1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

[ImperialV184]

Hello, I am new to this forum, and found out about from friscoboater, and his youtube videos. I am looking at a very similar project. I inherited a boat form my father in law who past away several years ago. My brother in law had it for about 3 years and worked on it a bit. they decided to move so we drove form alabama to CT to pick it up. Getting the engine pulled this weekend, transom is shot, floor is shot, some stringers look OK, but cant tell until i remove the foam. One issue i have is that i it has a fiberglass tub in the forward section, attached to the CAP, i do not want to remove the CAP, anyone know if i can just cut it out? looks like the wood and carpet goes all the way under the "tub" in the front. Going to be a long road here but i always wanted to fix it up for him. Everyone thinks i am crazy and tells me a could buy a new boat cheeper. But to me i think it is worth it.

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

Welcome to Iboats ImperialV184

Actually removing the cap is the only way to go.

You start cutting that cap/bow apart is going to make for more work and expense.

Diligent careful removal of the cap .. then attack the project.

Take measurements of Everything and with pics to help your rebuild ( putting it all back together ). Buy a Binder with sheets of paper so you can document everything and possibly in the future have those cool plastic sleeves to put your notes and pics in for your "Documentation" .

Keep us updated with pics and you cant go wrong .

YD.

 

[ImperialV184]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

OK, got the engine out, it was not easy, the rear mounts were very hard to remove, they had to cut the head off the bolt and pull it out that way, the bolt is still in the gimbal housing.

I made a stand for the engine so i can move it around in the garage, it looks like it may need some serious work as well, the starter seams to be rusted through.

Got the Gimbal housing off, and tore out a good porting of the deck, when i pressed on the foam................water actually came out, surprisingly, some of the stingers may be intact. I will not know until all the foam is out.

here are some pictures, the transom is not even skinned except some tabbing on the deck, and there is not a lot of rot directly around the gimbal housing, the bulkheads look shot. I figure i will gut the boat, measure and cut wood during the winter, then glass in the spring when it warms up.

has anybody ever had a rear engine bolt seize in the gimbal housing.................i have used a 2 foot breaker bar to no avail.

 

[ImperialV184]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

sorry about the pictures being rotated, i will try to fix that, that is not how they are on my computer.

 

[oops!]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

as far as the rear engin bolt....do you mena the long bolts that go thru the bell and attach the boat to the transom housing?

 

[ImperialV184]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

Yes, those are the boats i am talking about, basically the folks that removed the engine for me said the bolt was seized, so they cut off the head to allow the engine to pull off the bolt, it still would not come out so they then had to burn the grommet to pull out the engine, when i got the housing off i tried to get the bolt out, i cut the nut to weaken it, and cut the top portion of the bolt off since it was burned rubber and i could not get a grip of the bolt, you cant pound it through since there is the retainer structure holding the nut in place. One of the trim shafts was seized like this but i was able to pound it out once i saturated it with liquid wrench. I don't think o have the tools to pull off drilling this thing out, it is very tough steel. I got a pipe wrench on it, and a huge breaker bar (3') and all it did was bend the housing, i mean it is stuck real good.

PS the way my iphone takes pictures makes them rotate, i will start taking them in landscape.

 

[ImperialV184]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

An update, had to take a short break on the boat of for while to fix my pop up camper. I guess my life is full of rotten wood as i had some rotten wood in the camper to fix in the top of the camper. Looks great now removed old ceiling and replaced it with white paneling, Anyway back to the boat. Been assessing and re assessing the project, I started to get depressed looking at all the work, but then i take a break and get my second wind. Got almost all the foam out. I made a decision to cut out the tub in front vs pulling the cap. I have no place to keep the cap once it is removed plus i decided i did not want to put the tub back in. it basically rests on the deck and is not easily sealed leaving the ability for water to gather under it, it was completely rotten when i cut it out. Made the decision after looking at Firscoboaters videos, and used a similar method to hold up the dash. It looks like some of the stingers are intact. I need some advice, it is worth trying to salvage some or better to replace all. It looks like they glassed around all the bulkheads, had they just classed all the stingers first then put in glassed bulkheads there would have been no rot. Anyway, interested to hear suggestions. That foam sure is tedious.

One more thing, i bought an overtons cover for the boat, but when it rains i find water in the boat, aren't these covers supposed to be water proof? i dont know how i am going to keep it dry in there do do this restore, can i water proof the covers, do i need to bit the bullet and buy a better cover. Look like there was at one time a nice cover, there are snaps all around the entire boat. it is easy to make a nice canvass cover?

 

[ImperialV184]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

Last night i removed the swim platforms. They are teak i think and i am planning on restoring them, I had toyed with the idea of buying new plastic, but i really like to look of teak, even if it is more up keep. May be changing my mind later but that is my plan. Next step is to complete the foam removal, then measure, they start assessing the stringers. May need some help with this. Some of them look intact.

Also my transom is rotten...........which i knew, but it is bare wood on the most of it, only glassed about 6 inches up from the bottom and sides, so it was just tabbed in but never fully coated. Bummer because if they had glassed the entire thing i think it would still be OK, it does not look like it was too rotten around the keyhole.

 

[ImperialV184]

Here are some updates, got the iPhone app makes uploading much faster. Anyway, foam is out, what a bear that was, probably 12 bags of heavy nasty wet foam. Next I measure, I have seen a lot of discussion about the drill test for bad wood, what if the wood is good but delaminated from the fiberglass? How do you determine if it is really worth salvaging some of the stringers. Some look very solid but rotting in areas where the bulkheads were. They did not glass the bulk heads or the stringers where the bulkheads attach.

 

[ImperialV184]

Well, I finally got back into
The boat, I tore my bicep tendon and had to have surgery to fix it, takes
About 4 months for full recovery, started on the transom Saturday, very interesting, it was only glassed about 6 inches on the side and bottom, rest was painted exposed wood, most o the rotten Wood
Almost dissolved, turns out there were 4 grubs eating the wood, it was nasty. Attached a picture, few questions, it looks like the transom does not touch the hull on the bottom and is about .75 inches away from the sides of the hull, is this normal or can I have the transom touch the hull.

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

Customary to leave about 1/4" to 1/2" gap around the perimeter and then fill with peanut butter. Check the link in my signature for recommendations and How To's on your Deck, Transom, and Stringers.

 

[ImperialV184]

Thanks I will check that out

 

[ImperialV184]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

wanted to give some updates on my project, i completed the tear down and then moved on to the transom, i am trying to get the transom done before winter so that i can focus on cutting the stringers and resuming glassing in the spring. here are a few shots of the progress. Really exciting to see the transom in. Used the peanut butter method to attach the hull. it was right at 75 degrees outside and that gave me lots of work time. I think i way overdid the amount of peanut butter at 8 quarts, but the transom was rather large. i was pretty excited to see the clamp provided even pressure.

 

[ImperialV184]

Re: 1987 Imperial V184 Restoration

looks a lot different from day 1,
i am attempting to upload an image from photbucket here hope it works, if so i can do a much better job describing my progress....