Ryanw10

Picked this boat up about a month ago because I have a really hard time saying no to cheap, old, and wet boats. My original intentions were a part out, but once I got it home I decided it was way to cool, and it checks almost all the boxes I want in a boat.. -Twin SBC's and Alpha drives. Twins for lake Michigan, and SBC's for cost reasons -Small enough to not be a hassle out of the water, big enough for Lake Michigan. -Fiberglass floor and lots of teak through out -I love the classic old lines, and have read many good things about this Hull. Now for the bad. It is real wet. Pretty much all wood from the cabin door back needs replaced. I got pretty much everything out of the bilge for a better assessment and found transom and all motor stringers have some serious rot. Cock pit stringers showing lots of signs of delamitation and rot. My next step is to remove the gas tank to assess this more, but that thing is huge! This will be my first real fiberglass job so looking for any and all pointers. My father in law has been working with fiberglass forever so I will be asking him for a lot of help too.

Twin O/B Sonic

Way cool project!

Im a fan of those boats too.

It will be a huge project so take your time and try to break it into smaller, achievable goals.
This will help you stay motivated when your pissed off, tired, covered w/fiberglass dust and broke!

I make a list so I can check off tasks as I work, to see the progress.

As to the glass work, practice, practice!

Good luck w/the project.

87MirageIntruder

I love the boat!

Good advice above, make a list of stuff to fix and check them off as you go. You will need to have a sense of accomplishment or the project will seem like a black hole that you aren't making progress on and you'll get discouraged. I've done stringers, floor etc before. It's a big messy job but keep at it.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Ryanw10

Gas tank is out! It was foamed in and a real pain, but I got it. This marks dissasembly pretty much done for now so its time to start cutting, but where to start...

The main cockpit stringers should be pretty easy to cut out so I may start here. After Igot the tank out i found some soft spots on the cabin bulkhead, so by starting with the main stringers I could see how bad the bulkhead really is.

After staring at the blige for a while, the entire floor with motor mounts, appears to be one big "pan" that is screwed down to the hull. Can anybody confirm this?

Ryanw10

Im thinking with a littlw bit of cutting on the sides, this whole section comes out as 1, and ill be able to completely rebuild it out of the boat, and then drop back in.

smashm

Great little boats. My first boat was a 23xl. Loved it

Ryanw10

Bilge "pan" out! Actually came easier than anticipated. I started by cutting most of the main cockpit stringers, and bilge bulk head out. After that I cut the floor out another couple inches on each side so i had room to pry and pull it out. Some prying and lifting and it popped free.

Now to decide if I rebuild it, or junk it and start fresh in the bilge.

Twin O/B Sonic

Before you start reassembly, assure that the hull is supported in a straight and level manner.

W/all of its reinforcement removed, it will easily twist like a potato chip!

Many projects have been ruined by being glassed back together w/those twists in them and the boat never runs right again.

Ryanw10

The inner bunks of the trailer are 15' long, and the hull touches the whole length of them. Unfortunately the outer bunks on this trailer don't touch at all right now, but I have added 3 boat stands on each side. I also have 3 points of support from the ground to the bottom of the V. Any other suggestions for the rest of the deconstruction phase?

Ryanw10

Transom is out! Once I cut the inner skin out, the wood pretty much crumbled out. Now the last thing to cut out is the outer strings.