Project StressEliminator Restomod-23 Daytona

[HydroSkreamin]

This is incredible! I just spent the last hour reading this and totally enjoying it! You guys seem like a great group of dudes! I have zero talent, so watching guys do this who do is just mind blowing! Can't wait to see more progress :thumbsup

Glad you like it, we aim to please. This thread is kind of a warning to be realistic about what lurks below on used boat purchases and it's also documenting the journey of getting a cool-to-me Eliminator back on the water.

It should start getting a little more exciting than just fiberglassing stuff pretty soon..... What I will say is anyone can get the skills; we've never done any of this stuff before, but are handy enough in other areas that it carries over. Hanging around with someone who is doing something like this and pitching in is kind of how we all got into this. I'm guessing HeadlessHula will tell you he's learned a ton from my project, and even applied some of it to his own boat; filling in the transom and raising the X-dimension. All the exact same materials and tools that we used on the StressEliminator were used on the HeadlessHula. You can do it! Figuring out where to start and having a place, the time and ambition is another thing.

Thanks for following along, we'll try to pick up the pace here soon.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Those subs and the Infinity components will sound great. Awesome project

Thanks for the feedback. Can you or anyone else explain to me why it's not recommended to use a ported box in a boat? I've had trucks with ported and non-ported boxes and for the music I listen to, I prefer a ported box. Not that the non-ported box sounded bad, it just didn't have the same sound as my ported box.

I'm thinking my amp and components are reasonably balanced, and that it should sound decent. I'm really kind of itching just to wire it all up and hear it thump, but will wait until boxes are built.

 

[SBMech]

Thanks for the feedback. Can you or anyone else explain to me why it's not recommended to use a ported box in a boat? I've had trucks with ported and non-ported boxes and for the music I listen to, I prefer a ported box. Not that the non-ported box sounded bad, it just didn't have the same sound as my ported box.

I'm thinking my amp and components are reasonably balanced, and that it should sound decent. I'm really kind of itching just to wire it all up and hear it thump, but will wait until boxes are built.

I'm thinking because the boat is the box? When it's on the water the hull acts as the box...my theory anyhow..

 

[HydroSkreamin]

After looking at a bunch of steering wheels, I found a few that I liked, but they didn't fit the vibe of the boat that I wanted. The original wheel, although kind of cheesy by today's standards, has a cool look and feel to it, so I decided since the original hub was faded and too long with my tilt hydraulic helm, we'd change it up a bit and give the hub a facelift.

Here's the original dash, minus gauges, the way I purchased it.


Machining a new hub to fit the old wheel, the old fashioned way, in an old lathe. Started with a cutoff from the scrap pile, about 5" in diameter and 2" thick.


Starting to shape up. I kind of winged it on the fly designing this. I didn't want too much of a "Devo hat" so I messed around with diameters and angles until I was happy. You can see that I utilized the tapered and keyed center of the old hub and incorporated it into the new hub to save me some machine time and to keep some old parts involved, and this helm will have "blinker switches" for trim and jack plate, letting the driver keep both hands on the wheel at speed.


I used some of the old parts for mock-up to get a general idea of what I wanted for a steering wheel center. The hub was machined with reliefs in the back for stainless socket-head capscrews (fancy correct name for Allen bolts) to hide the fasteners.


This looks crude at this point, but you have to start somewhere to get the shape I wanted, so here's the chunk to begin with.


I don't have the CNC skills, so I tapped into one of my friends at work who does, and Timmy did a bang-up job on it, I think. This will get etched with the Eliminator logo before it is Transparent Blue powdercoated.


Here's the first dash layout with the hole cut for the tilt helm, and a VesselView7 touchscreen for the gauge interface with the engine.


As the layout progressed, I included Eliminator and Mercury Racing logos on the dash, as my aformentioned buddy Kevin at Motion Metalworks would be cutting out the dash on his 6kW laser. Again, you have to start somewhere, and it's easy to envision something with sized renderings of what you might want. I just kept resizing them and printing them until I got what I was looking for.


Remember that salvaged tapered hub from a few pictures back? I put the tapered hub in the freezer, and machined the main hub .005" smaller than the tapered hub at room temperature. Then I put the main hub in the oven at 400[SUP]o[/SUP]F. After an hour, I pulled both parts out and had an arbor press set up to hold the tapered hub from walking out of its new home in the main hub as it came up to temp. Now there is a .005" interference fit, meaning you are going to have to put a couple of tons of force to push them apart. This negates the need for welding.


Fully machined wheel hub and cap.


Motion Metalworks http://www.motionmetalworks.com/what-we-do also has an in-house powdercoating facility. I'm not talking about your EZBake oven here, it's a full fledged, specialized wash, dryer, and real p-coat facility. Kevin told me to go to https://www.prismaticpowders.com/ and search for colors I liked, and order some samples, so we could pick a color that worked. They only had 3 of my five sample requests in stock, but that was OK, because I found a color that I really liked: Transparent Blue. The dash, steering wheel hub and cap, grab handles, and any other thing I can think of will get boxed up and sent to be made blue. It's the color on the bottom.


To finish up the dash, I needed to mount that JBL head unit that goes in a 3-3/8" gauge hole. The only problem is, the dash to the right of the main dash is on a much steeper angle, and the radio not only looked goofy, but I was worried about seeing it and operating it. Well, a buddy had just finished rerigging an older Fountain, and had some angled bezels left over. He let me have one to try on for size, and although it fit, I didn't like how the radio stuck out of it as an afterthought, so I decided to make one to my liking, a bit thinner and recessed to cover all of the assembly joints of the radio. Once powdercoated Transparent Blue, I think it will have a nice contrast to the chrome bezel.




Here's the head unit mocked-up as installed. I'm quite pleased with the look, location, and lack of protrusion into the cabin crawlspace. We'll make sure to do a clean job of the wiring when installing it. I'm guessing we'll be streaming or pulling music from a USB stick, as it has inputs for an aux cord or USB.

Next installment: Dash design and trial cut

 

[Flying_Lavey]

After looking at a bunch of steering wheels, I found a few that I liked, but they didn't fit the vibe of the boat that I wanted. The original wheel, although kind of cheesy by today's standards, has a cool look and feel to it, so I decided since the original hub was faded and too long with my tilt hydraulic helm, we'd change it up a bit and give the hub a facelift.

