2006 Orion

[wet hull]

I’ve had that conversation with a few, after having two fuel gauges i will never go back to just one. With having the IMCO superfuel valve as one tank gets a little lower than the other click to other tank, as next gets a little lower click..... of i ever build a new boat it too will have two fuel gauges for sure.
I am going to hold off on the fuel pressure gauge for now anyway after discussing with Bob at MWI I’m going to try the two fixes he’s given me and then go at it again. I do not believe it actually had anything to do with fuel after all.

Superfuel valve is great as you can switch on the fly. Never had a issue with ours.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Superfuel valve is great as you can switch on the fly. Never had a issue with ours.

Yes i love it and switch tanks often just keeping the boat equal at all times

 

[02HoWaRd26]

So new ........ anti-siphon valves, all new uscg fuel lines , all new fittings. Well at least i know it’s all new and done my way, maybe not right but done my way....

Also Bob at MIW concluded the fittings on the bottom of the headers was improperly installed so as to blow the water right out the water exits rather than through the header then out the exit thus allowing the headers to get way hotter than should be. So the only real option was to move the fittings then buy new way expensive only from Mercruiser hoses, well i moved them then took so .063 wall 1” stainless tubing welded little knuckles on the outer edge to keep from the hose clamp allowing it to slip off then a quickly handy on them with some Mother’s looks pretty good to me and should be the fix i needed.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Well finally got to another cheesy project I’ve been wanting to do. The boy is determined to get his flip flop stuck every time don’t know how what or why but my solution was easy just had to do it. The steps by fenders both have 5 bar diamond plate no clue why they wouldn’t do this from the start but oh well done now.
Before:

After:

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Well just bored and updating this for my own good for later in life.
Rigid Industries courtesy lights all wired up.

 

[pwerwagn]

Nice!! That looks good!

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Finally decided to finish the stereo. I understand why stereo shops are so expensive time consuming like a big dog.
But added the M600.1 and got almost everything built and cut out for sinking the 12 in on opposite wall.
I do believe it’ll be shop quality and done exactly my way when done.
Cutting the 12” and 14” circles was time consuming as hell but came out almost perfect.

Once the face plate is carpeted the sub should sit totally flush with the outer face of the wall.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

You’re doing it, man! Looking good.

 

[pwerwagn]

That’s looking great!!! Lotta work to make stuff look good like that!

 

[blowncommission]

Saw you going through the gorge last weekend. Boat looks good. Thanks for posting, love seeing all the Improvements

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Being an IB subwoofer meant no box which was good as i have no real spare room...

Once I’m done tuning on it I’ll put the covers on the amps but all i can say is I’m extremely pleased with the end results and it turned out exactly as I’d hoped it would.

#yourstereoinstallercallsmeforaprice

 

[Kachina26]

Being an IB subwoofer meant no box which was good as i have no real spare room... View attachment 647352 View attachment 647351 View attachment 647353 View attachment 647354 View attachment 647355 View attachment 647356 View attachment 647357
Once I’m done tuning on it I’ll put the covers on the amps but all i can say is I’m extremely pleased with the end results and it turned out exactly as I’d hoped it would.

#yourstereoinstallercallsmeforaprice

#justhopeyoudidn'tscrewittothetraileragain

 

[Motoxxxloak]

I saw you in the channel too. Tried to wave you down but you was lookin the other way. Boat looks great!


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[02HoWaRd26]

#justhopeyoudidn'tscrewittothetraileragain

Shut up lil guy before i have you abused! #takesarealmantoadmithismostakes

 

[HavaToon]

Looking good! Very smart using multiple layers to mount the sub. That JL is big and heavy and can move some air. If you can seal up the area behind it as much as possible it will greatly improve its out put.


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[02HoWaRd26]

I saw you in the channel too. Tried to wave you down but you was lookin the other way. Boat looks great!


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I am pretty sure we saw you headed north while we were posted up in the channel. Place was a shit show with those jet ski guys doing their shit no one was watching where they were headed lol.
Wtf is with the for sale post, boat is almost done now.

 

[wet hull]

Solid work. Bet it sounds great. You on the water this weekend?

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Solid work. Bet it sounds great. You on the water this weekend?

Yea not sure what days, but i am sure the furthest south we will see will be the gorge.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

So when i bought the boat it had tiny like m6 screws with plastic bozo caps over them to fasten the canopies down. I replaced those with some eBay special aluminum washers like these that were anodized black and M12 stainless screws, well the boat is always stored inside the garage and those quickly still faded to a rusty brown type color. So i found a guy in Canada that sells these that are actually a little smaller also but are raw stainless so finally decided to swap out the black’ish ones this morning to these Stainless ones. Look better but now i wanna pull canopies and have the bottom strip painted silver/gray as a contrast to the boat.

