What did you do to your boat today

PickleRick

Still need to cut out the area the steering arm travels, redrill transom mount holes then on to wiring/plumbing.

aero3113

Polished up my stainless cup holders, the previous owner left screws in some of them and they rusted. I used Bar Keepers Friend and they polished right up. Some were worse than others and needed a little more attention.

rasbury

wow...not to be unimpressed with your cup holders, that transom looks awesome but to be honest, I'm not sure how I get how that thing stays attached to the back....so you have layers of fiber glass material in the corners all around....so how thick is it? And there is nothing really on the outside other than to make it cosmetically OK? Looks like if you bumped the out drive, the whole dang thing would fll off!

PickleRick

The hull is 3 parts on the transom, the outer part, almost half an inch thick was never cut.  The inner skeleton(wood) was cut out along with inner(engine side skin) the inside skin is maybe an 1/8th inch thick.  

I glued(with thickened epoxy) 1 new 1/2 thick piece of plywood to the hull.  Then glued the second 1/2 piece of plywood in place.  Then i glued the inner thin inside thick piece of fiberglass back in to its original thickness of about 1.5 inches.  

I then added tabbing (looks like tape) to where i made my cuts to remove the skin.

My tabs are approx 2 to 4 layers thick.  Thicker in bottom and corners.  My tabbing is about twice as thick as the skin.

Before epoxy glue was put on plywood i put a thin coat of epoxy on the plywood and let it soak in a few hours. so it makes both a deep physical bond.  Its stonger than what rinker built ger with.

Each layer was glued in and pressed fit/clamped 1 at a time.  Each individual layer was allowed to cure overnight.  


To make the epoxy resin glue you mix it with a thickener to the consistency between that of mayonnaise and peanut butter.

The voids in the original rinker layup were pretty massive,  this has little to no voids because of better resins and more thorough construction.

PickleRick

If i could figure out a way to put a water jacketed manifold and turbo on one of my 2.0 tdi engines id have it in there.  

rasbury

OK so I'm seeing this as almost like a dry wall repair? So the outer skin you left along. Got that. You cut out the inner skin....I assume most of the rot on a transom is around the engine opening and probably more to the bottom. So, you cut the inner skin as far back as you need to to find solid wood? So, You cut out the wood you need to cut out...so you basically make a "plug" the right size to fit the part you cut out- it just seems that connection between the new and old wood would be a very weak joint and you have a motor  pushing against it the wrong way....

Spyderweb

@aero3113 did your cup holders have black foam in the bottom?  Mine do and and they're getting crumbly.  I like the look of yours.  I could try and get mine up and polish them.

PickleRick

All the wood came out of the transom.  Its only in the area right around the transom housing, it extends about an inch into the stingers on either side of the transom.  When you bond the wood with epoxy resin properly it chemically bonds the 2 together, you dont break the joint you break the wood.

Rot is like rust, all of it needs to be gone or it will come back twice as fast.

The wood inside is just the skeleton, you can join pieces together in some areas, the stingers are not one solid piece of wood on this boat.  Some boat manufactures use structural foam or a ceramic pourable like seacast/arjay instead of wood as it wont ever rot. 

aero3113

@Spyderweb , yes they did. I removed the foam, I like them much better this way. A lot easier to clean and get the moisture out from drinks.

Ian

A couple of mine have started to have the black base curl up also, if it crumbles I may pull out and polish. 

Spyderweb

I think "cupholders" may get added to my list of projects.

johnep

I got to change out the zincs on my new to me unmaintained 360.  The top is the heat exchanger that were never touched.  Then the REAL fun, riser ones that were seized in place.  I got to remove all four riser's to have a machine shop do those. Cheap F**K owners that don't do any maintenance!!!

GMSLITHO

 I didn’t even know there were zincs in there ,lucky I’m in fresh water 

PickleRick

If the risers are over 3 yrs old you'll probably want new risers, if over 5 then new manifolds too.  Assuming you have the standard half loop system, engine closed cooled and exhaust/manifolds raw water cooled.



We are lucky in fresh as my set up is maybe 20 years old.

PickleRick

Wired my bilge pumps up today and was going to wire my new led lights.  Dummy me forgot mercruiser wired the dash into the engine harness so no power to the dash means i cannot wire in the led lights today.   Looks like next weekend im pitting the engine back in

johnep

Pretty crazy how the exhaust is kept dry for converters and the sensors but some water passes through. 

rasbury

I have no clue what I'm looking at...

johnep

Those are the riser on my 2014 360 with Volvo Penta 380 motors.  They have catalytic converters in the risers.  Front and rear exhaust sensors just like automobiles.  Crazy stuff!  I did not expect to find actual converters.

aero3113

That’s pretty cool, what does a riser like that cost if you have to replace one?

PickleRick

Id be thinking...how much more hp would i get if there were not cat converters in there. 

The chevy engines can be tuned to run without the o2 sensor, not sure if the volvo penta ecu can be hacked or not but i know the GMC/Chevy ecu has zero issues doing so.

johnep

The converter itself is replaceable. Its lightly pressed into place and then sealing rings hold it there.  I would think not having them would not help much in the HP area.  The variable cam timing does a great job along with fuel management.  The boat has a ton of power as is.

PickleRick

my sister's first try at the new decal/boat name.  Sadly the admiral nixed this design. 

I realize its bad luck to rename a boat unless it's sank and recovered.  I believe king Neptune will allow me to slide as a fuel tank and transom rebuild is usually not cost effective on a near 30 yr old noat.

Willhound

As long as you flow the proper ceremony Neptune will be all good. As I recall there are many toasts involved. A version here.
 https://www.unitedmarine.net/blog/index.php/2012/04/09/keep-poseidon-appeased-renaming-ceremony/

johnep

The only thing worse then a previous owner that did not do any maintenance is one that lies about it!  This pump was done less then 30 hours ago and was in brackish water.  These people should be lashed in the town square so we all know who they are!

PickleRick

No pics but motor is back in and bolted down.  Was right at freezing temp last night so i was in a rush.  I got lucky and didn't need to adjust the mounts, the alignment bar was a perfect fit the first time.  Apparently my new engine mount was right on the money,  that was a good feeling.

rasbury

That was a very lucky break!

PickleRick

Engine rewiring is done as well as controls.  On to wiring. I now have an anchor/all round light that comes on with the nav light button.  I had wired it into the transom ladder light in a rush to get on the water last spring.  The original all round was on the windshield and in my face when at the helm at night. I had moved it you the rear where it belongs.

We dont have a slip so our weekends are spent on the hook miles from any street lights, the deck lights are a joke for cooking, entertaining or even getting ready for bed.  These are 18w led fog or flood lights like what is sold for flush mount 4x4 bumpers.  Powder coated black aluminum housings.   These are all ankle/low shin level and shoot light out directly forward, they wont blind you unless you lay on the floor.  100× more light on the decks now so when my kid drops the toothpaste lid we find it or more importantly when i drop a beer bottle cap i dont find it with my bare feet.

Forgive the mess on board. She had a nice wax at the end of the season.  Im not cleaning again until im done cutting out the holes for the other lights like this as well as my 8 inch mid range speakers.

PickleRick

That's it for today...one day next week I'll get a little more done.

aero3113

I couldn’t believe the heat that my overhead cabin lights would give off, you couldn’t even touch the light housing/glass with them on. I replaced all of the bulbs with LED, cheaper than replacing with LED assemblies. There are 20 overhead lights in the 330, that would add up quick! No difference in light and cool to the touch.

aero3113

And the LED bulbs are 2 watt where the originals were 20 watt.