Here's the original dash, minus gauges, the way I purchased it.
View attachment 536971

Machining a new hub to fit the old wheel, the old fashioned way, in an old lathe. Started with a cutoff from the scrap pile, about 5" in diameter and 2" thick.
View attachment 536972

Starting to shape up. I kind of winged it on the fly designing this. I didn't want too much of a "Devo hat" so I messed around with diameters and angles until I was happy. You can see that I utilized the tapered and keyed center of the old hub and incorporated it into the new hub to save me some machine time and to keep some old parts involved, and this helm will have "blinker switches" for trim and jack plate, letting the driver keep both hands on the wheel at speed.
View attachment 536973

I used some of the old parts for mock-up to get a general idea of what I wanted for a steering wheel center. The hub was machined with reliefs in the back for stainless socket-head capscrews (fancy correct name for Allen bolts) to hide the fasteners.
View attachment 536974

This looks crude at this point, but you have to start somewhere to get the shape I wanted, so here's the chunk to begin with.
View attachment 536977

I don't have the CNC skills, so I tapped into one of my friends at work who does, and Timmy did a bang-up job on it, I think. This will get etched with the Eliminator logo before it is Transparent Blue powdercoated.
View attachment 536978

Here's the first dash layout with the hole cut for the tilt helm, and a VesselView7 touchscreen for the gauge interface with the engine.
View attachment 536980

As the layout progressed, I included Eliminator and Mercury Racing logos on the dash, as my aformentioned buddy Kevin at Motion Metalworks would be cutting out the dash on his 6kW laser. Again, you have to start somewhere, and it's easy to envision something with sized renderings of what you might want. I just kept resizing them and printing them until I got what I was looking for.
View attachment 536981

Remember that salvaged tapered hub from a few pictures back? I put the tapered hub in the freezer, and machined the main hub .005" smaller than the tapered hub at room temperature. Then I put the main hub in the oven at 400[SUP]o[/SUP]F. After an hour, I pulled both parts out and had an arbor press set up to hold the tapered hub from walking out of its new home in the main hub as it came up to temp. Now there is a .005" interference fit, meaning you are going to have to put a couple of tons of force to push them apart. This negates the need for welding.
View attachment 536982

Fully machined wheel hub and cap.
View attachment 536983 View attachment 536984

Motion Metalworks http://www.motionmetalworks.com/what-we-do also has an in-house powdercoating facility. I'm not talking about your EZBake oven here, it's a full fledged, specialized wash, dryer, and real p-coat facility. Kevin told me to go to https://www.prismaticpowders.com/ and search for colors I liked, and order some samples, so we could pick a color that worked. They only had 3 of my five sample requests in stock, but that was OK, because I found a color that I really liked: Transparent Blue. The dash, steering wheel hub and cap, grab handles, and any other thing I can think of will get boxed up and sent to be made blue. It's the color on the bottom.
View attachment 536985

To finish up the dash, I needed to mount that JBL head unit that goes in a 3-3/8" gauge hole. The only problem is, the dash to the right of the main dash is on a much steeper angle, and the radio not only looked goofy, but I was worried about seeing it and operating it. Well, a buddy had just finished rerigging an older Fountain, and had some angled bezels left over. He let me have one to try on for size, and although it fit, I didn't like how the radio stuck out of it as an afterthought, so I decided to make one to my liking, a bit thinner and recessed to cover all of the assembly joints of the radio. Once powdercoated Transparent Blue, I think it will have a nice contrast to the chrome bezel.
View attachment 536986 View attachment 536987

View attachment 536988 View attachment 536989 View attachment 536990

Here's the head unit mocked-up as installed. I'm quite pleased with the look, location, and lack of protrusion into the cabin crawlspace. We'll make sure to do a clean job of the wiring when installing it. I'm guessing we'll be streaming or pulling music from a USB stick, as it has inputs for an aux cord or USB.

Next installment: Dash design and trial cut

View attachment 536991 View attachment 536992

Looks awesome! I like the round stereo. Of I can ever afford to re-do my dash, I'd like to go that route with the stereo set-up as well.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

I'm thinking because the boat is the box? When it's on the water the hull acts as the box...my theory anyhow..

There's some truth to that! My buddy with a 21 Skater says when he moved his sub to the cabin it turned the boat into a speaker itself, making the water ripple much more.

Per his strong suggestion, I'm putting both my subs in non-ported boxes forward facing in the cabin. He also suggested to put them in boxes and move them around the cabin to see how they sound in different locations before they're permanently mounted.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Looks awesome! I like the round stereo. Of I can ever afford to re-do my dash, I'd like to go that route with the stereo set-up as well.

What's funny is, my first choice for the stereo was this Fusion unit: https://www.amazon.com/Fusion-MS-RA50-iPOD-iPHONE-Bluetooth-Marine/dp/B007HFCIG0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1465627329&sr=8-3&keywords=fusion+marine+stereo

I did try it in one of the original tach holes to see how it fit, and it fit perfectly, so if you were redoing your dash, it could fill that space nicely.

After comparison shopping I chose the JBL mostly because the Bluetooth was incorporated into the unit itself, and the Fusion needed an add-on unit.

I think it was a good way to get rid of the hole previously occupied by a depthfinder. It should be reachable from both seats, and is centered enough to get to easily from the rear seats.

 

[Headless hula]

What's funny is, my first choice for the stereo was this Fusion unit: https://www.amazon.com/Fusion-MS-RA50-iPOD-iPHONE-Bluetooth-Marine/dp/B007HFCIG0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1465627329&sr=8-3&keywords=fusion+marine+stereo

I did try it in one of the original tach holes to see how it fit, and it fit perfectly, so if you were redoing your dash, it could fill that space nicely.

After comparison shopping I chose the JBL mostly because the Bluetooth was incorporated into the unit itself, and the Fusion needed an add-on unit.

I think it was a good way to get rid of the hole previously occupied by a depthfinder. It should be reachable from both seats, and is centered enough to get to easily from the rear seats.

Hey, do you remember how many pre outs that deal has?

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Hey, do you remember how many pre outs that deal has?

It has four low level outputs Front-L/R, Rear-L/R. I like that because you can get some balance using the fader on the head unit, and still use the crossover on the amp for filtering frequencies.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

As I was trying to come up with a CAD file for my dash so my buddy Kevin at Motion Metalworks could cut my dash, I had help from a friend at work, Jack. He's a boater and has very good attention to detail, and helped me immensely.

I drew up the dash on paper, (you know, the old fashioned way) and Jack made a dxf file out of it and printed a 1:1 scaled copy so I could check it against the real dash before we had any parts cut, as my measurements were all by hand with a tape measure.



It was a good thing we did, as we had to make slight tweaks to make things fit existing holes perfectly. I added the logos so Kevin had an idea where I wanted them.



With the corrected dimensions, and adding areas to show Kevin how much room the steering helm and start switch bezel occupied, the second draft fit like a glove. It was then sent to Kevin at Motion Metalworks so he could import it into his software and make the necessary additions for the laser cuts.



