Just recently bought an 18 foot Rinker open bow with the 3.0L 140hp Mercruiser inboard. I got it for a good price, however the guy I bought it from was in the middle of re-doing the boat & I'll just say his craftsmanship skills were nowhere near what I would prefer. So, it will be coming completely apart sometime this summer as work allows so I can make it the way I want. However, I have some ideas that I would like to do to it to make it the boat I want.
1. Possibility of swapping in a 350/ Bravo 3 outdrive. I know this is going to require some fiberglassing of new beefier stringers & motor mounts, etc., I'm not looking for so much the top end but rather the thru-hull exhaust & the torque of the 350 for pulling tubes & skiers. Looking for some valuable input on how to pull this off the right way.
2. Switching the rear jump seats & lounge seats to captains chairs & a bench seat with a sundeck. I've been looking for ideas on how the seat bases are built but have come up dry so far.
3. Possibility of making a fiberglass full-length swim platform that is molded to the hull. I plan on either re-painting it or preferably spraying the new color in gel-coat.
I also plan on installing a bigger fuel tank to accomodate the 350's thirst. Of course no custom boat is complete without a nice stereo system either. I would rather re-do the boat from the ground up and have something that is built solid & knowing that than buy something that possibly has problems for around the same cost it would've cost me to just custom build what I want. Any ideas or thoughts are more than welcome!
1. Possibility of swapping in a 350/ Bravo 3 outdrive. I know this is going to require some fiberglassing of new beefier stringers & motor mounts, etc., I'm not looking for so much the top end but rather the thru-hull exhaust & the torque of the 350 for pulling tubes & skiers. Looking for some valuable input on how to pull this off the right way.
2. Switching the rear jump seats & lounge seats to captains chairs & a bench seat with a sundeck. I've been looking for ideas on how the seat bases are built but have come up dry so far.
3. Possibility of making a fiberglass full-length swim platform that is molded to the hull. I plan on either re-painting it or preferably spraying the new color in gel-coat.
I also plan on installing a bigger fuel tank to accomodate the 350's thirst. Of course no custom boat is complete without a nice stereo system either. I would rather re-do the boat from the ground up and have something that is built solid & knowing that than buy something that possibly has problems for around the same cost it would've cost me to just custom build what I want. Any ideas or thoughts are more than welcome!