 

[Kachina26]

Shut up lil guy before i have you abused! #takesarealmantoadmithismostakes

Mostakes?

 

[02HoWaRd26]

I am 100% now officially married to this boat lol.
Went to Vegas to drop mama off at the airport and well shouldn’t be spending money after ordering wheels & tires yesterday but well i had already talked to Ron at IMCO and so figured screw it let go talk in person and look at these parts i want to buy eventually............

8” long 15* stainless helm, with a 50cc power box and all the goodies to go between. Won’t make it faster but should make it shiny and safer ultimately!!!

 

[blowncommission]

Haha "eventually"

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Only had a few hours to “play with myself” today but got totally side tracked and started playing with my batteries then worked on fixing a buddies stereo in his boat! But i did get it completely disassembled today. In the am I’ll start by drilling the new holes then color sand and then buff the dash! Then well go at it and see what i cannot screw up myself!!!

While i was doing some errands this afternoon my tire guy called me! So well i only grabbed one as i was in my parking lot pimp mobile

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Long day but I’m getting somewhere. The 15* ss helm had the wheel angled down! Which was worse than bad! Had to run back to Boulder and get the tilt helm (so much for saving money instead the extra trip made it more then original :-( ) but i did get some metal polish used Blue Magic as per a buddy who’s a detailer so after about two hours of color sanding and drilling all the new holes then having to open the center from 2 5/8” to 3” i got the helm, power control valve, and the dash end of the hoses done!! I need to learn to leave shit that works alone......

First thing this morning tho i had to get the rest of the new rollers on!!! These wheels look so so bad ass imho just mad because now I’m jonesing to get the trailer painted worse than i did before! And now the decision to make on whether or not to do SS fenders which i personally don’t care for normally but really think this sob done same gray with SS fenders would pop like a bad bitch!!!

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Got home a bit too late to play much in the garage but i did stop at the mail box and find a package from Bob @ MIW/Dana there. Took a while to get done but i personally think they absolutely killed it on the remote bezel for my JL Audio MMR-20 expect to see these real soon on their website!

 

[02HoWaRd26]

So got the steering all done, well with exception bleeding the system. What a pain.
Anyone have any tips or tricks???

Also got the coolant reservoir cap cover today. No idea why i was so gung hoe on that but i was not going to spend the 120$ for the custom cowling cover.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

I’ve owned and driven with full hydraulic steering, but never gone from cable to hydraulic to truly compare. Got done with everything today and decided after dinner to take boat down and wash it real good at the car wash by needles bridge, almost there and said wtf and went and launched it. Definitely different and the steering is much faster but no more torque steer and have way better feedback on the wheel. Was a pain and a lot of money but totally worth it i feel.

Also got the last of my interior lights in and wired.

 

[wet hull]

Best upgrade we did by far. Glad it worked out

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Was hot as hell (120*+)outside today, however wasn’t bad in garage the thermometer only showed 115* so i decided to take advantage of the cool weather today.

Is it bad that I’m at a loss of what to do next?? Literally cannot think of anything else to do to the boat except new interior (not for at best another year and a half) and having the trailer painted the same gray as the wheels and then the hard decision of whether or not to do stainless fenders or not.....

 

[Carlson-jet]

That was an Awesome read!! Thank you for taking the time to post all of your work.

 

[pwerwagn]

The Orion looks great man. Enjoy the hell out of it now!!

 

[Ijustbarelygothere]

Time to Sell! Haha.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Time to Sell! Haha.

You have no clue!!! It really is, and i absolutely know boats aren’t an investment but the only true thing that keeps me from trying to sell is i know i won’t get my money (without even contemplating the personal hours of labor) back out of it!

 

[Ijustbarelygothere]

Ya for sure. Boat looks great though. Where did you find that coolant reservoir cap? I have a Merc 525 and am starting to customize the engine compartment also.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Ya for sure. Boat looks great though. Where did you find that coolant reservoir cap? I have a Merc 525 and am starting to customize the engine compartment also.

That’s a million dollar secret!!!

Also the Oil fill is same as an LS1 tons out there to chose from.

One i got!
https://www.americanmuscle.com/sr-radiatorcap-9604-chrome.html

Another option
https://www.cjponyparts.com/drake-muscle-cars-radiator-cap-cover-billet-with-carbon-fiber-insert-2005-2013/p/HW283

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Oooooo lala

 

[Motoxxxloak]

Oooooo lala

View attachment 663436

That looks fucking fantastic! Where did you end up finding one?


