1988 Senator with 454 magnum in Holland

[dennishensen]

Hello,

I'm Dennis from holland and I was looking for a fast and not so common boat when I found a 1988 Checkmate Senator with a 454 magnum and Bravo I outdrive, 24'' Raptor prop and thru-hull exhaust.

The boat was sitting under a tree for the last 2 years with a very poor cover, so the red/white paint needs a lot of buffing haha Good thing is that the boat has very little damages and al original decals are still good. there's also no antifouling or anything on it and it has only been driven on fresh water.

The upholstery is also still original but has all cracks and stuff so it's going to be redone this winter, including the carpets.

I have already taken out the engine (after I ran it first and checked compression and al that stuff) and I replaced all seals and gaskets, cam and lifters, coupler, water pump, spark plugs, plug wires etc. I repainted the engine black and mounted Billet aluminium valve covers and a Billet aluminium timing cover.

Also the bravo sterndrive got new seals (it leeked oil into the drive shaft bellow), was repainted and got new MerCruiser decals.

Now I'm going to remove the transom plate because there is a lot of play on the steering (gimball ring) and the steering cilinder is leeking oil.

If that's ready I'm going to clean up the engine compartment and bring it back to new.

I hope the boat will be in new condition before the next season. According to the previous owner it runs in the high 60's!!

I believe the Senator is a rare Checkmate, is that true? And there is a plate on the dash saying that it was custom build for someone. Is that normal?

I will post some boat and engine pics soon!!


Greetz,

Dennis

 

[175checkmate]

Welcome to the board. Congrats on the new boat. Going to need pictures.

 

[senator-holland]

i saw the his senator this morning and he is really doing a good job on it!

i never expected to see another checkmate or even a senator in my backyard!

 

[mikestrobe201]

to the board and congrats on the new 'Mate.

 

[ezstriper]

Cool !!!! on that steering cyl they do not make that stle anymore and if you find a NOS one they want stupid $$ for them....I just went thru this with my 89 convinsor, but you can easily change it over to the newer style with just changing the hoses and possibly the fitting in the back of the pump. mine went very easy, but do it before you put the engine back in...Rob

 

[senatorBIGBLOCK]

join the Senator BigBlock club!!!!!

hey Dennis, your Senator is not rare, but it is a great fast boat with the big block. I know, I had mine since 1991.
The little dash decal is not unusual.
You CAN easily rebuild the steering cylinder for under $50 US in parts.
I don't think the Magnum aka , 365HP 7.4L was available in the 1988 year model.
The max HP that year was the standard 330hp 7.4L oval heads and the Bravo 1 drive is the better choice.
You should see low 70's with this boat in stock condition, with the right prop.
I do a lot of prop testing and found that my Mach 4 blade patriot 14.5 X 26 is the fastest for me.
let see some photos!

 

[dennishensen]

Thanks guys!

I don't think fixing the gimball ring or steering cilinder is going to be a problem for me, since I have a 40ft container full of new and used OMC and MerCruiser parts. I already found a good gimball ring so all I need now is some seals for the steering cilinder

I took a couple of pictures of the engine (finished), outdrive and boat. Will post them tomorrow

2 senatorBIGBLOCK: I'm not sure about the engine. The cover over the flame arrestor says 454 Magnum, but I don't know if that is the right cover for this engine. Do you know how I can find out if it's 330 or 365 HP?

And the prop on my boat is a stainless 3 blade raptor, 14,5x25 I believe. When the boat is finished I'm going to try some different prop setups

 

[senatorBIGBLOCK]

Dennis, if you look on the port side valve cover there will be a decal with the engine serial number and specifications, RPM range, including the HP.

The stock prop might have been a 23P 14 5/8 diameter Mirage which will perform well.
If you can find a 4 blade 24p 14.5 diameter MACH sterndriver prop, this will give you excellent bow lift and handling with good top end.
I do a lot of prop testing and can help you out in this area

 

[dennishensen]

How stupid of me!!

I'll check the decal first thing tomorrow. I'll let you know what it says

 

[dennishensen]

Ok here are some pics;

Ow and I did check the decal and you are right, it's a 'regular' 454 with 330 horses.

