Superjet511
Seaman
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2018
- Messages
- 65
Hello all,
I am recently new to this site. My wife had asked me in the past if I had ever wanted to buy a boat. I said that although I love being on the water, I never had the desire to own one. You always hear about the best 2 days of a boat owner's life etc, etc. Well, we now own a boat. We bought a 1994 Crownline 196br toward the end of September. The hull is in really good shape as far as the gelcoat and it has zero stress cracks. The 305 engine runs like a top and everything looks, sounds and feels good with the Alpha 1 gen 2 outdrive. Everything electrical works as well. It did need quite a bit of interior work and I did notice a soft spot in the floor in front of the ski locker. I felt confident that I could put a new floor in and whatever else was involved. After taking it out a couple times in early October and even tubing (we live in Michigan so it was a tad chilly) I started removing the interior. There was extensive rot on one of the bow panels. I did quite a bit of research into local shops to do the vinyl and decided on a guy with a lot of experience about an hour from us. After bringing him the pieces we wanted done and discussing the project with him we ended up deciding on an entire custom interior. The stuff that was in decent shape still wasn't great and with the age we figured it would fail soon as well. To go to a full interior versus trying to match bits and pieces wasn't a huge sum of money. We thought why not just do it all and have exactly what we want as far as colors and textures? I now under stand the acronym B.O.A.T. We went with an off white, grey and black carbon fiber.
Back to the floor. I figured I would tackle the interior this winter, enjoy it next summer, then do the floor restoration. Well, after pulling out the interior my mind got the best if me. I started looking at the ski locker area and started peeling some carpet back. I soon realized that it will at least need some stringers replaced but likely all of them. I then decided to do it all this winter instead of putting a brand new interior in a rotten boat just to take it out again. We ended up taking it to a friends house where it could be worked on all winter in his pole barn. We had the majority of the floor removed and started tackling the foam. After removing the foam from a couple of cavities I called it a day. I was suddenly dreading digging all of that foam out. After thinking about a little bit I tried a different method the next time I worked on it. When we built an addition on our house we went with spray foam. The installers used a really long saw similar to a bandsaw blade but very thick and rigid to remove any foam beyond the face of the studs. They left that at our house and I held onto it. I took that blade over and ran it along each side of the stringer. Since the blade was so thick I could actually slide it horizontally and pry with it as well to separate it from the stringers instead of sawing. I would then use a pry bar to pull it out. It worked great and a lot of it came out in big chunks.
I did some spot checking and see that the wooden supports for the engine mounts is bad. So, tomorrow I plan to winterize the engine and then start pulling it. We shall see how it goes.
I wanted to start a post because after our purchase I really started reading the forums and enjoyed seeing the progress that others have made on their boats. Up until about a month ago, I knew very little about boats. I have already learned a lot and feel like I will know this boat inside and out by the time it is done. I am crossing my fingers that it will be ready for summer fun by May. It may be optimistic, but that is our goal. Regardless, in the end we will have a solid boat and will be confident in the fact that it is done right. Here are a few pics of the boat and the progress so far. Not sure of the best way to upload but read that some people use photobucket. Not sure if that is due to file size? I was only able to add one pic due to file size. I will resize some and add later. Have a great night all.
p.s. sorry for the long winded introduction..
I am recently new to this site. My wife had asked me in the past if I had ever wanted to buy a boat. I said that although I love being on the water, I never had the desire to own one. You always hear about the best 2 days of a boat owner's life etc, etc. Well, we now own a boat. We bought a 1994 Crownline 196br toward the end of September. The hull is in really good shape as far as the gelcoat and it has zero stress cracks. The 305 engine runs like a top and everything looks, sounds and feels good with the Alpha 1 gen 2 outdrive. Everything electrical works as well. It did need quite a bit of interior work and I did notice a soft spot in the floor in front of the ski locker. I felt confident that I could put a new floor in and whatever else was involved. After taking it out a couple times in early October and even tubing (we live in Michigan so it was a tad chilly) I started removing the interior. There was extensive rot on one of the bow panels. I did quite a bit of research into local shops to do the vinyl and decided on a guy with a lot of experience about an hour from us. After bringing him the pieces we wanted done and discussing the project with him we ended up deciding on an entire custom interior. The stuff that was in decent shape still wasn't great and with the age we figured it would fail soon as well. To go to a full interior versus trying to match bits and pieces wasn't a huge sum of money. We thought why not just do it all and have exactly what we want as far as colors and textures? I now under stand the acronym B.O.A.T. We went with an off white, grey and black carbon fiber.
Back to the floor. I figured I would tackle the interior this winter, enjoy it next summer, then do the floor restoration. Well, after pulling out the interior my mind got the best if me. I started looking at the ski locker area and started peeling some carpet back. I soon realized that it will at least need some stringers replaced but likely all of them. I then decided to do it all this winter instead of putting a brand new interior in a rotten boat just to take it out again. We ended up taking it to a friends house where it could be worked on all winter in his pole barn. We had the majority of the floor removed and started tackling the foam. After removing the foam from a couple of cavities I called it a day. I was suddenly dreading digging all of that foam out. After thinking about a little bit I tried a different method the next time I worked on it. When we built an addition on our house we went with spray foam. The installers used a really long saw similar to a bandsaw blade but very thick and rigid to remove any foam beyond the face of the studs. They left that at our house and I held onto it. I took that blade over and ran it along each side of the stringer. Since the blade was so thick I could actually slide it horizontally and pry with it as well to separate it from the stringers instead of sawing. I would then use a pry bar to pull it out. It worked great and a lot of it came out in big chunks.
I did some spot checking and see that the wooden supports for the engine mounts is bad. So, tomorrow I plan to winterize the engine and then start pulling it. We shall see how it goes.
I wanted to start a post because after our purchase I really started reading the forums and enjoyed seeing the progress that others have made on their boats. Up until about a month ago, I knew very little about boats. I have already learned a lot and feel like I will know this boat inside and out by the time it is done. I am crossing my fingers that it will be ready for summer fun by May. It may be optimistic, but that is our goal. Regardless, in the end we will have a solid boat and will be confident in the fact that it is done right. Here are a few pics of the boat and the progress so far. Not sure of the best way to upload but read that some people use photobucket. Not sure if that is due to file size? I was only able to add one pic due to file size. I will resize some and add later. Have a great night all.
p.s. sorry for the long winded introduction..