1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

[cmayer85]

Hey guys and gals. My name is Cameron and I am new to the forums but i wanted to share my project with you guys and get comments, opinions, suggestions from you on my build. The goal is to get this boat on the water within a month and do it under $2500. The boat was my parents first boat, its a year younger than me and needs some work and tlc. I am doing new paint, interior, motor, pretty much everything. The motor was a 3.8 OMC and I am swapping in a 5.7 350 OMC. It is a stringer 800 outdrive, so i know i will get flamed but I just want a running boat for the summer. The next project is a 24' Formula sunsport with a 454 and bravo one, but thats for another time. Thanks in advance!

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

Doing the body work on the boat. I filled all the old screw holes inside and I removed the ugly rails aound the boat on the outside.

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

ready for paint

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

 

[wewefirex2x]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

That boat is looking good...

that is one hell of a trailer for that boat!!!

What did you use to prime and paint?

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

Well I am trying to keep costs down so I just used a cheap high build primer and single stage urethane paint. If I ever paint below the rub rail I will use something better/harder but I am going to try to buff the gelcoat back to life. I already tried a little section and it seems to be shining up a lot.

 

[bear_69cuda]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

Cool boat!

What are you gonna do for the deck surface?

The paint looks awesome so far!

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

I am just going to carpet it. I really like how you did your deck in your bayliner tho. I already have the carpet and I just want to keep it cheap. I know you said you had like 300 in your deck but im sure you had a to do a ton of work and I just dont want to lol. I am basically building this boat to "fundraise" for my other boat. I will use this one this summer and probably sell it to buy the motor and outdrive for my formula. although i probably wont want to sell it, its going to be really fast and fun!

 

[bear_69cuda]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

10-4

The 454 boat sounds like fun!

Still the o' Chap is one cool boat!

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

more updated pics. motor is now running and was put in almost 2 weeks ago. i havent done too much in the last week. i did get the 2 captains seats that i bought off craigslist reupholstered and they look great. and i also got the carpet in.

aaron being lazy after carpet was done

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

new seats

 

[blousteau]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

Cool, I am working on a 84 187 XLC. I needed some pics of what the inside origionally looked like. Couldn't find any anywhere. THANK YOU!!!!!!!! Couple of questions. What are going to do with the 3.8l and the outdrive????? I may be interested in buying the outdrive and at least the manifolds and risers if they are in good shape. Is there any way you could take some measurements of the motor cover for me. Mine was heavily modified with a bench seat and a deck over the motor, and I am thinking of trying to put it back to a motor cover and seats on each side. What paint did you use, and how did you apply it?

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

i am going to rebuild the 3.8 and try to sell it but that will be a while. i can take pics of the motor cover and seats. i am not going to use any of them. i am building a bench and sunpad.

 

[blousteau]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

Damn. I guess I will have to find some manifolds online. It has been a pain the in a** to find the log style that were used on the 3.8 L Everyone wants to sell me the ones for the 4.3 but they don't look they are going to match with the stringer drive setup. Note to self, never ever ever ever buy another OMC I/O. As I bitc* about it, I think back to the three years we used it before the rot took over. We never broke down once, and used it every weekend from April to November. I pulled two Mercruisers and a Volvo in during that time one of them a friend of mine who was calling my OMC cra* , all of them were no more than 6 years old. I love to see the piece of shi* boat pulling in the newer models. Makes me love mine more.

Mine has the bench seat with the large sundeck behind it. If you want I can take some pictures and some measurements for you.

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

yeah post up some pics. i built the frame for the sunpad today but would love to see what yours looks like. i know a lot of people hate on the omc's but this boat has been super easy to work on and im sure it will run great and be problem free when i am done.

 

[GeorgeF]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

WOW!! What a great job your doing on that boat. I just recently bought a 1984 Chaparral 187 with a 305 and was wondering if you might know what size the fuel tank is? And also what pitch prop do you think I should use?

I'm brand new to this forum but I'll post some pics of my boat soon it's in great shape...

 

[cmayer85]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

well the 3.8 ran good with a 15x17, im not sure what this 5.7 will like. probably a 19. as far as the fuel tank, i think its like 25 gallons give or take, not too sure tho.

 

[blousteau]

Re: 1986 Chaparral 187 restoration

I agree I find it easy to work on too! I don't have any pics of the sundeck on the boat, but here is one of the back bench seat. This boat was setup as a fishing boat, by the second to last owner. They ripped the carpet out and gelcoated everything, I guess he wanted a bayboat and decided to make this one as close as he could. The tank on the 3.8 is a 25 Gallon. Room wise I don't see how they could put anyting bigger without making the ski locker shorter. Mine is aluminum, and is the origional as the date of manuf. on it is 84.