 

[senator-holland]

het valt me nu op dat die motor echt super strak is.. geen vuiltje te bekennen.

de onderkant van de boot had ik niet zo. bij mij zat er vieze anti fouling op.

ben benieuwd hoe de jouwe loopt, en hoe hard... ik gok 70miles.

met een 350 doet die 57-58.

 

[dennishensen]

Thank you!

I'm also very curious about the top speed!! But as far as I can tell by what I read here it must run AT LEAST in the high 60's.

I had a busy week so didn't get to de much to the Mate. If there is news I'll let yoy guys know!

 

[TLB]

het valt me nu op dat die motor echt super strak is.. geen vuiltje te bekennen.

de onderkant van de boot had ik niet zo. bij mij zat er vieze anti fouling op.

ben benieuwd hoe de jouwe loopt, en hoe hard... ik gok 70miles.

met een 350 doet die 57-58.

What him say

 

[senator-holland]

translation:

"i have noticed that the engine really clean and nice is, not a scatch or dirt to see.

the bottom of my boat was not like yours, it has been painted.

i'm curious how fast he will be, i bet something about 70 miles..

with a 350 he will do 57 miles.."

sorry.

 

[dennishensen]

It's been a while since my last post. I was very busy the last few weeks but since this week we finally had time to work on the mate again.

Took off the last transom pieces and sanded the lower part of the stern. there were some minor repairs done on the left side and it was painted in white (the boat is light grey w. red) It took a lot of phonecalls to get the right color of gelcoat but now it looks f*ckin' new!! We sanded off lots of paint and old filler and now it's super straight.

We also took everything out of the engine compartment and cleaned it up. It took a lot of elbow-grease, water and paint thinner (works very well) but then it looked like new!! there were no damages to be found anywere so that's good. The wood in the transom also looked good.

Yesterday we put the transom assembly back in. We replaced drive bellow, shift cable bellow (exhaust is thru-hull so no bellow there) and gimball bearing and trim senders. We also replaced the coolingwater hose in the transom (Bravo drive). It was very lucky we found out is was clogged. I think we saved ourselves from cooling issues in the future.

we totally rebuild the steering cilinder and that also lookes like new. The steering lever that's mounted on the outdrive had a lot of play on it so we also replaced that. Everything was re-painted with 2k black paint and got new decals.

Today we put the engine back in. It's a BBC so it took some twists and turns to fit it thru the opening of the engine compartment, but now it's finally back in the boat. I've started to put the cables and wires back on the engine, but when I was doing that I wasn't satisfied with how the wire harness looked (a lot of single loose wires) so I rapped al the wire in those special plastic 'hoses' (don't know the right english name for it) so now there is one nice black harness in the engine bay.

On monday i'll put the outdrive back on and I'm hoping to get it fired up for the first time.

We also took the complete interior out and brought it to our upholstery guy to get it redone (in the original way ofcourse) the wood of the backseat and sundeck was rotten so we made new wooden panels for that.

Now most of the technical work is done we can soon start on a lot of polishing and buffing on the outside. All the original decals are still in perfect condition, but we are thinking about adding the checkered flags like the ones on the newer mates. Do you guys think that will do the boat any good?

I'll post some new pics soon!!

Regards,

Dennis

 

[NF22]

As a fellow 88 Senator owner, I am looking forward to some pics and enjoy reading your progress.


Wish I had some skills to do some of my own work. I envy you guys that can fix your own boat...:cheers

 

[dennishensen]

As a fellow 88 Senator owner, I am looking forward to some pics and enjoy reading your progress.


Wish I had some skills to do some of my own work. I envy you guys that can fix your own boat...:cheers

Don't envy us... people who can fix there own boat are also very busy fixing other people's boats

 

[ezstriper]

Cool !!!! sounds like you have a handle on it !!!! keep us posted !!!! Rob

 

[dennishensen]

Hey guys,

Here are some pics as I promised..

I'm sorry I could not post some better pics but the mate is standing in a corner and I think it would be to much work to take it outside haha

To make the outdrive really look new it still needs some polishing. As you can see we started on the swimplatform. We wetsanded it first with a 1200 wet&dry sandpaper and after that we buffed hard. But the result looks really nice. Now all it needs is some new teak.

And the new painted stern.

ANd the engine in the engine compartment. Now al I have to do is clean the floors on the left and right (again )

More pics come soon!!

 

[senator-holland]

cool work!!