81 Checkmate Restoration!

81 Checkmate

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Jul 20, 2010
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Hi all, I am usaualy over in the Merc I/O forum.

We sarted our 1st resto on my son's boat last week and are moving along at a good pace.
I have posted some pic's for your enjoyment.

Dont laugh to loud we are rookies to this.

I am sure i will be asking alot of questions for the experts, but i will keep it to a min.

This is a great forum for the DIY Boater!

Thanks and i will keep ya posted on progress. :)
 

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81 Checkmate

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Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Some more pic's
 

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81 Checkmate

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Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

More pics

And the boy taking a break, Those dam cell phones !!!!!!!!!!!!! :cool:
 

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Piece715

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jan 26, 2009
Messages
757
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Looks like y'all are moving right along! Keep up the good work and let the questions fly... if needed of course!
 

Flysfloatsor

Banned
Joined
Oct 7, 2010
Messages
202
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

That boat looks like a great project!
What power did it have? Are you rebuilding the old engine or upgrading?
 

Piece715

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jan 26, 2009
Messages
757
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Noticed in the pics that the little wood that was in there was pretty rough... Hows the transom? The lines on her as she sits in the water are nice! Reminds me of the old anny VIP Vindicators sleek beefy stance... Any ideas on paint? many options with that hull
 

81 Checkmate

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Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

He bought it early spring last year and used it all summer untill you could almost step thru the floor around the drivers seat. We had a blast with it, i think i did more than him, i finaly had it up to 52 mph the last time out. I told him with all that water logged gone that thing would do 60 + on the water.

It has a merc 898 305 small block, I told my son i would help him get a short block 350 this winter and then we could build it up and install next spring. He is 21 and all he wants to do is fix it and sell or trade for jet ski's.

I told him that jet ski's are flies on water you can shoo them away but they keep coming back.

The transmon is in great shape did some wood samples and it looks good.

The center stringer was not all that bad, it was starting to rotten on the top edge.
The worst part was the stupid center cooler hole they put in from the factory and it did not have any weep hole for the water to get out. Also they did not cover the stringer with fiberglass?

The flotation boxes were bad too, full of water.

I am going to go ahead and make new motor mount towers also. The old ones arent to bad but why skimp on that.

When we got the floor up the foam was water logged.

I told him i would paint it yellow and white, Yellow were the brown is and white were the off white is, he is still unsure what to do.
 

81 Checkmate

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Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Update with Pic's

We have been able to work on it some more between all the rain we have been getting this year. We have surpassed our normal total rain fall for the year and were only 6 months into the year. What a bummer summer we are having. It realy has not been a boating summer as of yet.
Taking next week off and spending 10 days at the lake. Cant wait hazey -lazey days on the water!!!!!!


81 Checkmate 046.JPG81 Checkmate 048.jpg81 Checkmate 050.jpg81 Checkmate 045.jpg81 Checkmate 049.jpg
 

81 Checkmate

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Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Ok now i have a couple questions. After i had been reading all of RickRyder resto. What a great thread those guys were working in the middle of winter under a make shift tent. Turned out very nice. Anyway my question?

1. He used polyester insted of Epoxy, Would this be ok for my situation?
2. He made up his own P.B. Would this be good for glueing the center stringer and motor mounts down or use PL GLUE
3. What exactely is PL GLUE
 

produceguy

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
Sep 30, 2010
Messages
1,243
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Nice project.
I wish my dad and I could have done something like this. Your a good father for spending the time with your son.

PL is a cauk glue that you find at Home depot or Lowes. Very strong and works great.
Poly or Epoxy is a great debate here. Check out the sticky on the top.
Remember to buy your wood soon and let it dry out about a week before use.
Ricks resto is great and another is friscoboater's searay.
Great job so far.
 

Woodonglass

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
25,924
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

You're doing a great job!! Poly is what your boat is made out of so it is what I would recommend you continue to use on her. PB is great for filleting and filling gouges and gaps. I prefer to use PL for bedding stringers and motor mounts to the hull. It cures flexible and ensures you will not get hard spots and allow the hull to flex a bit and keeps it from cracking. PL is a Polyurethan, 100% waterproof caulking that you can pick up at Lowe's or Home depot. I have included some drawings on how I recommend fabricating Transoms, Stringers and Decks. Hope they help. I use 1/4 dowels to hold the stringers off the hull while I squirt the PL under em and then use a large plastic spoon dipped in mineral spirits to create cove fillet. Takes minimum of 48 hours for the stuff to cure before you can glass over it and remove the dowels.

