1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

[CaptainRev]

Hi Guys-

First off, thank you to everyone who has ever posted to this site. This has been such a great resource for me and has definitely given me the confidence to do this restore to my boat! I hope that I am posting in the correct place, not sure if I should be in the boat restore forum, but the StarCraft guys are the best on here and I am really looking tips and any help anyone can offer me.

This I my 18' 1986 StarCraft Super Sports Fisherman. I had some soft spots in the floor in the bow by my casting seat and a few on the gunnals. The plan is to replace the floor, pull all carpet off interior and rails, bow, replace all vinyl, redo consoles and possibly repaint. I do not want to do the foam if I don't have to. This boat has always been either covered or in a garage so I am pretty confident that the foam should be okay... but you never know!!! Hopefully you guys can help me out along the way! Thanks for any input in advance.

So I know the rules... pictures!! ATTACH=CONFIG]224289[/ATTACH]

 

[dozerII]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Welcome,CaptainRev, great looking SS you have there, there's a great bunch of guys on here and a wealth of info for the asking. I'm thinking if you have soft floors you will probably find the pour foam is wet near the hull. Once you pull the floors get a piece of thinwall tubing, file some teeth into one end so it will saw nice clean core samples down to the hull to check for water, If they come up dry you win. If you have a live well, check the fittings and lines for leaks they were very prone to this problem. Have fun and were all here to follow along.
Looking at the bow fishing area it is identical to the set up that was in my 84 16 SS, one of those compartments is a live well right.

 

[classiccat]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Welcome CaptainRev! :welcome:

You definitely got off on the right foot with us hoto:

If you dont' mind me asking, how did you end-up with soft-spots on the deck? Just heavy use? When you're on the water, do you get much water in the bilge? (If yes, then you'll want to find the source of the leak(s)).

Also, grab the MONSTER powerhead, give it a good shake & watch the transom for any play.

Crawl under the splashwell and inspect the knee-brace(s) for cracks.

 

[astor]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Welcome aboard CaptainRev! Nice looking piece of tin. Hopefully you've got yourself a dry, well cared for boat.
If not you've come to the right place, lots of resto's ongoing, with plenty of people willing to share their experiences to help you along if you need it.

 

[CaptainRev]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Thanks guys... having trouble posting more pics of what I have tore out already... any thoughts? I have the bow floor pulled out and both consoles out, just want to share the progress...

Bluefin... my fishing partner is 350+ so yeah, heavy use and not light of feet!

 

[classiccat]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Thanks guys... having trouble posting more pics of what I have tore out already... any thoughts? I have the bow floor pulled out and both consoles out, just want to share the progress...

Bluefin... my fishing partner is 350+ so yeah, heavy use and not light of feet!

most of us use photobucket for sharing pics.

super easy once you setup an account.

The only thing that I don't recommend is uploading videos since the free-version is bandwidth limited.

more pics please :madgrin: :hungry:

 

[anderso8623]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

welcome aboard! how long have you had the her?

 

[SigSaurP229]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Great looking boat, you will be quite pleased as you already have chine bracing, in yours. The flip side is you also have pour in foam so hopefully you will get lucky and it isn't wet.

With your fishing partner I would go back with a 3/4" floor.

Save as much as you can for templates especially the bow pieces.

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Boy, the word must be out about the Starmada and pics. Good looking SS, Capt. Rev. You'll know more if you core sample the foam. Often dry on top and soaked on the bottom. Welcome to the TinGroup.

 

[CaptainRev]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

So I am hoping this works. Wish it was easier to upload photos to this site. I tried using the photo manager but all I got was a spinning wheel...


drewpmcguire's Library | Photobucket

Anyway, I have the bow deck pull out. It came out in one piece so I am going to have a nice template to work with. I was able to get all the gages out of the console and steering disconnected as well. It was a total mess in there with all the different wires!! Nuts! Going to have to do a little better job having the gage and switch wires a little cleaner under the dash. seriously hope this link works to my photobucket. Will keep trying to upload the photos.

Looking forward to getting her floor off possibly tomorrow night.

Dozer, there is a live well right behind the seat post. You can see it in the pictures. Haven't got that out yet. It has two drain holes on both sides of the boat. Just finished reading your "naked lady" post! Awesome work! Definitely got me excited to start this.

