1984 Chaparral 187 XLC Restoration - by blousteau

[blousteau]

Figured that I am deep enough into this to start an official thread for my boat.

Boat stats purchased from my brother in law four years ago for 1500.00 boat and trailer, had to rebuild upper on outdrive. Used boat for 2 years, found massive rot, started gutting. Bought a house and had a baby so put boat in warehouse for 2 years. Finally have pulled the boat out to finish the job.

3.8 L OMC V6
OMC 800 Stringer Drive


I'll try to keep things updated on here as I go, so far here is what I have done.

Removed the Cap
Removed the interior
Cut out old stringers
Fabbed up a new stringer 2 layers of 15/32 ACX ply 13.5 feet long
glued (Titebond III Premiun waterproof) and screwed together.
Will remove the screws tomorrow.
Grinding, Grinding, Grinding, Grinding, and more Grinding

Instead of posting a pic in each post I'll keep posting the link to my gallery on photobucket. Much easier than copying and pasting the link to each pic.

So here is the work so far!

1984 Chaparral 187 XLC Restoration Photo Album

 

[drewpster]

Re: 1984 Chaparral 187 XLC Restoration - by blousteau

A great start to what will be tons of work.....I mean fun. Welcome aboard. Get that safety gear! And lots of duct tape. Its great for removing fiberglass from itchy skin.

A new member to the Itchy Unfortunates club.

 

[blousteau]

Re: 1984 Chaparral 187 XLC Restoration - by blousteau

Have the safety gear, and may not have to do as much work. My sister used to work for a company that made fiberglass tanks, and one of the guys in the fiberglass shop has spray equipment at his house. He buys his resin and glass from the office. So he gets a huge discount on the materials. He also builds fiberglass pontoons in his spare time. She is going to call him for me and see what he would charge to shoot all the glass for me. If he can do it for a little more or less than I would spend on the materials and heartache of learning fiberglassing, then I might get him to spary in the stringers and the deck. As far as the interior goes, I will probably do that myself. I will have to bring the boat over to his house for him to do the spraying.

If not, I will be placing a fiberglass and resin order (maybe with is company) in the next couple of weeks. Grinding should be done by next weekend, and so should fitup of the stringers, barring life happening!

I am plannin on bedding the stringers in some PL construction adhesive, then doing the filet and covering them with two layers of 1708, maybe three. Two would be mat, roving, roving, mat, roving, roving. That is 4 layers of roving and two of mat. Three would just be for extra safety or to build up high stress points. What layup schedule have others used with 1708 and stringers? If I do it myself I am thinking of going the epoxy route, it seems to be a little more forgiving. Plus I use epoxy to glue everything in my house together that breaks, so I have a little experience with the stuff. I have done small polyester repairs on other boats, and they didn't come out all that well in the past. I can never get the pot life correct, but that was 10 years or so ago maybe age will help me this time. If he does it it will be chopped and sprayed.

When I removed mine it looked like they were not fully on the bottom of the hull, I know that has been quite a debate here in the past. Hopefully the PL will provide some cushion to keep them "raised" off of the hull.

My goal was to be finished with this in October, but I am going to stretch that and say by boating season next year. I'm in Louisiana, so that could come as early as Feb or March. What I screwed up on was doing the grinding during the summer, and it looks like I will be doing the glass during the winter. !ss backwards from what I should have done.

 

[tom.philly]

Re: 1984 Chaparral 187 XLC Restoration - by blousteau

Good luck!!! I am at exactly the same point with my 1985 Chaparral 200xlc.

I'm starting a thread this weekend and uploading pictures. We can bask in our miserary together!

Keep in touch maybe we can help each other aviod some mistakes and extra grinding.

Tom

 

[blousteau]

Re: 1984 Chaparral 187 XLC Restoration - by blousteau

What motor and drive do you have in yours. Mine is the OMC not the merc. I have been looking for someone who has an OMC so they can measure how wide the motor mounts are. My motor is across town in a warehouse with a gantry crane (thats how we got it out) and "dry fitting" it for measurements will be impossible since I am not bringing this boat across town with no stringers or cap!!!!

If you have the OMC stringer drive measure the top of the stringers were the motor mounts bolt down. I had mine replaced a while back and never put the motor back in and think they may be to narrow.

 

[robbankston]

Re: 1984 Chaparral 187 XLC Restoration - by blousteau

Good work man. I am restoring an 81 Chaparral 187. Seems to be a fine boat although I have yet to see it in action. I can't help you with the motor mounts. Mine has the Mercruise 898 (305 Chevy) in it. Not sure about yours but the place where the mounts go on my engine would make it pretty easy to determine how wide to make them. The reason being they are just a couple of holes where the mounts slide in. If yours are the same then you could just offset it on either side. I assume you are asking because you took the mounts out without measuring?