Kevin did his magic and sent me a screenshot as a proof to give the OK on cutting a sample



I gave the OK, and he cut a few samples. He put a shoplight in a Lowe's bucket to give me the effect of the blue backlighting it's going to have. Effective!

Hot off the laser:







Just before Christmas, a care package arrived with 5 cut parts, 3 for playing with and 2 "for real" parts. The blue is the color sample of the powdercoat I plan on using on this dash and all the shiny metal parts on the boat.



I used one of the test pieces to add some engine turning, just to see what it would look like. I didn't have the piece secured well enough, and I didn't know exactly how to space them, but I have a pretty good feel for it now, and when I have a block of time to do a complete test piece, I will do it.



The Willys in the background was a car Kevin built, and I worked for the engine shop that supplied the power. It was a car that would turn us from acquaintances into long time friends. We had a LOT of fun with that car, and I think it was the first car Kevin had in a magazine. The hand art was one of the machinists at the engine shop; he'd do the Ed Roth style 55 Chevy during a 10 minute break as a doodle and throw them away. I always thought they were cool as hell, so I grabbed a couple.

I apologize for the upside down and sideways pix, if someone would inform me how to change it, I certainly would. Annoying.

 

[cicchetti_24]

There's some truth to that! My buddy with a 21 Skater says when he moved his sub to the cabin it turned the boat into a speaker itself, making the water ripple much more.

Per his strong suggestion, I'm putting both my subs in non-ported boxes forward facing in the cabin. He also suggested to put them in boxes and move them around the cabin to see how they sound in different locations before they're permanently mounted.

I have 4 "free flow JL 12's under my deck. The boat stereo is insane.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

That is really tasteful, and I bet it hammers! Nice!:thumbup:

 

[cicchetti_24]

That is really tasteful, and I bet it hammers! Nice!:thumbup:

Oh that is just a teaser....

This thing is ridiculous you can't hear the person next to you standing 2 inches from your face

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Oh that is just a teaser....

This thing is ridiculous you can't hear the person next to you standing 2 inches from your face

That sounds like a bitchin system, why don't you do a little write-up on it in the audio section? People are always trying to design a system, and if you have something that kicks ass, why not lay out the map on how to do it? Other would definitely appreciate it.

Mine's going to just be adequate, no melting of faces here!

 

[HydroSkreamin]

The hatch that was on the StressEliminator was original, plastic, and cracked. I spent hours looking for a new one online, contacted Eliminator to see if they had any old stock or could order one, and none were available. So there I was, stuck with an odd sized (by today's standards) hatch hole in my deck.

I decided to try to go just a little bigger and then I could just cut the fiberglass to the new dimensions and be done with it. The tough part is on this deck, the center area where the hatch resides is raised kind of like a hood scoop for styling, and probably deck stiffness, too. The width of this "scoop" would determine how wide I could go and still fit a hatch without the flange hanging over the sides and looking goofy.

A smaller hatch would require a filler panel, and I really didn't want to do that, and the original hatch was small enough, anyway. Well, I ended up having to make a filler panel regardless, as the hatch I purchased had to be slid rearward in order to not overhang the raised deck.

My searches kept taking me back to Great Lakes Skipper, (http://greatlakesskipper.com/) an online store that seems to have NOS and overstock boat items. I bought the hatch, billet grab handles, bilge pumps, access panels, and a whole bunch of other stuff that totalled $1000. It's in Racine, WI, so my wife and I got up early on a Saturday and made the 2-1/2 hour jaunt to get parts that I needed for working on the boat on my week off. To decide which hatch to use, I narrowed it down to 3 different hatches, made cardboard templates of each model's cutout dimensions and laid them on over my existing hatch hole, and ended up with one that was 22"x22-1/2".

I used 1/8" aluminum, laid out the hatch where it wouldn't overhang, took measurements and cut the aluminum on the bandsaw to the outside dimensions. Then I laid the hatch on top centered up perfectly, transferred the outline of the hatch inner flange onto the filler panel, cut the corners with a holesaw that matched the radius of the hatch flange, and used the jigsaw to open up the rest of the opening, leaving about an 1/8" of extra material to sand for precise fit.

Borrowing a spindle sander from Crash's brother, I set up shop at the transom and climbed in and out of the boat fitting the piece to the hatch first, taking my time and making that fit absolutely perfect with no slop whatsoever, then clamped the filler piece to the worktable and used my belt sander with a 36 grit belt to make it fit the lines of the boat to my satisfaction. I think it came out nice, and will have Kevin at Motion Metalworks powdercoat it Transparent Blue with the rest of my components. The front of the filler utilizes the bolt holes from the original hatch flange, and the rest utilize the new hatch flange. I will use stainless flathead socket capscrews for the hatch and flange with nyloc nuts on the inside so it never loosens.

I'm very happy with how it fits, and once it's powdercoated blue I'll be happy with how it looks. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures throughout the process, just the end result. All in all, I probably have about 3-4 hours in this little project.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

If you remember from a few posts back when we were doing the transom install, the area where the deck met the hull at the transom had a little Z/28-style "spoiler". It was perplexing me how to fill that in to make a nice radius to tab the top of the transom in a clean and strong fashion. Well, here's what we came up with.

Problem area




The intent was to fillet the inside of that joint in a good sized radius that the 1808 would bend around. The first idea that came to mind was to just use microspheres and strike it off with a custom shaped Bondo spreader, but that would be a brittle combo applied that thick. The next idea was to use Marglas, as it has short fiber strands in it, but it's heavy and $35/gallon. Crash asked, "Why can't we use wood?". Leave it to a contractor to use wood! Turns out, that was probably the best bet, so we went forward with that.

CAD-generated profile (Cardboard Aided Design!)



We repurposed a cutoff from one of the stringers. Perfect! We're going green here!

Then, we had to figure out a way to cove out the filler piece to get our radius. The next picture is not for the OSHA inspectors. We did keep safety in mind, but I don't recommend trying this at home if you don't have a good feel for how tools grab. Using the table saw merely as a base, we clamped a Dewalt circular saw upside down, as well as a piece of plywood for a guide. Feeding the repurposed wood across the blade, and adjusting the Dewalt to cut about a 1/16" deeper each time, we got the task done. It took 3 batteries to achieve this, but we were quite happy with the results.





Then we propped it up in the "spoiler" for a test fit.