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[02HoWaRd26]

That looks fucking fantastic! Where did you end up finding one?


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Hahahahaha, Craigslist Nee Joosey

 

[02HoWaRd26]

After a 5 week vacation to visit grandma and grandpa lil homie was stoked to be back in his happy place this weekend.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Just got my MMR-40 displayed remote for the JL MM100S-be and all wired and installed while i was at it decided to also ditch the little screws with caps in my interior for some M6 stainless washers and -14 phillips screws personally think it looks a million times better and no more worries of them popping off and getting lost this way.

 

[blowncommission]

Always like checking out your updated, too many good ideas! I want to do the screw vs cap thing

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Always like checking out your updated, too many good ideas! I want to do the screw vs cap thing

Got the stainless washers off eBay got the screws local.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/172340576126

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Was playing around last week and decided to move the drive fluid reservoir to the transom rather than on the motor, that meant to move the bilge blower tho but that worked when i found some blue ducting and my affliction with blue well i had to.

Bought this lower housing a few months ago but just finally got it to my house as i had a buddy pick it up for me.

When Pedro got done with filling my gauge holes on passenger side, he wasn’t happy as he could just barely make out the outline of the work. So now that the season has slowed i dropped the boat back off with him and he already fixed what no one but him could see was a little flawed as well he’s going to paint the bottom of the canopies to a gray vs the black.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Being i started early with the #Fuckbluelightlaws and all my interior lighting is Rigid Industries, i decided to do some more and keep with Rigid. The front of my boat has a 1.75” lip for no known reason other than a perfect lip to mount some lights facing back into the tunnel. So i went with two Rigid A series low power white body blue led lights, I’m stoked is all i can say. Next i am going to have to go buy the Rigid Wake Flames and pray my bs works when i eventually get caught.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

On boat not trailer

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Not 100% on these here yet! Maybe find another location but needed beach music. Went with the JL Vex’s as i am not looking to blow everyone off the beach, it’s not a wake dork boat after all........

 

[pwerwagn]

Those lights look cool!

 

[02HoWaRd26]

Those lights look cool!

Thank you, can’t wait to get the canopies back just so i can do an evening cruise.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

So i had removed the canopies to have Saleen do some gel repair, that led to screw it i hate that black stripe on the bottom of them.
Pedro stripped the black strip but then we decided he’s a gel specialist not paint for say. He made some calls for me and well no one at all wants to touch these stupid things after almost two weeks of nothing i shot @RiverDave a text to see if he had anyone in Havasu up his sleeve.
His reply was “shop or garage” i said “i don’t care as long as they’re good. So he shot me a number to a guy named Scott (Scott’s Custom Colors) so i immediately give dude a call we chat he says “well I’m out of town I’ll be back at end of the week” so we just set up for him to grab the canopies from Saleen when he got back into town.
Fast forward to that Monday he texts me saying he had them we just need to meet to discuss colors i sent him this as well we discussed my desired layout:

Well he basically laughed out loud and said “no you need to bring boat down so we can get the colors exactly how you want them......” so i himmed and haaaa’d to get the time to get up there with the boat the next day. We spent about an hour or so at his supplier to mix and match paint till i was happy. Then he went left i went right...... back to Saleen to have him do a few more tiny spots on my boat as well it’s in town may as well have another old scratch fixed.

So Scott got after sanding and buffing the canopies our and called as he was concerned about the fact they had some “crazing” in them. Me not fully understanding what he meant by that i stuck to the fact i wanted painted from inside not the outside.

So he shot them then sent pics that were self evident of what he meant about the crazing!!!

So we discussed that they had to be painted on the outside after all, not what i really wanted but at that point what could i do. So he did some tape lines to show the effect of paint on the 3/8” thick lexan to be sure i didn’t want to strip the insides.

Which it is what it is at this point let’s get it done i said! So he sent me these the next day!

Today he text me letting me know he was finished with buffing them out which i had no clue was half as crazy as it is. Some sections, the bad bad areas, took 400g the rest he went from 1000g all the way step by step to 5000g and it’s ba ass the difference sitting in the seat how much clearer they are. As well the colors on the bottom that i wasn’t so sure of even though i am the one who made the decisions with the color.
But once mounted on the boat wow, i am truly ecstatic with the turn out.

And beyond again thank you to Dave for the referral but even better yet a huge thank you to Scott he was awesome from start to finish of this endeavor.

 

[King295]

Canopies came out sweet!