1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

[109jb]

I figured that it was about time to show what I?ve been working on.

Last year I bought a 1988 Sea Ray Seville 16 foot bowrider. My wife and I were looking for a different boat and found a different Sea Ray (same model with a 100 HP Merc) that looked good, but had the telltale signs of deck rot. It had a 12? x 12? plywood doubler piece under the helm seat and I could feel soft spots in the floor. I then found the one we bought and I really just bought it because the 115 HP Mariner outboard was worth what I gave for it. I checked the compression and we ran it on muffs before I bought it and I brought it home. Anyway, I cleaned out the 3? of leaves that had turned to compost out of the boat and took it to the river. I loved the handling and decided to keep it and fix it up.

Here are a few pictures of what it looked like after cleaning last year:

In the pictures above you can see the fishing deck that the previous owner had installed. When he installed it he screwed it to the deck using constructions screws. 3 inch screws and 4 of them went right through the hull and were still sticking out the bottom about an inch.

I did a few things to the boat last year so that the family could use it. We had a blast with it.

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Now here are some pictures of the deconstruction from earlier this year.

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Unfortunately, my camera card malfunctioned and I lost the pictures of the stringers going in or the deck getting glassed or the cap going back on. Here are some after that though.

This one shows the deck after being painted with rust-o-leum truck bedliner. The deck is glassed underneath the bedliner with 2 layers of CSM and poly resin.

And the bow area

Here are the side panels being sealed with spar polyurethane to seal.

And a few shots of the side panels after I upholstered them and installed them in the boat.

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

The bow cushions. I still have some more to do though along the sides and front.

Floor carpeted and seats in. The seats are Cabela?s Angler II seats and they seem good and match the interior really well.

Well, there it is. It isn?t finished yet as I still have some things left to do. I have 3 more of the seats pictured and will be building a box, platform, or whatever you want to call it that will go in the back of the boat to mount the seat to and for storage. It will also havea livewell for fishing. There is also some upholstery to do and I ran out of carpet for the bow section and the box for the rear seats. I?ll also be cleaning up the outside of the boat and polishing the gelcoat. I have hand polished a few sections and it shines up nicely. I?ll also be re-painting the trim stripe on the outside too.

I?m pretty happy with the results. I used CDX and ACX plywood for the deck and stringers and everything has at least 2 layers of CSM and poly resin. Stringers and deck are tabbed in with 1708. If I were to do it again I would do it differently though. I would use pressure treated plywood for everything and I would not cover the deck with fiberglass. I would tab it in with 1708 still, but I would then just paint the whole thing with truck bedliner. I would use the Herculiner because it goes on thicker. I was at a graduation party and the homeowner had a wheelchair ramp leading to his deck that was made with pressure treated lumber and plywood. The plywood surface was painted with Herculiner and looked like it was done yesterday. It had been there for 7 years going through Southeastern Wisconsin weather. I now see no reason to fiberglass the deck.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Looks great! Your upholstery looks pro. I always liked those style SeaRays. Nice to see it brought back.

 

[JaSla74]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Nicely done sir

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Thanks guys. I had no idea what I was doing on the upholstery so I carefully took apart the old worn stuff to see how it was done. Doing the 2-tone the way it is on the side panels is actually pretty easy. I'm going to do the side panels in the bow with a 2-tone stripe and will take some pictures and show how easy it really is.

An update too. The boat hit the water again this afternoon. I only had it out for about 20 minutes but everything went OK with only a few problems. First, I had removed the plastic pitot for the speedo to use the one built into the lower unit. Well, I forgot to plug the holes so there was a bit of water coming in. Not to worry though, the transom and stringer don't come down that far and the bilge pump kept it cleared out. Second, I tuned up the engine before taking it out and I somehow didn't get the idle stop screw locked down. It kept loosening up on me and when I would come back on the throttle it would die. Other than those 2 minor things it went really well.

 

[kabookey]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Nice! I am in the process of restoring my 87 Seville I/O (pics to follow). Do you have dimensions on those side panels? When I purchased the boat they had been removed, but what you have done is exactly how I want the boat to look. I assume I will have to make the length longer because of the size, but I belive the width's are the same for this model. Once again, very impressive

 

[lowkee]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Wow! That all came out of the blue! I didn't even know you were doing a restore. The boat looks fantastic! I can only hope mine comes out near as nice looking as your is now. How long did the full restore take you? And can you do a detailed walk-through on the upholstery work? That is one part i am nervous about. I don't want to pay $700 for what I can do myself and have it look almost as nice.

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Thanks guys. I am really happy with how it is turning out. I started it I guess in May sometime but I haven't been working on it the whole time since then. We took a 2 week vacation, spent 3 weeks building some decks off of the house and to the new swimming pool, had to re-do the mulch this year, etc, etc, etc.

