1975 34’ MT Sedan

[J. Landin]

Hello all. I just acquired a 1975 34’ Marine Trader Sedan (traded it for a golf cart to a generous friend). I would have to imagine there are posts on this forum from previous owners.

Boat had fuel tanks replaced with poly in 2011. Engine has approx 750 hours on the rebuild. Power is FL 120 going through a Paragon transmission. Interior and engine room/below are in great shape. Exterior needs some work; mostly cracker gel coat on decks and teak rail work. The wiring on this boat has been added too and added too and cut and spliced for the last 48 years of its life. I am going to completely remove all wiring and start fresh.

Currently working on engine plumbing. New coolers and heat exchanger, new hydraulic hoses for engine and transmission, raw and coolant hoses, had to weld a new neck on the expansion tank and give that thing a freshening up. Oil overflow/level check on injection pump was stripped. Went in with a 1/8 npt tap and some grease to install a pipe plug and the whole boss snapped off. Looks like a JB Weld repair from years ago. Going to fab up a new piece today, I’ll create a post on the process.

Thank you,
Jeremy

 

[alormaria]

Congrats on your new Marine Trader!


That overflow/fill on the injection pump is a problem. Best to just use it once to see how much fills it and mark the level on the oil container. Then leave the plug alone. Fill the injection pump based upon the line on the container.

 

[Action]

Welcome aboard!!!

 

[Comodave]

Welcome aboard. Congrats on your new boat.

 

[Max1]

Welcome aboard. I have a 1976 MT36 sedan that we've had for 3 years and it's been a project boat since day one. We knew that going in and we absolutely love it. In return it's given us two great Summers of cruising. We couldn't be happier. I imagine you are probably going to run into the same issues we had to deal with, but as long as you stick with it, and treat it more as a hobby rather than a chore, you may actually end up enjoying doing the work as we do. Good luck. And have fun.

 

[alormaria]

I've been working on mine for 30 (soon to be 31) years. It's almost done.

 

[J. Landin]

Lol

 

[Pete Meisinger]

I'm not trying to be funny but here is what I know about that oil level bolt.

Stick a cork in it.

pete

 

[Peter B]

Hello all. I just acquired a 1975 34’ Marine Trader Sedan (traded it for a golf cart to a generous friend). I would have to imagine there are posts on this forum from previous owners.

Thank you,
Jeremy

As others have said - welcome to TF. The wee beastie you just bought, dating from that time, was quite rare.
Way back in 2002, I also bought a Clipper (CHB) 34 with a hull laid in 1975, here in Australia, almost all CHB type 34s were tri-cabins, with an aft cabin, but beggar-all cockpit. My wife wanted the large cockpit, so we kept looking until we found one.

It was also the sedan version, and was a fairly constant work in progress. But like others advised, I used fixing her up as a hobby, not a chore, and enjoyed myself immensely. I still miss her - sold in 2018.

What intrigues me is that model of that age usually did not have the extended hard-top your appears to have, so I'd love to see some pics. I ended up achieving almost the same effect, by going from a miserable little canvas extension from the back edge of the upper deck, to achieving what yours has, but with alloy frame and canvas. It turned out the best thing we ever did to the boat in extending our enjoyment of her. This pic should show what I mean...

 

[J. Landin]

Good looking boat sir!! Yes this design in those years was considered somewhat rare. I like having the large house/cabin and the v-berth with center insert is quite nice. Just finished the engine coolers, fluids and hoses. Going to fire it up today and get everything topped off and up to temp. Fingers crossed

 

[Goody]

Congrats and best of luck!!