Transom cover rebuild 1988 sea ray seville

[pakram]

I've finally decided to tackle rebuilding the rotting transom cover on my 88 sea ray seville. I was hoping that someone on here has done this rebuild before and can give me a few pointers. This is going to be my winter project. I have rebuilt both dash trims due to rot so I have a little experience but nothing as large as this. I would appreciate any help with my project. I've attached pics of the cover.

 

[britisher]

Re: Transom cover rebuild 1988 sea ray seville

It looks like it has been repaired before. The 'Scrim' material on the underside doesn't look it was stapled by the manufacturer. That said, rebuilding should not be too hard. My89 SR180 has the full width engine cover/sunpad and I rebuilt mine last year. First off all take plenty of pics as you go along. Remove the scrim back material, then carefully remove the vinyl. You should be left with the foam and maybe even a polythene sheet between the foam and the vinyl that acts as a sealer sheet. Remove the foam and you should then see the construction itself. Yours is like mine in that it is an inverted L shape. SR on mine used 2 pieces of ply, that were glued and screwed. On my rebuild, I fiberglassed with a couple of aluminum L shape brackets on the inside for extra strength. I think you find the top is 3/4" ply for standing strength, but then again it may be 5/8". You won't know till you get there. My foam was in pretty good shape, so I re-used it. Whilst I have done the re-upholstery on my side panels and dash, the seating areas have stitched seams and that is not me, so I took it to an upholsterer who made new vinyl covers and then he fitted them to the sunpad. He finished it off with hide it all vinly that hides the staples and black scrim. Looks the job. The PO had set up the sunpad with 2 SS small hinges, that were iffy to say the least. I replaced that with a 72" SS piano hinge, that does an excellent job of holding this big and heavy sunpad. I noticed that you appear to have 2 smaller piano hinges on yours. Depending on condition and your pocket book you may want to re-do the jump seats and engine cover, though from a distance they look OK. You know best on that. One thing I didn't do on my re-upholstery was go for multi-colored stitched vinyl. All you are doing in stitching is putting a hole in the vinyl, which defeats the object of the exercise in IMHO. So I just opted for plain Jane solid White vinyl. Cheaper too.

 

[pakram]

Re: Transom cover rebuild 1988 sea ray seville

Hey britisher thanks for the quick reply! Yea I was thinking the same thing when I saw the staples that it may have been rebuilt b4. I pulled the scrim back & can see there are 2 L shaped aluminum brackets on each side. I planned on glassing the ply anyway, that's what I did when I rebuilt my dash areas so I wouldn't have to worry about rotting again. There are a few tears in the vinyl on the port jump seat & engine cover. I was thinking about replacing too with new vinyl so it all looks the same, I replaced my seats a few years ago & was going to try to match the white vinyl. When you took yours to be re-upholstered, was it just a general upholstery shop or specialized in marine repairs? I live in Pa so not sure who to take it to, there are some upholstery shops but they advertise mostly for furniture. There is a canvas/vinyl tarp shop that I used to make a custom cockpit cover for me maybe they would be able to do the job, I'll have to check with them. Anyway, thanks for the good advise I really appreciate it.

 

[britisher]

Re: Transom cover rebuild 1988 sea ray seville

The guy that I use is Jamaican and does car upholstery, boat upholstery and also does furniture. He's a nice guy who knows his stuff and is also a boat owner, so knows what works upholstery wise on boats. It's maybe time to dust off the Yellow Pages and ring around a bit. If you find one, they can be a gem, just like the small business mechanic guy. Mine had the stripy vinyl, which is lots of colors all stitched together. Mine were all cracking and splitting. The driver/passenger seats were the original swivel ones and were rotten as was everything else. I bought 2 new seats from Veada and they will construct up to 3 colors. I chose White, Dark Blue and mid Blue. They also sell vinyl by the yard, so I purchased the 3 colors in specific lengths and I used it to renew the dash upholstery, the 2 side panels, the bow side panels (they were fun to rebuild!). I have some left. My guy supplied some white vinyl that he said was better than mine for the sunpad. It has held up well. I have just the 3 bow seat cushions and the 3 rear seat cushions to re-do, so I'll use him for plain White vinyl. He did me the corner sections of the front bow side panels as they are right angles and have a center stitch seam. All the rest of the side panels are the 3 colors, but each panel is stapled after the other, so I was able to do that myself. One thing to remember when you rebuild the back flip shelf is don't go overboard on the resin. I did and my guy couldn't get the staples into the wood, so I had to sand off quite a lot! Learning!! If I could go back to when I did this back panel/sunpad, I would redesign it as 3 smaller panels, rather than one big one. They would be so much lighter. That sunpad is one heavy beast.

 

[pakram]

Re: Transom cover rebuild 1988 sea ray seville

Yea I'm going to start checking around, there's a guy who does body work & boat repairs near me, he replaced a transom for me in a 1969 Slickcraft that I use to own. He was very reasonable & did a nice job. I, like you, also purchased my new seats from Veada back in 08, in fact I was looking on their site today for vinyl. They don't seem to have the Oyster White which is the primary color of the seats, I may have to contact them for custom colors. As far as glassing the wood I usually only put one layer of glass & try not to over apply the resin. Do you use a pneumatic staple gun to attach the vinyl or just a hand type?

 

[britisher]

Re: Transom cover rebuild 1988 sea ray seville

I just use a Stanley hand stapler I bought from Lowe's. It's worked fine for me. My Jamaican guy of course uses a professional air stapler.