Little Toot- lovingly named for her small size and tenacious attitude-is a 1960 Starcraft runabout aluminum boat. When we found her, she was structurally sound but showed a lot of wear and tear…she had definitely seen better days. But the tired old girl still showed a lot of potential, and we decided to bring her back to her former glory.
The engine did not run and the previous owner said he never got bit started. It definitely needed a lot of work! After rebuilding the carburetor and fuel pump, we replaced the points, condensers, coils, plugs and wires. For the first time in years, she started and ran great. It certainly took some trial and error to get things perfect, as she smoked a lot until we got the mixture right.
We scraped and sanded both the boat and trailer, and then painted them. We had already decided to paint her sea foam green to give her a classic 60’s look. As it turned out, underneath several layers of paint we found the original color, and you guessed it, it was sea foam green! The bench seats were in rough shape, so we replaced them and added two folding seats. After cleaning and reinstalling the lights and running hardware we took her for the first test runs. What a great feeling it was to see her returned to where she belongs…on the water!
Little Toot is a small boat with a big personality, and she’s made a great transformation from a run-down boat to a renovated, vintage runabout that’s perfect for a 60’s-esque day on the lake.
This was a great family project that we all learned a lot from. The video is our record of the rebuild.
