carpet replacement/seat changeout

ortiz_1989

Hi everyone I'm new to this so forgive me if I'm posting in the wrong forum. I'm wanting to change out the carpet in my 2002 rinker 180 br. I'm wondering if there is anything I should expect? is it hard would I need to change out the plywood etc? any info would be great. Also I am wondering since I have back to back seats on the driver and passage side can I change those out to a single bucket seat on each side? wanting to make more room to put stuff and what not. And the last thing where can I get new decals I'm looking for all new decals for this boat. wanting to fix it up a bit. Thanks!

Michael T

Hey @Ortiz_1989, Welcome on your first post and to this forum. You will have a great time here and make many friends!.

I have changed the carpet on a Rinker 190. it was glued down. We scraped it off, which took most of a Saturday. We sanded-off the residue, tack ragged the surface and sealed it with a coat of modified and thinned resin, let it dry and glued down new carpet. it already had bucket seats.

However I did replace the slider seats in a 1990 VIP vision. The trick was to mount them securely into the plywood floor as there is a stronger pivot point on captains' seats. I don't remember what size screws we used but it lasted years before it was sold.

You should be able to see in the bow or engine bay how thick your wooden floor is. If you can not find a place to determine the thickness of your plywood, cut a piece of coat hanger about a foot long, put a small, about 1/16" 90 degree bend in the end of it and slip it down a screw hole from the old seats - move to towards a side of the hole and pull up. When it stops mark the wire at the floor height. To remove it center the wire or just pull hard - that will be your floor thickness.

That way you can determine screw length but more important screw width as thicker ply will support a thicker screw or one of the new pop through fasteners.

I am sure you will get more good advice on your question from other members on this forum.

ortiz_1989

nice alright thanks! Also I want to put snap in carpet in as I do a lot of fishing on the boat and rather not have carpet in when fishing as the bait gets everywhere and what not. The only thing that is stopping me on that is the plywood flooring I don't have that white fiberglass flooring or whatever so any thoughts on that of what I can do to put snap in carpet in?

Michael T

I think that you would be fine with the plywood flooring as, in my opinion, it stays even wetter with glued-sown carpeting. The plywood is marine grade and has usually been surface coated with a thinned fiberglass resin or such product. I believe you would be fine by removing your carpet getting rid of any residue with a very light sanding, tack ragging and re coating of resin or specialty paint - but I personally like the resin more. You could then easily install snaps and voila a snap=in carpet set-up. I know others will add their comments too but IMO what you want to do is completely doable! BTW a couple of forum members have done an amazing job of up-dating the graphics on their boats. there have been some very recent posts on the subject!

ortiz_1989

alright cool thank you for the input. I mostly want the snap in carpet as when I go fishing I'm able to take it out. Did a lot of fishing last year and had lots of hooks getting stuck in the carpet where I even had to cut the carpet a bit just to get them out. Bait getting spilled over and of course that big fish on the carpet smelling the carpet up lol. So I figure snap in carpet would do good to resolve that problem.

Michael T

Another fisherman....wait until MarkB gets talking fishing! If you haven't seen his rig (Rinker 260 with - I can't count how many rods!!!!) you NEED to! LOL

ortiz_1989

haha well cant wait to see that then. And well you can never have to many rods for fishing. I had literally about 40 of them sold them all at a yardsale and now again having close to 30 at least lol.

MarkB

MarkB

MarkB

ortiz_1989

very nice mark. I just got a little 18 foot rinker bow rider lol but it does the job. cant wait for halibut season to get here lost a really nice one last year. Hoping to get a new rod and reel as well.

ortiz_1989

Hoping later in the future to get a bigger boat for fishing/ski definitely will be a rinker again. Very reliable never had any problems. and service is awesome

partlowr

Going from glued down to snap in carpet is a real PITA. You are going to have a hard time getting all the old glue off the floor/gelcoat. It can be done, it will take lots of sanding with a DA sander but you will most likely have to spray down a coat or two of new gelcoat to get it back to a nice finish afterwards. Check out www.snapincarpet.com they might have an existing template for your boat or they will custom make you exactly what you need. For graphics I would check out https://www.racelinedigital.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=89w I just had them do some new vinyl graphics for my boat and they turned out great and at a very fair price. here is a before and after photo of my graphics. Good luck and enjoy your boat!

 

ortiz_1989

nice thank you I will look into that. been doing lots of research of what I can do to my flooring as I have plywood flooring. I don't want to just take the carpet out and put snap in carpet then see parts of the plywood which I think would be ugly lol. unless it wont show any of the plywood then I wouldn't mind just taking the carpet out and putting snap in.