TOPIC: 72 Bell Boy Hard Top Rebuild

Hey all, just found this awesome site looking for info on my current find, so I thought I would share this with others and post my progress. I was out with the wife hitting up yard sales in our small so. NV. town when we stumbled upon a 72 Bell Boy. It was in real good shape for sitting some 20 plus years but was going to take some work. The guy wanted $500 but looking at the work I offered $200 and it was ours. I'm a custom fabricator by trade and have a aluminum fuel tank business, so this is has got me pumped up. The hull is solid and the engine is all there. Part of the out drive is missing and the lower is cracked but I'm already looking for them as I rework the glass and prep for a new paint job. All the seats and carpet is shot but it came out easy. I will have a lot of questions as I move along on this build and will be doing some cool fab work and will share that as well. First thing is to strip it all down and get going. Here's some pics as we got it and as we start removing the bad. It was good to see the other 72 Bell Boy in the other thread in such good shape, as that is how we found this site. Thanks JD

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Nice find JD, and welcome! We've got a couple members fairly familiar with the old outdrives like that, Jim Andros is the first that comes to mind.....

Well look at that! It appears we have the same style, year, and make of boat. I looked on line for 2 days for a pic of a boat like ours and found one for sale in Alaska... LOL that's it.

It's good to see your pics to see what is missing off of my boat. It looks like mine is missing the swim ladder and a few other small things. Good luck and it looks like a worthy project. Really excited to see another and let me know if I can help you in anyway?

I haven't seen too many build threads with pics so I hope you continue to keep a good album going of the progress. Thanks again

Hey Metal Twister, you are the only one that has a post on our model as I have been looking for a few months for info on this thing. I did talk to a marine shop in Las Vegas and if you look on the back of the bell housing with a mirror you will see a brass tag with model and ser. number ass well as firing order. He said that tag IDs your motor and drive for parts. Hope this helps. I believe ours is a 302 ford with a Volvo 270 out drive. I'm looking for a complete drive or a lower and upper as well, if any are out there. Thanks for the kind words and offer.
JD

MarkS wrote:

Nice find JD, and welcome! We've got a couple members fairly familiar with the old outdrives like that, Jim Andros is the first that comes to mind.....

Hey MarkS, thanks and looking to meet everyone.

This is what the tag looks like.

Thanks, I will check it out.... Pahrump NV. Oh Man lay low till this heat blows past ya. Had a friend years ago that lived there and had the opportunity visit him often but mostly in the winter! LOL I love the desert.

Metal Twister wrote:

Thanks, I will check it out.... Pahrump NV. Oh Man lay low till this heat blows past ya. Had a friend years ago that lived there and had the opportunity visit him often but mostly in the winter! LOL I love the desert.

It's 110 today and has been in the 115 this week but it's still dry so the swamp coolers keeping things nice. It cools down in the 80s at night after sunset. I like our weather year round as it is a snow bird capital. JD