83' Larson 8500 current project 1

[jklnhyde]

I?ve been actively engaged in this particular project since December 08? and it seems to be coming along well. Last summer I had finished a 1986 SeaRay project that had dragged on for 3 years, due to lack of interest on my part, but mostly because my wife hated the SR?s small dimensions. We are a family of six and when you put us on a 19ft. cuddy, room runs out very quickly. I ended up trading evenly for this 1983 Larson 8500 (25ft). It came with a recently installed 5.0L Mercruiser and a very sturdy Shore L?nder trailer that needed a bit of R&R. The big saver was that the boat was 100% original and damage-free and I had quite a bit of lumber and other items left over from the minimalist R&R of the SeaRay.
The majority of my funds would be spent on trailer updating and the Alpha outdrive, which is so badly corroded that the case is turning into powder when you rub it! At least the prop is new and SS!

 

[jklnhyde]

Re: 83' Larson 8500 current project 1

The first few weeks were spent removing more than a few years of accumulated trash and crap in the cabin. You name it, it was in there. One of the first jewels I found was the full camper canvas inside the berthing area! The frames were installed and laying on the gunwales, but no canvas in sight. Imagine my surprise finding all the pieces intact and blemish-free inside the boat, buried under boxes and life vests. A definite plus and much $$$ saved. The porta-potti (plumbing for pump-out head all there, but no toilet!) had leaked at some point and it was the low point of the clean-up phase. The interior was in great shape for a 26-year old boat, meaning all the wood and formica, paneling and foam were very well-preserved, but the fabrics and carpeting were terrible. I removed the dual, L-shaped seating areas on the aft deck since the vinyl was sunscorched, and the wood had turned into porridge. I?ll be doing a teak slat-on-stainless bench setup in the future anyway. The pile of trash and mildewy carpet left over was huge. Even the trash collector told me I was pushing the weekly pick up limit!
The best part of the clean up was finding $72 worth of change inside the boat. This is no lie! The change was stored in every conceivable cubby in the cabin and bridge; everywhere you looked there were pennies and quarters!

 

[jklnhyde]

Re: 83' Larson 8500 current project 1

The eventual stripping of the boat revealed a few manufacturing flaws that I planned on correcting. First was the wiring. I am an electrical nit-picker and I just knew my biggest hurdle would be re-wiring this beast. Just eight dash-mounted switches and toggles controlled all the electrical functions of the boat, including 4 flourecent lamps, 4 reading lights, 2 radios, a fridge, a fan, a spotlight, all the nav lights, pumps, etc, etc. It was scary looking at the mass of tangled wires under the instrument cluster and below decks.
Next were the rotted bulkheads isolating the fuel tank from the storage bays below deck. There are four sheets of ply wedged and bolted to form a box right in the center of the hull. Water seeps below decks through the floor hatches and accumulates where the wood bulkheads meet the fiberglass deck. The hardest part was removing the cube-shaped, 75 gallon fuel tank living in this compartment, but once out, the process was simple.

I used sturdy 3/8? ply and sealed it with 2 coats of epoxy. The edges where these panels meet the deck are ?flared? to form a pronounced rise. I wedged the panels in place, secured them with screws into the upper and lower flares, and then to each other. The box that was formed is extremely sturdy and now, pretty much waterproof. Where the wood panels meet the lower flare, I ran a significant bead of sealer, creating four watertight compartments. They are only connected to each other via the floor drains that empty out to the engine bilge.

There was another water-damaged area in the berth. The overhead hatch opening was cut a bit generously at the factory and left a ??+ gap surrounding the hatch sealing trim that over the years, caused the caulk to shrink and allowed moisture inside. Since the wood sandwiched between the glass? remained wet long after it got soaked, when I started probing and scraping it, it fell out looking like the mulch under my trees. My shop vac worked overtime on this area and I had to replace the filter after I finished clearing out the hull. It was so NASTY! I had to cut very odd sized strips to fix the overhead hatch issue and it was the hardest to date due to the thick glass? deck above and the foam and glass? sandwich below. The repair will not win any beauty contests, but it?s firm and waterproof now.
At some point in the boat?s life, a PO repaired the stringers supporting the engine. At first I couldn?t tell, but when I got close, I noticed a brighter shade of white paint in the bilge area. They sound and feel solid, but when they were repaired, the drain holes (what probably led to the rotting of the original stringers) were filled in, leaving no way to drain out any water that accumulates in the low areas of the stringers. At least they are sealed tight.

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