To install it permanently, we cut 3 layers of CSM and wet it out, placing all 3 layers on the coved insert. In hindsight, I probably would not have fit the wood so tight to the hull, as the 3 layers wetted were quite thick, but we jammed it in there and wedged it in place for curing. More stiffness! It will also tie that transom in nicely to the deck when it gets tabbed with 1808.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

So, since we notched the center pod, Roger challenged me to find a way to vent the notch, similar to how a step works for ventilating the bottoms of hulls. He wanted me to run a hose right behind the rear seat, but I do not want anything near the passenger compartment, both for noise and aesthetics reasons. I put my brain to work, and here is what I came up with.

The concept is to bring air in through 3" PVC, which has an area of 7.06 in[SUP]2[/SUP]. The plan is to pull air from under the deck in the storage area right at the transom, and pipe it through the 3" PVC to (4) 1-1/2" holes (Total of 7.06 in[SUP]2[/SUP]) right at the front of the notch, immediately aft of the 6" rise. The 4 holes going through the bottom of the notch have exactly the same total area as the 3" PVC feeding them, so there should be no restriction.

Pic of concept layout



The PVC is really just a structure to 'glass over, it will get Marglassed in place and layers of 1808 laid over it to encapsulate and seal. I used thinwall PVC to save the weight, as it is not at all structural, the 'glass will do the work of structural support and sealing.

The only real downside to this method is that the lower tube sits full of water until the boat moves forward and creates a negative pressure behind the original center pod. If you calculate the distance needed to travel to empty the complete tube, it's a couple of feet on a hard launch. The intent of this is to break the eddy behind the center pod while planing so the water can break free from that center pod cleanly and completely. I guess we'll see how it works!

I bought a couple of 90[SUP]o[/SUP] elbows for plumbing this, but the transom angle is 14[SUP]o[/SUP], and neither Lowe's or Home Depot seem to stock the 104[SUP]o[/SUP] elbow that I needed, so Crash and I set out to make one. We did a little internet searching and found that PVC pipe is extruded at 300[SUP]o[/SUP]F, so we decided to use a propane torch and an infrared thermal gun to monitor temperature. The pipe heated easily, but would shrink back when cooling, so we kept applying heat until we had a PVC pretzel. Start over!

I picked up a few more elbows on the way home the next night for experimentation: I didn't spend $10! We decided to put hose clamps on the sockets with 3' chunks of PVC in them for leverage and to keep things round. Then we used Crash's heavy duty heat gun and warmed the elbow to 250[SUP]o[/SUP]F. This worked perfectly, and we had to do 2 or 3 sessions of heat 'n bend, but we got the angle perfect! I decided I wanted to use clear PVC for the feed tube above the floor so we can mount a camera in there and film it, so I bought a piece off eBay for $22. It showed up two days later, and it was thickwall, so I took it in the lathe and turned it down to the dimension we needed for fit the thinwall socket.



Since we were going to be running the 3" PVC up the transom, we needed to know where the jackplate bolts were going to be on the transom, so Crash and I located the engine and jackplate, marked the holes and drilled them using the jackplate for a drill guide.



So, this is going to mess with my OCD, as I like symmetry, but at least the angle of the PVC matches the angle of the jackplate bolt pattern! It's the best I could do....





I found a radiused rubber inlet for an old airbox I had laying around, and it fit the PVC perfectly, so I took the belt sander to it and ground a flat on it so it would sit against the transom, and she's ready.



Here it is up under the deck



I have to finish tabbing the transom and frames, then this has to get glassed in before the floor can go down. We're getting to the part where you have to pay close attention to what order things are done or it won't work.

I'll probably do some kind of stainless plate on the inside of the transom just so the washers don't pull, and I can make wings on it to attach this vent to. Can't wait to see how it works! If for some reason we don't like it or has some negative effects, we can always fill it in, but I'm thinking it'll do the job.

 

[J.P.]

Any progress updates,...we been waiting...

 

[HydroSkreamin]

It's been one year since we started restructuring this resin bucket, and it's time to finish it. I took off Easter week to get as far as I could on it. HeadlessHula helped when he could, as well as Crash. We achieved everything that I had hoped, and then some.

I haven't been able to dedicate much time over the winter to this project, but it's in full swing now. Shooting for first week of May to get interior started.

Dash update-

I never got to test fit the stainless dash panels that Kevin from Motion Metalworks made for me, so at my first opportunity, I did, and am very happy with the initial results:



For grins, I put blue painter's tape on the backside and shined a worklight through the old Swiss cheese dash holes just to get a glimpse of what the dash will look like lit:



HeadlessHula helped me glass in new wood to eliminate the Swiss cheese effect and hopefully add some strength:



A shot of the backside with an extension over to the deck for support. I forgot to mention that we wrapped this with 2 laps worth of 1808 for added stiffness. Once we added the Marglas to make the fillets it really stiffened up. It'll be even stiffer once it is tabbed in.



We had made a filler piece for the passenger side of the dash as well, double wrapping it with 1808 double biax as well. Just Marglassing this in place made the grab handle area WAY stiffer:



Next update: Tabbing!

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Any progress updates,...we been waiting...

Ha! You read my mind and posted while I was updating. Enjoy!!

 

[Dan Lorenze]

This is a great thread, I'm really enjoying it and very impressed with your skills.. I was curious if you planned on capping the hull. With your skills and all of your buddies you could knock it out no problem.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

I appreciate your confidence in our work, but technically we are only one week past being rookies! :rolleyes

I've thought about capping it, but really wanted to limit the gel work to the transom and maybe the dash. It's going to get some kind of rubrail on it, haven't decided yet what that's gonna be. I'd love to put the 1" wide blue anodized back on it like original, but no one has it in stock. I could get clear anodized, wrap the seam, take it all off, and powdercoat it, but I'm not having that kind of time. It'll most likely get a stainless rail with rubber insert.

I've been hoping people would enjoy the work on this, it's been a load of work, but it's really coming out to my liking. Hopefully it runs as good as it is laid up!:thumbsup

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Finally, after 3 years, the StressEliminator's transom is complete!

What started out as a daunting task wrapped up nicely due to the experience we gained in doing the rest of the 'glass work on this boat. I'm so very pleased with the results. Along the way we learned how valuable prep work is, (as with any job, I guess!) and in keeping with the theme of building things as strong as we know how, this one came out nice.

The filler piece Crash and I made last fall needed a little touch-up and filler on the edge gaps, so HeadlessHula and I put some microspheres in there when we were filleting other pieces in the boat. We then let it kick, and I hit the large edges with the 4" grinder, but then took a different approach to the large radius. I put a 3/4"x1-1/2" sanding roll on my die grinder and sanded the edges of the curves to blend tangentially into the deck and transom. The result was a nice, flowing curve, and this allowed the large pieces of 1808 to flow right against it and find a permanent home.

