any new leaks. After a couple of weeks of prep work, and lining up a buddy to pull the boat, and waiting on the weather, it was time to pull it home.
The trip involved getting the boat out of a small lagoon and pulling it down the river about 6 miles, out to Lake Michigan, and then south 20 miles to my town, and then up river 5 miles to the marina to be pulled out. We happen to have a day that there was no wind or waves and the trip although slow, went with out a hitch, and as a bonus, the bilge pump only turned on once during the whole trip!
Once we reached the marina the boat was lifted out and over the next few days I prepared to have it delivered to my house. I had to remove the flybridge, and upper controls, in order for it to go down the road.

Setting the record straight

2009-09-29T21:10:00.000-04:00

Well, I never set out to have a boat project.... OK here's the story, I never really wanted a boat. We live about 1 mile from lake Michigan and the Holland (MI) harbor, friends have had boats, brother in law had a boat, I never even thought about it. So, how did I end up with a 40 foot houseboat? I was on Ebay looking for a small row boat or pedal boat to get out on my pond to spread some weed killer. The first boat that came up was this houseboat. Every Sunday my wife, Mary Jo and I head out for brunch at a small joint that looks over a small marina in a town south of our place called Saugatuck, and have mentioned something like, " what would we ever do with a boat? But, if we would ever have one it would have to be a big flat top thing like that one out there", pointing to an old, what I now know as a River Queen houseboat. So when the Ebay auction pulled up this houseboat that kinda looked like the one we have seen during our brunches I thought hmmm, maybe I could get into this boating thing. I started researching the, what is it, were was it made, what do I need to know about it? The brand was a River Queen, made in Saugatuck, MI! About 40 years old, and built completely out of steel. I thought I can weld, I can pretty much handle any of the rebuilding pieces of the whole boat, and if I can't I know plenty of people who can. I found out that the boat in the auction was located just 25 miles north of me! So after checking it out, I decided to put one bid, and, if I won it, great. If not, no big deal. And yes, you guessed it. I won the bid!

2009-09-27T20:41:00.000-04:00

Well if you found this page it's likely that you are a boater, or more likely a houseboater. This will be my account of the buying and rebuilding of my houseboat. So follow along and let me know what you think!