1990 Boat Rebuild Project (Transom + Floorboard)

tpmeredith

Recruit
Joined
May 2, 2013
Messages
2
I obtained this ~19-21' Bass Boat in July. My father owned it and passed away in July and through sad circumstances it is now mine. He was an avid fisherman but in the last year or two had not been using his boat and was fishing with friends more and let the boat deteriorate rather quickly. He did have the engine regularly maintenance which was a Mercury Maxhat 200hp engine and it runs rock solid minus not starting easily (We're going to change the plugs, clean the carb, etc and do an overhaul on it as well).

Overall, the transom has likely completely rotted away which gives the engine a scary amount of sway. I decided I would not trust this thing on the water with that sway until we rebuild it. The floor is rotted out near the drain and gets more solid towards the front. The hull seems to have decent integrity minus some small dime-sized nicks which need to be patched up.

Our plan is to split the top cap from the hull, refloor it and rebuild the entire rear transom. While it's apart I'm going to take the opportunity to redo almost all of the electrical because it is a mess as well. My plan is to run conduits to each section of the boat to allow for easier installation of future accessories. While its apart I'm also going to install a recess troll motor tray and install an LED color-changing rope inside the rubber rub-rail. (With controller in the dash). We also plan on installing a marine audio setup with 4 speakers and a basic receiver. We plan on replacing most if not all of the stringers as well. Fortunately for us he had stripped the carpet off all the panels as well as most of the glue and it is mostly exposed fiberglass on the panels. The only carpet remaining on the boat was the bottom floorboard.

Here are some pictures. I've spent the last few days watching youtube videos on other transom and floor jobs but was wondering if anyone has any advice or detailed guides on this as well? So far we've removed all the carpet and seats, and next we plan on pulling the engine and removing all of the cabinet panels. I'll take some pictures of the flooring area as well and upload them when I get back home today.

I'm planning on this project taking ~4 weeks (I have 2-3 friends helping me with it) and costing me ~$1000 in materials. Is this a pretty accurate guess? I realize the accessories I want to install will bump that up more, but I'm budgeting more for the core essentials repair. Also, while it is all apart would it be a good idea to remove the oil-mixer and do only premixing? I've read online that is one of the biggest problems with these engines is the possibility of the mixer dying and not knowing about it until it's too late.

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GT1000000

Rear Admiral
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
4,916
Re: 1990 Boat Rebuild Project (Transom + Floorboard)

Hi and welcome to the Iboats Dry Dock, tpmeredith...
Sorry to hear about the passing of your Dad...not the way you would want to inherit this boat, but at least now you'll have the opportunity to make him smile when you bring this fishing machine back to better than new condition...
The guys on this forum will be the best possible help you could ask for as far as getting excellent advice on how to proceed...
I can tell you have a good plan of attack, remove the engine, remove the cap, then dig in...
From your description it sounds like you are going to need to replace all of the wooden substructure in the boat...when you tear into it, you'll find out for sure...
Your time frame seems really ambitious, but if you work on it everyday for several hours, it is possible...but don't be disappointed if it takes a lot longer...
Your cost estimate seems a bit low unless you have a connection in the Marine supplies industry...I do and I have spent easily that much on just rebuilding the hull, and I have gotten a few freebies along the way...one of which was over a 1000 dollars worth of really high quality marine paint materials...
Realistically, you should plan on doubling both your time and money estimates just to be on the almost safe side...
A good tip I can give you is read, read, read some of threads of guys who are doing the same thing...even if its different types of boats, they are all basically the same, fiberglass boats that is...look for their signatures below their posts to see what they are up to...
Another great source of information is here...http://forums.iboats.com/boat-resto...r/how-tos-other-great-information-288451.html
I'll be tagging along and trying to both learn and help whenever I can...
Best of luck and have fun!
GT1M
 

tpmeredith

Recruit
Joined
May 2, 2013
Messages
2
Re: 1990 Boat Rebuild Project (Transom + Floorboard)

Hi and welcome to the Iboats Dry Dock, tpmeredith...
Sorry to hear about the passing of your Dad...not the way you would want to inherit this boat, but at least now you'll have the opportunity to make him smile when you bring this fishing machine back to better than new condition...
The guys on this forum will be the best possible help you could ask for as far as getting excellent advice on how to proceed...
I can tell you have a good plan of attack, remove the engine, remove the cap, then dig in...
From your description it sounds like you are going to need to replace all of the wooden substructure in the boat...when you tear into it, you'll find out for sure...
Your time frame seems really ambitious, but if you work on it everyday for several hours, it is possible...but don't be disappointed if it takes a lot longer...
Your cost estimate seems a bit low unless you have a connection in the Marine supplies industry...I do and I have spent easily that much on just rebuilding the hull, and I have gotten a few freebies along the way...one of which was over a 1000 dollars worth of really high quality marine paint materials...
Realistically, you should plan on doubling both your time and money estimates just to be on the almost safe side...
A good tip I can give you is read, read, read some of threads of guys who are doing the same thing...even if its different types of boats, they are all basically the same, fiberglass boats that is...look for their signatures below their posts to see what they are up to...
Another great source of information is here...http://forums.iboats.com/boat-resto...r/how-tos-other-great-information-288451.html
I'll be tagging along and trying to both learn and help whenever I can...
Best of luck and have fun!
GT1M

Thanks for the advice and reassurance. I'll keep reading threads and looking up more videos but it seems rather "simple" to do just very labor intensive to do it right. I'll make sure we don't rush ourselves to prevent mistakes from happening as well.

Here are more pics once we got the carpet up and everything, I'll get some more with daylight today.

I'm having issues finding the exact model of the boat. I don't have a real reason for wanting to find it, just more out of curiosity. I know it was made by waitsboro manufacturing co based on the US sticker on the boat. The serial number is: WM023006H899

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