"Cove" prep:



The layup consisted of the first layer, with a piece 7"x68", second layer 9"x68", third layer 13"x68". I'm here to tell you putting those chunks over your head and making them stick and roll out with no air bubbles is an interesting challenge! Crash and I were in the boat, and HeadlessHula was wetting out pieces and handing them to us. He helped hold the center in place while Crash and I rolled out and it came out absolutely perfect! Definitely a 3 man job for my situation.



I'm extremely pleased with the solution we came up with for bonding that joint, and the execution of it. I truthfully don't think it could have gone any better. Well, Crash and I could have done without the resin in our beards, moustaches, and hair!:eek

The rest of the transom tabbing went excellent as well, as HeadlessHula measured each joint and determined what size all the tabs would be. We made the first layer 6" wide, for 3" per side, the second layer was 8" wide, for 4" per side, and the third layer was 12" wide, for 6" per side. This will make nice strong corners! Hula cut all the pieces and laid them in order of layup in each area of the boat before hand, and was a wettin' mofo. The whole job took about 2-1/2 hours with a short break.







My special thanks to Crash and HeadlessHula for manning the FRP lab on Easter Sunday. Without their help and persistence, none of this would have been possible, and I have the utmost appreciation for their time and efforts.

 

[Headless hula]

RD SUX!

 

[HydroSkreamin]

As we are getting ready to install the floor panels, I'm trying to plan exactly where the seats will go. My original intent was to try to figure out where the seat bases needed to be, and put a strap with some studs welded to it under the floor with the studs sticking up through the floor, but I don't have a finished seat, so some of those dimensions get sketchy. I was finally talked into getting the seats done and 'glassing some bases in for them.

Checkmate Powerboats started an interior and gel repair service last year, in addition to making nice, family V-bottom boats. I got hooked up with Dean Reynolds of Checkmate, and he's helped me plan, give me guidance, advice, and requirements to meet so he can have his crew do a complete interior for me, as well as take care of the 100+ holes in the transom skin, and re-gel to match the factory white on it.

I requested that one of the seat bases we planned on using on the interior be sent to me, so I could fabricate the pieces needed to adapt the throttle and shift mechanism into the armrest. Since this is a left helm boat, and I hate left hand throttles, and also don't want a console clogging up access to the front seats, I'm integrating the throttle and shift into the armrest, keeping ergonomics in mind, as well as trying not to make it look like an afterthought.

Here's the first take as the brown truck dropped it off while we were glassing.

Side:



Front:



Top:



Dean is sending me some of the foam so I can do a little better planning on control placement. We discussed the fact that I may need to notch the outside of the seat housing so the control sits in there nicely. My plan is to use some 0.125" aluminum and weld up what I need to support the control, and place rivnuts on the side of the seat to bolt that weldment solidly to the rotomolded seat.

I'm looking forward to integrating this control into the seat, and working with Dean on getting a new interior into the ol' StressEliminator. The best part is, after interior comes rigging! :champagne:

 

[footer]

Have you considered a foot throttle with left hand shift? I had that set up in two boats, and absolutely loved the foot throttle in a performance boat. Having both hands on the wheel when things get rowdy is awesome.

And this is not a sales pitch, but I have a brand new CP Performance foot throttle just taking up space in my garage. It can be rigged to function with a hand throttle, providing throttle control by hand or foot.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Have you considered a foot throttle with left hand shift? I had that set up in two boats, and absolutely loved the foot throttle in a performance boat. Having both hands on the wheel when things get rowdy is awesome.

And this is not a sales pitch, but I have a brand new CP Performance foot throttle just taking up space in my garage. It can be rigged to function with a hand throttle, providing throttle control by hand or foot.

Footer, thanks for the offer, and yes, I am actually going to have both. I showed the foot throttle I'm going to use in a much earlier post.



I'm going to either convert this one to DTS or mount this pedal in place of the TH Marine pedal on a Mercury DTS Foot throttle. Either way, when using a Zero Effort control, only one throttle can be plugged in at a time. The options around this are to make 2 helms, and switch between helms, or power down the system and plug whichever one you want to use it, and make sure they adapt at the same value to not cause faults. If I wanted the Panel Mount DTS, with the ugly lever, I could switch between the ugly lever and the foot throttle. I just don't like the look of the Panel Mount, or the amount of area you need for the travel in forward and reverse, it's quite a swing.

I plan on utilizing the foot throttle most of the time, as I agree with you, it's nice to have both hands on the wheel, exactly why I have the "turn signal" controls for the trim and jackplate. The only time I'll need the throttle portion of the Zero Effort is if I want to slow cruise and don't want to hold my foot on the pedal, and can just leave the lever where I want cruise and enjoy the ride.

The other thing I haven't figured out yet is what to do for the other foot; nothing, or a dead pedal that matches this one. I'll probably make a dead pedal that at least has this shape, maybe I can at least mill the fins into it to make it match somewhat, or talk to one of my CNC buddies and see if they can match it in a left-hand version. That would probably look the best. What say you?

 

[Headless hula]

Figured I'd contribute an action shot of today's activites.
😉

 

[Headless hula]

Crash says "Hi"...

Over head sux...

 

[HydroSkreamin]

The deck seems like a pretty light layup on this boat, and as we're crawling in and out of this thing while working on it I've noticed how flexy it is, especially around the hatch area. I know it will stiffen up a little just by installing the hatch, and I'm not expecting to be able to walk on it, but I don't want to be watching the deck bounce while I'm enjoying my ride, so I put some thought into how to get some support without adding a bunch of weight. By my reasoning, even if I break the one huge deck panel into 5 smaller ones the deck motion should be less.

My thought was to add a filler piece into the center of the deck, what we'll call the "hood scoop" area, and then add some pieces arched under it and glassed in to support it, forming an "H".

Thoughts drawn in fiberglass dust:



First order of business was to fill the hole, so HeadlessHula and I made a filler piece, and laid up both sides with 1808. Then we cut strips for 3 layers of CSM, and predrilled the piece to utilize the hatch bolt holes to pull the wood tightly against the deck. Then we wet out the 3 layers of CSM, jammed the filler into place, and put a support rod under it to keep pressure up against the deck, and tightened the through bolts to squeeze it evenly.





The front crossbrace was simple, we just cut some of our 3/8" marine plywood 6" wide and 60" long, cutting tapers on each edge to make it trapezoidal. The rear brace was a little more difficult, as I figured if we added a filler piece in the "fake windshield" area, it would tie into the hatch support nicely, and also allow the 1808 to tie the upper deck to the lower deck, hopefully adding support to the hatch area at the same time. Since this area is curved, I elected to make a pattern from cardboard. It was crude, so I made adjustments and HeadlessHula and I made another out of masonite.



