84 Chaparral restoring

[blousteau]

I have an 84 Chaparral that the floor and stringers rotten on a few years back. Between when I started the demolition and now we bought a house and had a baby. The boat has sat on the trailer in a warehouse for about two years now. I have started to complete the strip down now, but started wondering something.....I attached some pics, so maybe someone will be able to answer my question from them. I cut out the floor between the consoles and the back seat, started removing the stringers then had to stop for the above mentioned reasons, the question is how big of an issue is it going to be that the boat sat on the trailer for that long with the stringers partially removed? I am wondering because the bunk boards sit between two of the sets of chines on the bottom, and am wondering if the weight and sitting may have bowed that fiberglass inwards creating two "tunnels" one on each side. I have the cap seperated and ready to remove, but was also wondering what would be the best way to jack the boat up a little off the trailer to see just how bad these tunnels are? I also guess I could build up the area underneath if it did permanently "dent" that area. Hopefully this is going to make sense to someone. I am also hoping that this will not cause the dreaded "hook" . Any help would be greatly appreciated, and if I go ahead with this I plan on posting the progress like others have done. Thanks

 

[zach103]

Re: 84 Chaparral restoring

was the cap connected the whole time it was sitting??

 

[blousteau]

Re: 84 Chaparral restoring

Yes. I cut under the drivers seat and passenger seat with a rotozip, and the back seat from the sides to free it on Sunday. Then I went and started drilling out the pop rivets on the cap.

 

[F14CRAZY]

Re: 84 Chaparral restoring

from what I've gathered, keeping the cap on a bowrider helps a lot with keeping the hull in shape

 

[blousteau]

Re: 84 Chaparral restoring

I thought about that too! Was also wondering if this would work. In order for me to cut the front seating out and the floor under the driver and passenger section out as well as the back seat and rear floor area, I will need to take the cap off. I will also need to have it off to finish cutting the stringers from the front and the back and I was thinking about putting the cap back on and pop riviting it back into place once the entire interior is removed before I start work on the stringers and new deck.

Now for the stringers, they were 1/2 inch solid wood, some of the front is still OK, I was thinking about going back with 1/4 inch plywood but epoxying two pieces together to get a 1/2 inch stringer staggering the joints from front to back. I saw a few posts about people making scarf joints between the pieces to connect for the length, but wouldn't a laminated beam composed of two layers of 1/4 with the seems staggered be stronger than the scarf joint?

sort of like this

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If you get what I am saying from the lines.

 

[blousteau]

Re: 84 Chaparral restoring

My bad it looks like the stringers are 3/4 inch. So my previous theory is out of the window, using two pieces, but three would make the beam even stronger.


____________ _______________________ __________
____________________________ __________________
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There you go a 3/4 inch laminated beam.