I was aprehensive about the upholstery too and carefully took apart what was there and duplicated it in different colors. The bow cushions have a plywood bottom, so the foam is glued to it with spray adhesive and the vinyl just pulled around tighht and stapled underneath. The side panels are done kid of the same way. I am going to be finishing up the curved bow side panel pieces and will take pictures showing how the stripes are done. It is pretty easy. I think I will put it in another thread but will put a link here. That should show the steps I used in all of the interior side panels.

Kabookey - I will see if I can get you some measurements tonight. I think the 87 and 88 is where Sea Ray changed things around. I didn't measure mine, I just cut the old vinyl off of one of the old pieces and traced it and then used the new one as a pattern so I had a matched pair.

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Here is the link for the upholstery thread I just created.

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Kabookey,

Click on the picture link for a drawing of the left side panel on my boat. The right is the same except it doesn't have the forward opening as that is where the throttle control is. All of the corners are rounded too. The angle at thee front matches the angles on the cutouts in the panel and this angle matches the angle of the dash panel. If I were you I would make a template out of cardboard first and get it looking good.

Hope this helps.

edit: I see I forgot to attach the picture. I am at work now and will attach it when I get home tonight.

edit #2: I finally remembered to attach the drawing.

 

[dane]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Wow, what a fantastic restore job! I have precisely the same boat, down to the color I believe (that's green, right). My father bought the boat in '88 and handed it down to me 3 years ago, it has been garage kept and covered every one of those years; so it's still almost 100% original (still has the 100HP white merc, only the driver's seat has been replaced). If you want need any pictures or measurements during your restore, I'd be happy to help out.

Again, great work.

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Thanks Dane. Yep mine has the green accent color but the previous owner decided for some reason to paint it above the rubrail using cheapo silver rattle can poorly done paint. I also wonder what happened to the original metal rubrail. I believe they came withh an aluminum rubrail with black insert, but mine is all rubber. Doesn't really matter because for the cost of a new one I'm not replacing it.

I'll finish the interior later, but I'm basically done for this season anyway since I just got released from the hospital. I went to the ER late Saturday night and found out I had a burst appendix which they removed that night. Didn't ever even hurt bad and I actually drove myself to the ER. Never had any symptoms except for a dull pain in my lower abdomen. The pain was dead center and never toward the right side. Even the ER doctor didn't think appendix, but sent me for a CAT-scan where they saw it. Within 3 hours of leaving my house I was in the operating room sliced open. Prognosis is fine but the surgeon (my neighbor who knows I like projects) said if he sees my barn light on any time soon will come over and kick my @$$. Anyway, that pretty much ended the boating season for me this year. Its been pretty cool temperatures for pleasure boating anyway. I'll probably still get it out for some fishing and just to be on the water though.

 

[kabookey]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

very nice, much appreciated! I will be posting some pics soon, still plenty of work to do but I am finally making some progress, cheers!

 

[TxBoater10]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Nice Work!! how did you do the front bow seating did you build the stucture underneath as well?

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Nice Work!! how did you do the front bow seating did you build the stucture underneath as well?

The structure under the bow seats is glass covered plywood. The main deck is flat from bow to stern. I then cut and fit plywood for under the bow seats, but before attaching them I put 2 layers of fiberglass on them. They were then glued in place with PL construction adhesive. The joints were then fiberglassed.

The cushions are plywood pieces cut to fit with the original foam on top. The vinyl is just stapled underneath. The only stitching in the whole boat is on the corners of those cushions. I stitched the corners on my home sewing machine (an old Singer). I also used vinyl adhesive on the back side of the seams.

 

[MTribe08]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Nice work on the restore!...so for your deck..you put 2 layers of CSM, then you put a Rustoleum product over that, and finally carpet..why did you put the Rustoleum product over the glass, if you were going to put carpet in? Does that waterproof it even more?

Did you put any glass on the bottom of the deck?

Thanks

 

[purpony]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

109jb- great job. I am working on a 91 searay 17ft at this time. I just started cutting the floor up. I am planning on removing the cap and had a couple questions....

When you removed the cap, did you just drill out the rivets and lift it off?


Also, for the stringers..... were they glued in or did just the glass hold it? When you had it down to the shell replacing the stringers.... did you remove the floor for the ski locker/fuel tank or could you get the complete stringer out with leaving that in place.... or is this part of the actual hull itself?

thanks

 

[109jb]

Re: 1988 Sea ray Seville OB rebuild (with pics)

Nice work on the restore!...so for your deck..you put 2 layers of CSM, then you put a Rustoleum product over that, and finally carpet..why did you put the Rustoleum product over the glass, if you were going to put carpet in? Does that waterproof it even more?

Did you put any glass on the bottom of the deck?

Thanks

Yep. 2 layers CSM on top, 1 layer CSM on bottom. The deck is tabbed to the hull with 1708. I used the rust-o-leum bedliner because I wanted to make darn sure it was sealed everywhere in case there were any pinholes or such in my layups.