We checked fit, cut another piece of plywood, checked fit on that, beveled the ends, and marglassed both pieces in place, supporting them strategically to focus the force to take any voids out behind them. We used the excess marglass that oozed out as filler for filleting between the wood pieces and the deck, smoothing it with Bondo spreaders.



HeadlessHula cut all the CSM and 1808 to glass those pieces in while I ground the wood and marglass to fit to my liking, making fillets as generous as I could so the 1808 would lay in there. Crash showed up and got put to work. It was a good thing there were three of us, because fiberglassing directly overhead just plain sucks. HeadlessHula had a good idea; cut a piece of cardboard 6' long and 18" wide, using it as a wetting board and part delivery tray, allowing Crash and I to stay in place, with the cardboard on our stomachs, letting the resin drip back onto the cardboard (mostly!). With all three of us wetting, placing, and brushing, we got control of it and had, as HeadlessHula put it, "overhead lamination domination". It was a really good feeling to have the last of the hard lams out of the way, everything else is just tabbing.



Hopefully all the hard work pays off with a stiffer deck!

 

[lenmann]

I am routinely amazed at your level of energy and dedication to this old boat project. The scope of work alone would be overwhelming to most guys. Could you imagine what it would cost to pay a shop to do all this work? Hats off to you, and man, you have some great pals there helping too.

Now that you have filled the hatch hole with bracing are you going to lose the aluminum filler/adapter from an earlier post?

 

[HydroSkreamin]

I am routinely amazed at your level of energy and dedication to this old boat project. The scope of work alone would be overwhelming to most guys. Could you imagine what it would cost to pay a shop to do all this work? Hats off to you, and man, you have some great pals there helping too.

Now that you have filled the hatch hole with bracing are you going to lose the aluminum filler/adapter from an earlier post?

Well, it's been hard sometimes to keep that enthusiasm when we kept uncovering rot. My buds have kept me up when I was frustrated, but having the chance to own a boat that has been iconic to me since I was a teenager was the whole reason I bought it. The outside makes me smile every time, and now that the inside is about finished, the whole boat is making me happy. Just think once it has interior, is rigged, and running!

At one point, when we tore all the rotten core out of the bottom, I was pretty down and frustrated, and asked the guys, "What do you do at this point?". I answered myself by saying, "We can do three things; 1) Cry: that's not gonna get anything done, 2) Burn it: That's gonna take a while, and be smoky, stinky, and leave lots of strings in my yard, or 3) Press on, make it the best we can." HeadlessHula's reply was, "We could always cut it in half, stand it on end, and make a Mother Mary shrine out of it!" Well, that made us all laugh, and you can obviously see which path we chose, but in choosing it, also needed the energy for success. Failure is not an option, and I don't do things half-assed. As I've stated many times throughout this thread, this project would be nothing without my friends Crash and HeadlessHula. You may see a theme between our three boats:







The aluminum adapter and hatch flange will be cut back into the stiffener we made. I'm not comfortable trying to match the gel on the deck, or we'd be able to omit the adapter.

Thanks for following!

 

[HydroSkreamin]

It's time to get my parts powdercoated, and Kevin from Motion Metalworks is up from GA visiting his family in WI. He offered to take my parts back with him, so HeadlessHula and I started the treasure hunt of finding everything needing powdercoating in their boxes on the shelves in my garage. This necessitated me standing on the deck of the boat to get to some of them, and I was flat amazed at how much stiffness we added to the deck with the support system we implemented. I can physically walk from the helm to the cabin hatch area with out creaks, groans, or any signs of distress. Forward of that it flexes pretty good, but it is very thin up there, and as stated before, I didn't add this structural support to be able to walk up there, but to keep the large deck panel from being a giant subwoofer. I think we nailed that goal pretty well.

Here's all 205 lbs of me standing on the area we beefed up:



Crash suggested adding a tab of 1808 over the deck to hull joint, and after looking at areas that I had ground heavily, and some thin tabs from its original build, I decided that was a good suggestion, and ground and sanded the seams on both sides from the transom to the front cabin bulkhead, radiusing them all with a large sanding roll on the die grinder, same as we did on the transom top transition. Those will get tabbed today, as well as the last of the fuel tank supports, then we'll tackle installing the vent tube. That's all that's preventing us from hiding all the work in the sponsons under the floor!

 

[footer]

The other thing I haven't figured out yet is what to do for the other foot; nothing, or a dead pedal that matches this one. I'll probably make a dead pedal that at least has this shape, maybe I can at least mill the fins into it to make it match somewhat, or talk to one of my CNC buddies and see if they can match it in a left-hand version. That would probably look the best. What say you?

We could scan the pedal you have and mirror it over to create a left foot. Cut it with the words backwards and create a conversation piece, or we could drop that part of the geometry into place without reversing it so it reads right. Either way, every little surface detail from the right foot would be on the left foot, and with a little metal finishing they'd look like a matched set.

I have access to a scanner and mad CAD skillz. And I'm in Wisco.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

We could scan the pedal you have and mirror it over to create a left foot. Cut it with the words backwards and create a conversation piece, or we could drop that part of the geometry into place without reversing it so it reads right. Either way, every little surface detail from the right foot would be on the left foot, and with a little metal finishing they'd look like a matched set.

I have access to a scanner and mad CAD skillz. And I'm in Wisco.

OOOHHHHH! That's an AWESOME idea! Very cool. I'd like to have a chat with you about that at your convenience.

My buddy Kevin from Motion Metalworks was up this week and I gave him all of my parts to powdercoat, and I gave him the pedal because he was going to scan it and laser a lower piece and a cover plate with the ribs and letters, but I like your idea very much. There's no reason a guy (or gal) couldn't scan just the lettering portion and make a smaller rectangle area of that and add it back to the mirrored image, assuming you left the scanning out of the mirrored image?

Thanks, Footer, that's a really cool idea, and you have me stoked!

Going to be prepping floor pieces for installation, and final resin coating of anything remotely bare under the floor for final covering. I think we'll vacuum as much of the fiberglass dust as we can, too. :rolleyes

 

[Headless hula]

Prepping plywood for the cabin floor.
Its already had a layer of 1808 on the bottom side. It has to be ground to promote good adhesion.

 

[Headless hula]

 

[Headless hula]

Floor in the cabin is installed. Barley pop time.🤘🤘

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Got the cabin floor installed, under dash supports done, first piece of cockpit floor fit and in place, as it had to be in place in order for the starboard front fuel tank bulkhead to be installed, or it would not be able to be installed. Bulkhead got marglassed in place and tabbed. Tabbed all but the fuel tank area of deck to hull. That will get done when the fuel tank floors get tabbed in this next week.