(Click the Pics to Enlarge)

StringerLayupAndInstallation.JPGTransomBuild.jpgMakingDeck.jpg
 

MEATBALL0309

Cadet
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
29
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

PL glue is contractor adhesive that you can get at any lowes or home depot. comes in tubes like caulk and is a seriously strong bond make sure when you use it you apply good amount of pressure and let it sit for a day or longer for it to cure. as far as which one to use i think that would be a matter of opinion have seen people glue down with pl and then filet with p.b. and have seen people use just p.b. to glue and to filet. good luck i will be watching thread closely love to watch these rebuilds. sorry didnt realize that was already answered
 

81 Checkmate

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Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Thanks all for the advise. I think i am going to go with the PL to glue down.

Yea its great to work with the son, I restored a 69 camaro from the ground up back in the early 90's
when he was a boy and he was all over that, sitting in the car shifting going veroooom! veroooom! Still can remember those day's, we still have the car but i am not gona let him have it untill he is 25 or so.

You know how young men can be with a hot rod!

We are going to go this week and look at the wood selection, i am going with the plywood underlayment material like Rick did.
I am gona do the fiberglass underside also before we install.

One question on the motor mount material, i have read that people have used Oak wood for these, would that be a recomdation to use Oak or can i get by with pine 2x12's

The old ones look like oak or some kind of hardwood. when i striped the fiberglass offf of them they realy didnt look to bad, they were solid thru the middle and top just at the bottoms and around the edges.

Thanks All
 

Woodonglass

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
25,924
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

If you use OAK it should ONLY be White Oak. It has some water resistance. I all reality there is no problem in using mulitple laminations of 3/4" Ext. Grade Plywood to create your motormounts and saturating them in resin and encasing them in CSM and 1708 Biax. That's what I would recommend. Make sure to predrill and coat all your hardware with 3M 4200 when installing and everything will last for decades. Better than what the MFG did thats for sure.
 

81 Checkmate

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Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Thanks Woodenglass i think i will do the ply laminated process for the motor mounts.

Question? I was able to get a couple hrs in yesterday, i am wanting to take the dash apart and remove to redeo to gage cluster and clean all the wiring behind the dash.

Removed the steering wheel then got to this point and could not figure out how to get the center hub off.

It looks like it has a thru bolt in center that is going thru the hub then dash then thru the cable housing then out the back with a nut on it.

Would i remove the nut then the bolt would come out the front?

I tried to take some pic's. maybe someone has some insight on this.



0628012108.jpg

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81 Checkmate

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Jul 20, 2010
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Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Back at it again!

I removed my steering hub last night thanks to Bondo. Here is some pics!

I didnt think it was gona be a whole assembly like this, i was expecting it to be a flat panel on the boat with the gauges thru a cut out in the dash panel.

What i am wanting to do is replace the black dash panel piece. It is cracked and is worped.
Any ideas on a replacement or rework or ?????????? Need some info/ideas from you guys!

IMG_3010.jpgIMG_6452.jpgIMG_4472.jpgIMG_1202.jpg
 

ezmobee

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Mar 26, 2007
Messages
23,767
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

I'd use Starboard (also called "taco marine lumber")
 

bajaunderground

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Apr 18, 2008
Messages
1,401
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Nice Checkmate you guys have there!

Have you been over to www.checkmate-boats.com? There's a ton of CM specific info in their forums, if you haven't been on there, I'd recommend it.

I follow both pretty regularly and IMO I think there's more knowledge on iboats forums collectively; however, on the CM website, there's guys that actually built a lot of the older CM and some that still work their that are very active members.

Anyway, can't wait to see the results!

Ciao~
 

81 Checkmate

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Jul 20, 2010
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1,360
Re: 81 Checkmate Restoration!

Thanks Guys for the feedback. Will check out that site.

Baja - love your boat, looks fast just sitten in the water. I have read up on your threads when you were redoning it, nice job. Hope we can get the same results. kinda the same as ours - body style any way.

Ezmobee - You say you used Taco lumber, I will look into it.
Question - what to put on the corners to cover up the joint so it doesn't look tacky?
 
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