1983 Starcraft restoration

[Tnstratofam]

On disconnecting the motor usually it is better to take the wiring loose from the engine. The fuel line as well. My engine doesn't have power tilt or trim so it was pretty easy to do. Post up your engine question over in the sub forum for your engine. Most people will tell you to get a shop manual ( I recommend one too), but you may be able to search the web for the instructions you need. Sometimes youtube has some good videos on different types of motors.

 

[JerryB1987]

LIftoff !!! And now to start taking out all those pop rivets to see what I have under the top. From taking out the bolts holding the engine at least the top part of the transom seems surprisingly strong.

The steering cable. The outside is rusty but I would think some steel wool would fix that, the inner rod is caked with dried grease but when I am holding the outside and have my wife turn the help the inside slides in and out nice and smooth. I had to work a bit to drive the tube out of the tilt tube. From the videos I have found this seems to be working right so is it jut a matter of cleaning up the outer tube and greasing everything or does it need to be replaced. I don't understand how this is actually supposed to work. Should the outer rust covered tube stay stationary in the tilt tube so the inner cable can push and pull it or should it slide through the tilt tube as you steer?

 

[Woodonglass]

Acetone will clean up all the old grease. Then use duct tape and some plastic to make a rough funnel at the end of the cable and hang it up from the rafters and pour a 50/50 mix of Mineral Spirits and Power Steering fluid in the funnel and see if it will flow down thru the cable as you work it back and forth. If so, you can prolly get it working again. Switch over to Full strenth Power Steering fluid and see if it will flow into the cable and lube it. Steel wool the large shaft at the end and you'll be good to go.

 

[JerryB1987]

Todays progress

Once we got the motor off and removed many many rivets the top lifted off pretty easily

My garage is pretty small. I couldn't get the boat directly under a beam because of the way the storage above the rafters is set up so the rig slipped a little letting the boat come up crooked, but it worked

I think the area I will have to cut out is really pretty small. From the inside edges of those boxes that are in the aft corners up to these plywood supports by the sad looking blue carpet. The way the hull comes up there is really very little space between the deck and hull. It really seems to be just wide enough to attach the seats next to the ski locker.

The top of the transom with the inside being on top with a bolt visible. I am surprised the transom seems to be in really good shape other than the very top edge where the metal cap was.

This is the nastiest looking part that is currently visible. This plywood piece is right at the rear and is where the oil reservoir and gas tank sat. The oil was on the left in the picture where the metal bracket is and the gas can on the right where the stain is, the gas can is one of the plastic removable type, makes for easy fueling. There is no bracket for the battery so I guess it would just sit between the oil and gas cans??? That's where all the wires were laying before separating the boat into pieces.

With the plywood sheet removed, the wood there is soaked and you can see a little of the plywood that was under the fiberglass floor. No bilge pump and not much room for one either. That drain hole is going to let a little water stay in here to eat away at the wood, not that this boat seems to have much wood in it.

Tomorrow the cutting starts, pretty happy with what I got done today

 

[Woodonglass]

Everthing down to the fiberglass hull needs to be removed, front to back and side to side. Boxes too!!! they are probably full of water saturated foam.

 

[Tnstratofam]

That's an amazing amount of work. I agree with wood your gonna need to dig deep to make sure you get all the wet foam and rotted wood out. That's also a nice hoist set up you got there in the garage.

 

[JerryB1987]

I can't cut too close to the walls without cutting through the hull, same with forward of where those plywood kick panels are. Once I get the cut outside of the rotted stringer I'll be able to see better but from initial probes it looks like the area under the deck that has space under it doesn't extend to the walls.

In the 3rd picture that shows the blue rug and the plywood just after it, that black area is the spray foam on the hull and is dry. Under the blue rug there is a very small "V" that looks like deck between the hull but it's tiny, only about a foot forward of the opening between the two kick panels.