Vent pipe got prepped with acetone, marglassed in the front, as marglass is waterproof, and I feel it does a better job of holding and is less brittle. This joint will get drilled with (4) 1-1/2" holes to vent the notch. Tube got microsphered in the rear, as microspheres are much lighter and way cheaper as well.


Under dash supports:




Vent tube in its final resting place:




Desperately trying to get this thing to interior, but I will not rush anything or shortcut to get there. Frustrated it's not a month earlier, but it is definitely coming out to my liking. Should be able to continue progress this week, and next weekend is a long weekend, hopefully tie up all loose ends in one week and go to interior next week. We shall see!

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Well, since the boat is going to Checkmate in Ohio for interior on Monday, I figured maybe I should take care of some details like fuel tanks and seats. :rolleyes

Originally, the tanks were just held in place with two strips of fiberglass that went from the inner freeboard down to the floor, just draped over the tank on each end. The tanks are dropped 7" and moved rearward 7", and I'd like to thru-bolt them to the bulkheads on each end. Made some brackets out of aluminum angle, prepped them and the tank for welding, and Gary at work welded them on for me. Came out nice.









Then decided I'd better get the throttle mount made for the seat, this is a left-hand drive boat, and I don't want a console or pedestal. Here's what I came up with on the fly:









This will attach to the seat with rivnuts on each side. I didn't mount it yet as I want to make sure it is in the correct location with the foam on the armrest. I can drill the mount and the seat at the same time and ensure alignment.

Wish me luck for getting this thing done and loaded by Sunday!!

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Well, it's not done, but we got ALL the piddly stuff done yesterday, including drain holes drilled in stringers, holes for bilge pump hoses, every single thing ground and vacuumed. Fuel tank floors installed. And before you get any ideas, we're not going with 48 volt power, those batteries are just holding the panel down.

All pieces of CSM cut, ready for resin.


Next installment will be of floor installed!

 

[HydroSkreamin]

 

[spectra3279]

Ok. Have to ask. What the hell is the pvc for? A shitter?

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Ok. Have to ask. What the hell is the pvc for? A shitter?

Well, it could be that or a bidet, depending on which way the pressure goes!

It was covered quite a few pages back; it's a vent for the notched center pod to try to help break the water free from the notch. It will get (4) 1-1/2" holes holesawed from the bottom. It will (read:should) draw air from inside the storage area and feed the pipe. It has a rubber radiused inlet on it.

If it doesn't work I can always put a toilet flange on it!

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Didn't get the glass down, but did prep with 80 feet worth of filleting.







Power was out, just came back on, going to sand floor joints, vacuum, and put that final layer on!

 

[J.P.]

Nice work:thumbup: and whole lot of it,.. it will be nice when completed. Did you mention what motor you will go with.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Nice work:thumbup: and whole lot of it,.. it will be nice when completed. Did you mention what motor you will go with.

Ding, ding, ding! It only took 15 pages for someone to ask the question, I wish I had a prize to give you!

It's going to be a 400R Verado with a Sportmaster gearcase. New territory for one of these, I'd guess.

We're going to paint the cowls Mercury Racing Blue for something different and to match the boat better.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Been slow to update, very busy busting butt to finish this thing. I couldn't be happier with the floor installation and covering. It is very stiff and very smooth at all the seams and corners.

Crash man and I put in a lot of hours from Friday through Monday of Memorial Day weekend. Project StressEliminator went from no floor, to completed floor in this timeframe. HeadlessHula was road trippin', so we were a man down from our normal lamination party. We did a lot of careful planning to be realistic what we could achieve, and never had any issues, other than lack of sleep!:rolleyes

So we decided to do one complete piece of 1808 from front bulkhead to transom, 18' long and 52" wide. We went to Ace and bought 1/4" nap rollers, tray liners, and more chip brushes, to be able to distribute a gallon of resin at a time. We haven't had room to do this before, so this was going to be a new experience for us. It definitely wets out faster applying 9" at a time over a 4" chip brush. We were concerned that the roller would introduce air, but it did not seem to. I also forgot to mention that my friend Roger donated some 1 gallon chicken buckets for resin mixing to the project, as he had some left over from one of his projects. They are inexpensive and disposable. Or more indestructible after the resin kicks! I think they make the chicken taste funny though...

The plan was to cut the piece of 1808 for the center to length, roll it back to the cabin bulkhead from each end, wet the front, work the air and resin out, and work our way to the rear. I did enlist the help of my 16 year old godson Andrew for mixing resin and handing things in and out of the boat; it was great to have the extra hand. He also shot pics from overhead on the attic ladder we use to get in and out of the boat. I wet out and Crash added an extension and ran the roller for getting the air and extra resin out. You couldn't ask any better for a hand lamination.







I was also concerned how to finish around the vent pipe, so I ground the transom before we installed the pipe, then spent some time with a die grinder on the fillet of microspheres until I was satisfied. The finish is even better than I expected, I'm very pleased with how it turned out.





We just couldn't get totally finished, but I was extremely pleased with how far we got and how good it looked. We just had the 2 pieces by the fuel tanks, and the fuel tank floor tabbing, and the interior fiberglassing would be finished!! We didn't start the fuel tank laminations as it was late, and we routered the floor at the stringer so the layup wraps from the floor, down the stringer, and onto the fuel tank floor, tying all three together. Laminating around that corner takes attention and patience, of which neither of us had any left.

With an immense amount of Crash's time, here is where we finished Monday night:



I can't thank Crash enough for his time and input to this project. He always has a little different perspective on how to do things, and comes up with some great ideas. He's got a kickass Corvette Gran Sport Blue shortbox Chev that used to be mine that he's building a killer 383 that'll run on E85 for, maybe we'll have to start a thread on that.

HeadlessHula got back safely from his trip, and made the mistake of stopping over to borrow a correctly sized holesaw to install his new Livorsi gauges in his dash. I was grinding the edges of the center lamination to finish the last outer laminations, and he hopped in the boat and exclaimed, "Let's get this f@(ker done!" Crash came over and we finished that SOB off. What a great feeling. Again, I can't thank these guys enough for their help and can-do attitude. All three of us have it, and it's contagious.

