1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madness Begins

[Mud Puppy]

First I'd like to Thank iboats for all the insiteful and talented people that hang out here. I joined back in September of last year and have learned so much here I feel pretty confident on my rebuild. People like friscoboaer's Sea Ray restoration, Decker83's Deck Boat resto, and all the help they and others have given have inspired me to trudge forward.

My story starts a few years back when my son was to paint a boat for one of my co-workers and some things happened to where neither the owner or my son were interested in finishing the project.

I ended up with the boat in my back yard for several years and uncovered. It really didn't matter a whole lot as the floor was already in need of replacement. I was really in a lot of trouble with the Mrs. for most of that time until this past year the former owner of our boat ended up buying a newer boat and we spent several weekends with them on their boat. Somewhere mid-summer without saying anything, the Mrs. started talking about our boat and how we should get it running again.

So here goes nothing. Please excuse my inexperience as I am a novice, but from what I have seen so far by the restores here, that won't last very long at all. opcorn:

To start with here are a few pictures of what I am rebuilding to give everyone a feel for the project.

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

There were some very good lines on the boat and I liked the size. Not too big,not too small, plus it has an engine in it that I can work on.




This is where it gets dicey, the floor, it was shot and allowed all kinds of water into the foam below.


You can even see the tree growing out of the floor at the walk through to the bow.


To quote a movie I once watched, I have "a shrubbery". Here's a photo before it was cut.

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Here's some more of the floor.









Well, that's all for tonight. I've got to design a repair on a landing gear door and an engine cowl and get them completed in the morning so I need to get to bed.

Hope I haven't bored anyone so far. I promise that the tear-out I started back in September will look a little more hopeless. :joyous::joyous:

 

[zool]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Its a boat that says Ni!..

From the looks of things, you will most likely need a full substructure restore...typical of exposed boats...aside from that, it looks like everything else is there..with some time and money, I think you can get yoursef on the water..

man , that sun and shrubbery in the backround looks nice.....im currently suffering from winter blues....hehe

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Yeah zool Thanks: I had about a month to work on it (mostly on the weekends) before it got cold and it is a lot further along than where I stopped tonight, I took a lot of pictures and have been uploading them to the web so I could start sharing them here.

Once it gets to where I can work on it again, I won't have any free time as I want to finish it this spring and enjoy it this summer.

 

[tpenfield]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Looking forward to tagging along. Definitely looks to be a full restore.

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Restoring it to it's original metal flake green as seen at the helm?

 

[Fastatv]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Nice boat Mud Puppy! Looks like a 6 cylinder engine which I would think would push that boat very well. I'm going to tag along here as well. Good luck!

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Just a quick note as I am on my lunch break, will get back to adding more tonight. Had to take a break from my 2 month project, doing a Gap Analysis on Military Tech Orders, blah-blah-blah...

I'm actually a lot further along than this, just way cold here and I have been busy following a few posts of other re-builders. Been reading Decker's Deck Top Restore in my spare time; lot of other good work out there too!

Yeah, Tpen, it's gonna be a full restore if this old man and the money holds out and JB been thinking about that "Pea Green" heavy metal flake in my sleep, don't know what they may have been thinking with that one, but at one time someone scuffed it and painted it Dark Plum, don't know which one was worse, and Fast the former owner is one of the owners here (where I work) and he said that when he had it back in Arkansas, it would pull 4 skiers.

The Captain and I are older so there won't be a whole lot of that or knee-boarding for us, but our kids and grand-kids will probably partake. Our Grand-daughter tubbed for the first time this summer.

Captain and I will be happy watching them and just puttin' around the lake.

Will add more tonight. :joyous:

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

The first day of tear out went pretty good; big pieces of flooring, big pieces of foam all of which was saturated. I thought I had helped exacerbate the rotten floor by not keeping it covered, but as I got ti ripping the floor out I found the original floor had been cut in the center of the boat and the old floor left around the edges of the hull. The new flooring was screwed down on top of the old floor leaving a lip all the way around it.

That and the fact that a woven plain weave or harness weave glass was used and there just wasn't much resin in the fabric. We are Air Framers and deal with all types of composites every day, glass, Kevlar glass, and carbon fiber, but the resins are always epoxy and not real compatible with Polyester and there was definite proof of where it had failed allowing water in.



I won't post a lot of pics of the tear out; everyone has seen rotten wood and wet foam, but I will say for a Tri-hull, it sure had a bunch of foam in it.


13 bags all together and about 5 additional stops by the dumpster at work when I had the boat there during the weekends.

Here's another picture of that 70's "Pea Green" hull cap.


The last photo is looking down into the boat at the hull bottom, notice the strake line above the brown wood. At the top of the photo you can see a layer of foam where the port side freeboard meats the hull bottom at the chine. Directly above the foam is a layer of 3/8" original floor and above that is a gap from the 3/4" repair floor.


