Rebuild Journal for a 19' Sea Ray

[Electricity]

Hey folks, my name is Sam, and this thread is going to serve as a journal for my first boat project. About a month ago I got a free 10' aluminium jon boat that my father had found washed up on shore. I was planning on rebuilding it, and was surfing craigslist.org for a trolling motor when I came across a listing for two free boats, one was a 22 footer, and one was a 19' sea ray. I contacted the poster, and went to see the boats. The 22' was in pretty rough shape, but the sea ray was in nice shape, no motor or anything, but the hull was in nice shape. He told me the boat was free, but he was hoping to get $250 for the trailer. I asked if he'd mind $125 a week and he agreed. Two weeks later I picked up me boat! I'l update again a bit later tonight with pictures of the move and what I've found so far.
Just to tease you a bit, here's a picture of the boat just barely fitting in the garage.

Here's a link incase the pic doesn't work.. Clicky

 

[Electricity]

Re: Rebuild Journal for a 19' Sea Ray

Just a bit of thinking out loud here, as its a slooow night at work.
As I said before the hull is in good shape, and the console and cap are also in good shape. I plan on stripping the deck, redoing the stingers if I have to, rebuilding the deck, converting from inboard to outboard motor, rewiring as necesarry, adding hydrolic steering and getting her on the water asap. Unfortunately, that will mainly rely on available budget. Right now it will depend on how much of my pay check I can dedicate a week. I have a riced up 89' honda CRX sitting at a friends in Maryland that I thought i'd sold before I moved to Wellfleet, MA, but I lost contact with the buyer so I need to get it sold asap. That will hopefully get me an extra $1000 towards the boat. The man who gave me the boat also has a 90 hp Johnson outboard he's upgrading from, which he will sell to me for $500. He is considering a trade for my bolt action Savage in .308, otherwise I'll just try and sell it for around $500. That will take care of the motor, then its another ~$500 for a hydrolic steering kit. ~$200 I'm hoping for electrical I'm hoping. And I'm not to sure what the ply wood, fiber glass and resin will run me, but I think that will be the bare minimum to get her in the water.
If I can afford all that, and do the work, i'd love to see her in the water in about a month. If I can do all that, I can try for tuna, which could help fund the rest of the build. I'll sit on a crate if I have to! Heh. Otherwise, it will be a winter project, and I'll get it lookin' real nice.
I plan on either building or buying some sort of stand, or jack plate for the motor, so I don't have to cut the transon down. I'll glass up a scab for the origional hole, glass 2 sheets of marine plywood, and put up a sheet of either marine aluminium, or stainless steel on either side for added strength. Then its just a matter of mounting th jack plate, rigging the hydrolic steering, etc etc.
It looks like I'll have to redo atleast 2 of the 4 stringers, which I was really really hoping not to do, but when I pulled the deck up, one was on its side and one was pretty bad looking. They wheren't even glassed in, just resined in place and left bare. But the floatation looks good, so that's ok. I'm really hoping to avoid removing the cap, but I might have to to do the new stringers.
We'l see how it looks under there once I get the rest of the crap cleared out. There are lots of leaves, and scrap wood, and tuna balls, and spiders, and got knowes what else that have all ended up inside this old boat.
This is my first real boat, and certainly my first really restoration project of this magnetude. I've been lurking here on I boats, taking in as much info as I can. I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions for you guys as I go along.
More to come.
Cheers,
-E

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Rebuild Journal for a 19' Sea Ray

Consider removing the cap. From what I've seen it makes things MUCH easier than working around it. Also a 90 HP is going to be barely adequate for that size boat. That thing would probably take 150-200HP easy. What type of boat is this? open bow, cuddy, closed bow?

 

[NoKlu]

Re: Rebuild Journal for a 19' Sea Ray

The front view looks kinda like oops! boat so I think it's an older closed bow. Once you have the cap off and the floor up you may as well do all the stringers and it'll probably need a transom as well. 1 month do do the rebuild is very optimistic, I'd make it a winter project. You will be disappointed with a 90 on the back for sure, way underpowered. Here's a good thread for you to read, it's long but has most of the info you'll need and it's a great story.http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=234392

 

[allpoints360]

Re: Rebuild Journal for a 19' Sea Ray

If you are watching your costs, and I think you are, you don't have to go with hydraulic steering. Cable steering will be fine with an outboard on a boat that size. And cheaper.

Good luck. And take your time. A month is a hurry-up schedule.

 

[Josh P]

Re: Rebuild Journal for a 19' Sea Ray

i have a 73 searay srv 190 that i got with trailer and an outboard. the motor is a force 120 not hearing good things about them but i dont care it starts and runs and only paid 500 for all. but like yours mine started off needing just this or just that, niow its transom, deck, and of course stringers. but mine only has 2. so some plywood some more plywood and more plywood some glass and lots of resin and oh ya tons of grinding and hopefully floating by the spring. good luck to ya will be making a thread about mine soon.

 

[SBTOM]

Re: Rebuild Journal for a 19' Sea Ray

Awesome. That hull looks like a nice deep hull and it seems like you got a killer deal. Have to say though, it seems like you might be suffering from a little bit of budgeting denial! I don't know what the deck layout looks like, but if this thing is truly just a hull, you could easily sink more than $200 into wiring and electrical work. For what its worth, I just re-wired my 19 foot center console and it took about 15 hours and $1000 to do it right. I wouldn't skimp on things like marine cable, glue shrink, bilge pumps, radio etc. Also marine ply can run about 90 per sheet. I would spend longer than a month and do a really solid job. If you are heading all of the way out to go tuna fishing, you definitely need to make sure your setup is dialed in and well thought out.