Starboard side:



Port side:



Cranked the heat in the garage to 75 degrees. We'll let it sit until the weekend, then load it on the trailer and take it to interior. While it's sitting, I'm going to grind the few edges I have left and coat all of the uncoated fiberglass with resin, and I have external hull to deck joint repair where we had cut it to install the transom.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

All right, it's been a while, but we made the thrash to get it to interior, and it is now at Checkmate Powerboats in Bucyrus, Ohio, in the hands of Dean Reynolds and crew. We spent 6 or 7 hours going through ideas, colors, schemes, gel work, and fitting seats to myself and my wife. We were extremely well taken care of, and I had a great feeling leaving there that my boat was in great hands for the final push.

So here is the stuff we did leading up to departure:

Roughed in the shape for the hull to deck joint at the transom





Didn't know exactly what to do here until I started grinding the edges of what we had left, and it kinda came to me.

Here's what she looked like after pulling all the protective tape and covers off it, readying it for weighing and transfer to trailer.



Lifted the boat off the jig, scales in place, and total weight was 1541 lbs without tanks. That's what it weighed with tanks when it came in, so we picked up 80 lbs. I'm not thrilled with the weight, as it slows down top speed, but my ultimate goal was to have a solid boat that would take some waves and run a decent number, and I feel confident this will do that. I can tell you one thing, it is solid walking around inside. Everyone that has been in it comments on that.

Getting the boat onto the trailer was another deal, though. We must have slid the hull onto the cart from the shorter cart originally, as I don't remember having all the issues we had getting it back on the trailer, mainly being too high. So we had a half dozen guys show up, let the air out of the trailer tires, played games with the trailer jack and cribbing under the hull in the rear, and got it on the trailer. Crash and I took it to the car was at 2 AM, removed the buck we had bondo'd in place for laying up the center pod, and drilled the four 1-1/2" vent holes about 3 AM.







Got some sleep, went to daughter's 8th grade graduation, loaded up and left for Ohio.



Stopped at the WI border for some cheese and sausage for the road. What can I say, I'm a cheesehead!!

The floors appear to be sturdy for the new captain....



Went through downtown Chicago, had the usual BS of going through there. Got laid up in traffic 3 times totalling 2 extra hours onto our trip. Ughhh!:grumble:

Stopped in Indiana at a Sunoco for fuel, didn't realize the color thing going on until I came back out after a pitstop. Whom influenced whom? Maybe it was a Sunoco/Eliminator theme boat. My eyes couldn't believe how well they matched, so I had to take a picture. Even the baby blue is in there, how cool is that?



Got to Bucyrus about 2:15 AM, stuffed the rig in an open bay at the Checkmate factory, left Dean a text where the boat was and that we'd see him at 9 AM. Man, that bed at the Holiday Inn Express felt good!

As stated before, Dean and company took excellent care of us, let me use some tools to drill the dash so we could install the helm and locate the driver's seat exactly, made some mock seat bases for us so we could test fit seat placement, and pulled out all the color samples in the place. My wife made friends with the upholstery ladies, and we left there about 4 PM their time. Stopped in Delphos, OH for some hickory smoked BBQ, and trucked right on back toward home, trying a little different route around Chicago. Only had one bad accident to wait for, made it home by 12:30. Our bed felt even better!

While they are taking care of things down there, we'll be getting rigging ready, gotta order rubrail, and paint the cowls. Oh yeah, gotta remove the shrapnel from the bomb that went off in the garage. That alone will take a couple of weeks!

 

[cicchetti_24]

All right, it's been a while, but we made the thrash to get it to interior, and it is now at Checkmate Powerboats in Bucyrus, Ohio, in the hands of Dean Reynolds and crew. We spent 6 or 7 hours going through ideas, colors, schemes, gel work, and fitting seats to myself and my wife. We were extremely well taken care of, and I had a great feeling leaving there that my boat was in great hands for the final push.

So here is the stuff we did leading up to departure:

Roughed in the shape for the hull to deck joint at the transom

View attachment 566588

View attachment 566589

Didn't know exactly what to do here until I started grinding the edges of what we had left, and it kinda came to me.

Here's what she looked like after pulling all the protective tape and covers off it, readying it for weighing and transfer to trailer.

View attachment 566590

Lifted the boat off the jig, scales in place, and total weight was 1541 lbs without tanks. That's what it weighed with tanks when it came in, so we picked up 80 lbs. I'm not thrilled with the weight, as it slows down top speed, but my ultimate goal was to have a solid boat that would take some waves and run a decent number, and I feel confident this will do that. I can tell you one thing, it is solid walking around inside. Everyone that has been in it comments on that.

Getting the boat onto the trailer was another deal, though. We must have slid the hull onto the cart from the shorter cart originally, as I don't remember having all the issues we had getting it back on the trailer, mainly being too high. So we had a half dozen guys show up, let the air out of the trailer tires, played games with the trailer jack and cribbing under the hull in the rear, and got it on the trailer. Crash and I took it to the car was at 2 AM, removed the buck we had bondo'd in place for laying up the center pod, and drilled the four 1-1/2" vent holes about 3 AM.

View attachment 566592

View attachment 566593

View attachment 566595

Got some sleep, went to daughter's 8th grade graduation, loaded up and left for Ohio.

View attachment 566594

Stopped at the WI border for some cheese and sausage for the road. What can I say, I'm a cheesehead!!

The floors appear to be sturdy for the new captain....

View attachment 566596

Went through downtown Chicago, had the usual BS of going through there. Got laid up in traffic 3 times totalling 2 extra hours onto our trip. Ughhh!:grumble:

Stopped in Indiana at a Sunoco for fuel, didn't realize the color thing going on until I came back out after a pitstop. Whom influenced whom? Maybe it was a Sunoco/Eliminator theme boat. My eyes couldn't believe how well they matched, so I had to take a picture. Even the baby blue is in there, how cool is that?

View attachment 566597

Got to Bucyrus about 2:15 AM, stuffed the rig in an open bay at the Checkmate factory, left Dean a text where the boat was and that we'd see him at 9 AM. Man, that bed at the Holiday Inn Express felt good!

As stated before, Dean and company took excellent care of us, let me use some tools to drill the dash so we could install the helm and locate the driver's seat exactly, made some mock seat bases for us so we could test fit seat placement, and pulled out all the color samples in the place. My wife made friends with the upholstery ladies, and we left there about 4 PM their time. Stopped in Delphos, OH for some hickory smoked BBQ, and trucked right on back toward home, trying a little different route around Chicago. Only had one bad accident to wait for, made it home by 12:30. Our bed felt even better!

While they are taking care of things down there, we'll be getting rigging ready, gotta order rubrail, and paint the cowls. Oh yeah, gotta remove the shrapnel from the bomb that went off in the garage. That alone will take a couple of weeks!

I think you explained it before, but why the holes on the center pod? Where do they lead inside the boat?