The picture isn't very good and I need to sand away the rest of this foam to see better but just above the screwdriver and left of the metal bracket is a bare spot. That's hull not floor. Just to the left of that is a dip, that's where the deck material starts and its further from the bulkhead than I thought it would be from other projects that I have looked at. Once I get it cleaned up I will get better pictures, it just surprised me when I realized that was the bottom hull so far from where it goes vertical for the walls making a much narrower floor area than I expected to find. It seems to be JUST wide enough for the back to back seat boxes to attach to without the screws going through the hull itself. That piece of plywood is the kick panel leaning against the side after I removed it. I expected that to be delaminated but its not. Looks like a bit of sanding and then I will waterproof it and it should be able to go back in.

The boxes appear to be sitting on the hull with just a thin veneer wood that the blue carpet could be glued to so that will be easy to remove and see how they are held down. Too bad one of you doesn't live close enough to see this thing in person, could use the advice on how to go about this and I think you would be surprised how little room there is to put flotation foam on this boat.

 

[JerryB1987]

Only had time for some quick exploratory surgery today

This is what is in each stern corner, I thought it was a box but it isn't as you can see. There was a thin veneer of wood on one side and the front then they poured in foam. The wood looked trashed but I think that was exposure to the damp air more than sitting in water like under the deck. This stuff seems really dry so if everyone thinks it would be safe I would like to save the money and not chip it out. My budget is super tight as this boat landed in my lap unexpectedly so there was no money set aside to refurbish a boat. So do you think this is okay to just put new, waterproofed wood around it or should it come out.

I can't get a really good angle, but this is just 16 inches from the inside edge of the ski locker, the wood going fore (bottom of picture) has already ended, the wood going aft (top of picture) ends right where I stopped cutting and runs back to right beside these large clumps of foam in the corners. The hull comes up really fast, at the point where the cut ends toward the left edge of the picture there is less than 1/2 gap between the hull and the fiberglass that was over the wood and continues to attach to the hull. This is getting so shallow so fast I am a bit afraid of using a saw to remove more but also am not sure if it is too much material to sand away. Then again thinking about it I don't need to sand all the material, just where it joins to the hull :facepalm:

Here you can see a pretty clear line from where I removed some foam the other day. The light area on the right is the remnants of the foam and forms a line right where the wood ends and curves in. The rough area in the bottom right is the hull with a thin layer of foam and would be under the bow seats. That stuff feels totally dry and when scrapped up felt dry with no water to be wrung from it. Compared to the foam under the plywood which is dripping wet.

This dark rough looking stuff appears to have been sprayed on as well as the foam along the walls. Should it be okay to leave it or should I scrape it all away, I have no idea how I would spray new foam in its place and that would have to be done before the indoor/outdoor carpet could be replaced prior to the boat being put back together. There is storage under the bow seats that the carpet covers this rough looking foam to form the floor of the storage area.

 

[Woodonglass]

Will you be able to get full access to the transom and replace it and do all the glass work required and replace the deck and stringers and leave those big chunks of foam in place? I think I'd try and use a big carpenters saw and saw them free and then glue em back in place after you get the boat restored.

 

[JerryB1987]

Will you be able to get full access to the transom and replace it and do all the glass work required and replace the deck and stringers and leave those big chunks of foam in place? I think I'd try and use a big carpenters saw and saw them free and then glue em back in place after you get the boat restored.

The way this hull comes up I think I could, but I like the idea of cutting and saving them if I can. Thursday will probably be the big reveal day since I am off this Thursday. The transom on this boat doesn't go all the way side to side and ends prior to the foam blocks but I have to cut away the fiberglass covering it yet to see just what shape it is in. From exploratory drilling and how solid it seemed around the engine mount holes I am cautiously optimistic that it will either be solid or at least solid enough to make a really good template

 

[JerryB1987]

I think my transom is camera shy, cant get a picture I am happy with . But I think you can see in these two pictures the transom does not go all the way across the end of the boat as it does in all the projects I have looked through. Does anyone know if this is common in a Starcraft and should I move the foam blocks that are in the corner to extend the transom further. The corners are rounded so it won't fit exactly to the corners. Or should it be fine to just replicate the existing transom as it is? The transom is 1-1/2 inches thick.

 

[Woodonglass]

How about posting a pic of the entire rear end of your boat from about 8 ft away both from the outside and the inside. That would be a Great Help.

 

[JerryB1987]

There be my beasts backend. The way the light hits the inside picture you can see on the right of the picture how the transom comes right along the edge of the foam block

 

[Woodonglass]

Ok, I gotcha now. I remember another member with a similar transom build. I'll see if I can find the thread but the main thing is you need to remove everrything and clean all the foam and junk off the back section of the boat. You'll want to glass the new wood core transom to the glass skin of the stern in order to obtain good structural support for it. You can replace the foam once the transom is reattached.

 

[JerryB1987]

I had hoped to get time today to get most of the junk material removed. But most of the time I could put toward it went to trying to get a cradle built, it didn't go so well through so I will find another way to protect the shape of the boat so I can get started by this weekend, we are finally getting some nice temperatures here in western NY so I want to start making real progress on this rebuild soon.

 

[Woodonglass]

This is Similar to yours but not exactly. You can kinda see what you might wanna do.http://forums.iboats.com/forum/boat...and-hull-repair/602189-vendetta-restore/page4

 

[JerryB1987]

A disappointing start to the day

Started by removing both of the foam blocks in the stern corners and then did a cut to start removing the deck first cut when fine on the port side and I moved the saw over a little to remove more wood .... a tiny bit too far for the way the deck comes up it seems



This even I know is what you DON'T want to see :facepalm: That's about an 18"gash that with no fiberglass experience I get to fix, a lot of grinding to get it prepped. Less than a quarter of an inch toward the center of the boat and this wouldn't have happened. :frown-new: I know many of you have been through this but its almost enough to make a newbie guy want to cry.


As compared to the starboard side where I just pried up and broke the thin layer of fiberglass out to reveal the wood



I think this is how I will finish removing the floor. a lot easier to sand the edges so the new fiberglass will go in than to fix a hole in the hull.. The dark line is where the wood ends and the hull shoots up leaving a small gap.

 

[JerryB1987]

Well other than the mishap in the morning the rest of the day went pretty good...



Little wonder the stringers are destroyed, look how much area was unprotected when the cutout was made for a lateral support for the floor, the end of the stringer is also open to water so the wood was never fully wrapped. The stringers just crumble when you even look at them so no hope of using them for a template for the new ones :facepalm:



After a little clean up here is how the hull now looks. ALL the plywood that made up the "floor" has been removed. Tomorrow I hope to grind out the stringers and figure out how to remove the transom, it seems pretty solid so I want to avoid damaging it so I can at least have a template if it turns out to be bad, but it looks to be well fiberglass wrapped so other than a small area where the metal cap was it might be in pretty good shape. There is a narrow metal plate between the transom wood and the outer skin of the boat, not sure what that is for at the moment. Not sure if a transom should be able to be lifted out without cutting away the inside fiberglass. I would expect it is mounted somehow that grinding away the inside fiberglass would be needed to free it, or do they usually just sit in a pocket formed by the inner and outer fiberglass and having removed the engine mounting bolts and other tie downs that were there it should slide out easily??

 

[JerryB1987]

Better than yesterday today. The transom came out in one piece, overall it is solid so will be easy to use for a template. The side showing is the one that was against the outside skin and some of it stuck to the fiberglass which is why it looks so rough.

After I got this out I removed the stringers, they were completely soaked and fell apart as I was cutting the fiberglass to get them out so no templates for that project but there are only two of them and they sit in a flat shelf so should be pretty easy to make new ones. Now the boat is ready for grinding .... let the fun begin

 

[JerryB1987]

Oh the joy of grinding!! Glad I keep my hair short. Got about 90% of the grinding done today. The flap wheel is starting to wear down and with the humidity on the rise its a good time to stop. Can't keep the safety glasses from fogging up so its hard to see. Won't take long after I get a new wheel to finish the grinding then I can build the transom and get the stringers ready to go back in.