As for the floor I was leaning towards 1/2" just so the consoles line up correctly, but I will definitely look and see what 3/4 would do.

 

[barato2]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

if it's an SS, you might find 1/2" with glass overlay to be better to simplify that console line-up.

welcome! it ate my earlier post. don't sweat the tech on pix, we all suffer through that learning curve. easier to learn to restore SCs than to post pix on iboats!

afraid you'll find that, due to water always flowing downwards, that if your floors are soft, your foam will be icky too. and if floors are bad, plan on doing a transom too. way easy on an 18SS, but i'd estimate the %age of folks here who have been able to go with not re-doing trans is under 10%. LOTS of us (me included) know the taste of the words "transom looks OK...." all too intimately. :facepalm::lol:

 

[SigSaurP229]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Yep thats about par for the course on electrical I have never touched one that was actually wired anywhere even close to properly. I guess I am just weird as I solder and heat shrink all connections.

1/2" will work just fine, but as you said the floor gets alot of abuse and a husky fishing partner with heavy feet I would be going at minimum 5/8 not to much difference to make it beefier but without the serious headaches of lining things up.


I seriously hope your foam is good and dry as the pour in foam bites sample it at the bottom just like Ga said.

Now would be a good time to order your epoxies so that when you are ready to lay flooring it will be there waiting. If you use Epoxy save yourself the hassle and order the pumps too. This time of year I would go with a 4:1 depending on which brand you order.

Edit +1 To what Barato said you are doing the floor go ahead and do the transom too, it won't be any more money for epoxies or resins and maybe an extra $50 in ply, you can do it in about 4 hours.


In my 18ss I went with a 5/8" triple epoxy resin coated and had no serious issues lining things up.

 

[barato2]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

I guess I am just weird as I solder
you're not weird, you just boat in fresh water. i'm a solder rather than crimp connector type too, but that don't work in salt water....tin etc in solder and copper wire don't get along when Mr. Galvanic comes to visit

 

[Watermann]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Welcome to the iboats dry dock. I want a SS just like that one!

Interesting use of some foam pieces up front.

 

[SigSaurP229]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Welcome to the iboats dry dock. I want a SS just like that one!

Interesting use of some foam pieces up front.

I agree its pretty sweet I am kind of thinking about doing the 16ss with a similar deck layout.

 

[dozerII]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Thanks Captain, when your on Photobucket click on one of your pictures, then on the right side of the screen there will be a box with codes in it HTML and so on the bottom one is the IMG code click on it and it will copy then go to your Iboats post and paste the code where you want it, you can put up to five pics per post.
That live well set up is identical to the one in my 16SS, the fill hose was routed along the bottom of the hull from the transom, and was rubbed through in about 6 spots from vibration soaking the lower part of the foam.

There is a bit of a design problem with the console position on the gunwale on some of these SS and yours has it. You will notice the console was mounted at the bottom edge of the trim piece the runs along the top of the gunwale, leaving the console about 5/8"lower, what that does is form a gutter between the windshield and the gunwale so all the water that runs off the windshield flows down the face of your dash then follows the side panel down to the deck, I bet you will find a soft spot on each side!.
My fix for the problem was to use 5/8"ply for the floor with 2 x 1/4" aluminum plate shims under the inboard upright sides of the consoles, then move the top outer edges of the consoles up flush with the top of the gunwales, with no problems with windshield fit.

 

[dozerII]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

double post

 

[CaptainRev]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

Thanks Dozer. I appreciate the help with the photos. Hopefully this will work.








As you can see the bow came out pretty easy. The carpet is coming off super easy but I know the glue is going to be a fun job to remove. Going to spend a few hours tonight getting the rest of the floor removed and sidewall off.

When I pulled the pilot console the front plywood was basically gone. Lucky the port console was intacted so that I can use that for a template.

 

[barato2]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

bet you never DREAMED of the level of input you'd get here, like that gem of insight above. good idea, Glen.

looked the pix...nice boat. i even like the 70s butterscotch color.

 

[CaptainRev]

Re: 1986 18' Starcraft SS restore

I am wondering if I can move the back horizontal brace lower to create a larger fishing platform on the back with jump seats. Wondering if the hull will end up flexing too much and it I should try to mess with the structure of the boat??? Thoughts?