The repair floor was tabbed in to the freeboard and it was sort of stuck to the hull, but once the screws were removed, the floor pulled loose real easy, like pullin' a cookie out of a pile of other cookies.

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

The next photo was taken the second day of the tear out. We were getting some showers off and on and I would pull the blue tarp over myself and the boat and work when it sprinkled, taking it back off when it would slow to a stop. I tried working to where I was between the drops when they hit, I just couldn't get my timing down pat.

Sorry the picture isn't any clearer than it is.

As you can see, there is only one stringer in the center vee of the hull.

I got to within 6 or 8 inches of the stern and as I was pulling out the last piece port side, this happened.

That's a picture of the transom. That's right; when I pulled the floor up, the glass went with it that was attached to the transom. Dry "Ghost Wood" fell out of the hole in the transom. Completely dry rotted. It hadn't even crossed my mind that it was bad.

Here's a close up of it.

I inspect aircraft parts for damage daily (voids) using sonic inspection means (a fancy way of saying "tapping with a hammer"). I don't know why I didn't think of doing it here.

and finally, I got to the front motor mount cleat. It didn't look all that bad, other than being soaked; still almost dimensional and sounded solid when hit lightly with a hammer.


I have already loaded a bunch of photos into my bucket, but there are a couple I want to go add before I go on. It may help someone in the future when thinking about buying an older boat.

TTFN!

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

I was looking at the forum today during my lunch break as I normally do and I happened to read the title of this post. LOL.

I am paid to proofread and be able to spell in addition to engineering repairs for aircraft that I do, and there it was, just as plain as day, I had misspelled Madness in the thread title; how embarrassing! :embarassed: I tried to find a way to correct it, but haven't ran onto it yet.

Does anyone know how to correct the thread title?

I pray that all that read this (along with the Forum Gods) will forgive me and my worn-out keyboard. I guess there is a reason I am only a cadet. Have to climb the ladder first and spelling must be one of the rungs. The more I see it, the more unnerving and bothersome it is. :grumpy:

TTFN! :joyous::joyous:

 

[jbcurt00]

When will the Madess stop, for the love of humanity.........

When will the Madess stop, for the love of humanity.........

go to your initial post

in the bottom right corner of that post window left mouse click 'Edit post'

When the edit post window opens, in the bottom right corner of that post window left mouse click 'Go Advanced'

When a new edit post window opens, at the top of the post window, just below the iboats online store banner there should be 2 long white boxes

The top one should be labeled thread title or main title, and have the thread's title listed, w/ the misspelled Madess. Just edit it to the correct spelling. Then at the bottom right corner of the post window, left click 'Save'. The changed title should now appear on the resto forum homepage listing & at the top of each subsequent post.

The lower one (still above the post window) should be labeled post title, and have the same thread title listed. You can change it too, but it only changes the title of the specific post you are editing, not the thread title.

By using the Go Advanced feature, I can edit & change just my post's title, w/out affecting the title of your thread. Which I have done

 

[zool]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Just name the boat "Madess" and you wont have to change it:watermelon:

I have fat fingers and dont care much..as long as the work looks good...

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

I have Fat Fingers, Fat Body and a Fat Head and it bothers a LOT of people!!!!! A lot of em hang out here on the Forum!!!!:facepalm:

 

[73Chrysler105]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Madess is kind of a cool way to leave it. It is madness but at the same time she is a mistress so in my mind it is a combinationof those two a madess. There is a new definition for Webster "madess - when madness becomes a mistress"

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: When will the Madess stop, for the love of humanity.........

Re: When will the Madess stop, for the love of humanity.........

Thanks JB. I knew there had to be a simple fix for it.

Now I can sleep nights (with the exception of dreaming of the "Pea Green" Heavy Metal Flake.

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Yeah Zool, I know all about the fat finger thing too! Just mine are getting pretty arthritic as well. There are nights after I have typed all day long, the my RH pinky hurts like I had smacked it with a 5lb. hammer.

Hope the work looks good when it's done, but I have looked at a lot of restores since I found iboats and it looks like I have some pretty stiff competition to contend with.

There are an awful lot of people that do FANTASTIC work here, and if you don't know how to do it, all you have to do is look or ask.

That's one of the main reason why I like this Forum so much.

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Wood, my fingers aren't the skinniest in the world anymore either. I know that my belly is pretty fat as well, but I try not to be too fat headed, but sometimes it happens! Sounds like a Tom Hanks movie I once watched.

 

[Mud Puppy]

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Re: 1971 17' Invader Tri-Hull Restoration, The Madess Begins

Madess is kind of a cool way to leave it. It is madness but at the same time she is a mistress so in my mind it is a combinationof those two a madess. There is a new definition for Webster "madess - when madness becomes a mistress"

I never thought about looking it up, and yes it has been my "mistress" until it became frigid, the weather, not the boat!

So do you go by 73 or Chrysler or 105? I tend to think as everyone as a friend and I just hate using Proper Names with friends such as 73Chrysler105. Forgive me if you go by your "Full Name". :lol: