1979 Ski Nautique Project!

Alright guys...here is my thread that I had promised on Friday...it was after 4AM when we stopped workin on the boat, I hope you can forgive me lol.


Our project is a 1979 Ski Nautique. It has a good running 351 in it, recently rebuilt according to the PO. The stringers are completely rotten. The floor had separated from the actual hull on the left side of the boat. The observer seat did not come in the boat, but, we did get the brackets for it.

I dont have much time to post this today, but I at least wanted to get started and give you guys a little info. And please dont be mad about not having any pictures....I am taking really good pics with my Fiances really good camera, but every single one has to be resized because they are huge, gimme a little time and ill have some good pics up.



So, the jist of this thread is going to be myself and my cousin doing a restore on this boat. It is not going to be completely original. We are going to do a custom paint scheme most likely with a graphic decal down the sides.



I guess the first part of the restoration is going to be tackling the floor/stringers..which is what we are working on now. we got a good bit done this weekend in my opinion.



We pulled the motor friday night after work, which went good, but I couldnt get any pics because it was raining outside.


Saturday, we got a late start after lunch. We cut most of the floor out and got what i had thought was about 90% of the foam out...But i think i may have been wrong..Then sunday, we started late again and tore out a little more of the floor and foam.


we have pulled the ski pole out for now, not yet decided if it will go back in. We have pulled the steering cable out, the throttle and shifter cables are out also. The main motor wiring has been pulled also, it was in rough shape.


The next step we have is to start peeling the rotten stringers out 1 at a time to start replacing them. We have to make a trip for materials this week sometime, and we will be back at it this weekend. I will do my best to get some more pics up this week.

I use www.shrinkpictures.com

Choose "custom" and enter 700 pixels wide.
Select "best" quality.
This is the very best sise, so others do not have to
scroll in order to view the entire photo.

if you ski you are going to want to put that pole back in. Good Luck! Tear down goes alot faster than the install. Also make sure you support the hull when you remove the stringers. Whats your target completion date.

Ahhh thanks for the tips guys, I will have some pics for y'all tonight when I get off work.

Our target completion is the beginning of June currently. I know it seems like only a little while, but there is two of us working on it, sometimes a 3rd person helping, and we have a good amount of free time to work on the boat. I know it may not be completely finished by then, but that is what were shooting for.

And as far as the pole goes, we have a tower now, but we aren't sure if we may want the pole as well..


The paint, we haven't put a lot of study into the paint/gel yet. But our current idea is to re-gel from the rub rail up, and just sand and smooth the bottom and do an acrylic paint job and some decals with several layers of clear over it all. The PO had re-painted the boat himself it seems like..it looks alot like house paint to be honest...so something has to be done about it..but we are still deciding on that..

First things first :p

Thanks for the tip..I suppose the pole goes back in:). An I'm gonna do some price checks on gel vs. paint and see what I can find..

As promised, here are a few pics..


Trailer axle that had to be repaired...more work on the trailer to come...several braces are rusted through..Not sure if we are even keeping this trailer or not yet, but we had to do this to even move the boat.


braces need help..


side view, notice the decal...I dont even know what the original color scheme was due to the PO's paintjob/decals..


Current seating arrangments....soon to be changed..


Dash Shot, Speedo's are for sale if anyone is interested..not sure if they work or not, the PO said they did, but we havent put it in the water, and we plan on going with GPS. Can get better pics if needed.


Whats left of the observer seat..we have all 4 of these..and two pieces of flat bar to go with it i assume?


Shifter knob


Step pads


Swim deck could use some lovin..


Small Chip in the prop...anybody reckon this will make a whole lot of difference in performance?


Hood scoop.




More pics to come, but I am tired tonight. The next set of pics will be of the progress we have made so far towards the stringer job..


Sorry about the watermarks...this was the easiest way to get my pics re-sized....thinkin pretty hard about just buying the program as it is very very quick and does as many pics as you want at one time..

petes right, I think you would also go bankrupt trying to do it out of the can. Not much volume in there. The pour in kind from uscomposites is the cheapest way to go. But he is right you have to keep shaving and sanding, so his method is probably best. That being said I just poured it in and shaved it off.

Alright guys, I actually did all of my reading yesterday on foam, and I found many good arguments on foam vs. no foam. I also found out about UScomposites! Which is gonna help me out alot with glassing stuff!

But what I have formed as an opinion is that I don't think I want foam anymore...one reason being that I do not plan on hitting a pile of rocks, and two, if I do manage to hit a pile of rocks, I don't plan on being anymore than mid-lake's distance away from the bank..

There are some other things, such as cost effectiveness...but who knows, that is a long way off from here, I might just find it in my heart to do foam as the project moves along..

And Pete, I do not see any relation to foam or backyard shade tree in your pic? Am I missing something?


Noel, I will go get some good pics right now and email them to ya.

I think he was saying that using foam in a can was kind of a red neck repair job. I did not put foam back in mine either, well around the battery box and under the bow I did but no where else.

M_U_M_P wrote: But what I have formed as an opinion is that I don't think I want foam anymore...one reason being that I do not plan on hitting a pile of rocks, and two, if I do manage to hit a pile of rocks, I don't plan on being anymore than mid-lake's distance away from the bank..

Nathan - I didn't plan on getting run over by another boat last summer, but it happened (in less than 10 seconds, BTW).

Your choice on foaming, just think of your passengers safety while making your decision.

Nathan - My point is that a semi-floating boat is something to hang onto while waiting for help to arrive.

Good luck on your project!

Nathan - Me either - it's hard to covey connotation over the internet!    About half of the guys are leaving the foam out during rebuild.

I am just sensitized to safety issues because of the accident we had.

There is some foam up under the bow deck that may be enough to float 'yur boat for a while, I think Pete suggested using the spray foam to add flotation up there too.

and here are the pics i said i would get...some of the progress we made on the first weekend..will be working on it some more this week, and this weekend for sure..



Motor pulled, couldnt get any live shots on that because of the rain...yeah, raining while pullin the motor..real special lol..





Pulled up the carpet and the plywood seat "patch" and found this hole...and a really weak surrounding floor.


Some of the floor up, and we found that most of the foam was quite dry, but there was water underneath almost throughout the whole boat.



First night of work, end result, we got a lot of foam out, but still a lot left in there.


we kept getting sidetracked by this..lol


This badboy was our breaktime spot to warm up..believe it or not, it was like 31 degrees down here saturday night..



Sunday night's end result, more floor up and a lot more foam removed..I guess this week's goal is to get the rest of the front pulled out.




left

left

right

right

As you can tell, the left side of the boat is a lot worse than the right side..




Thats about all the pics I have right now, but I will have many more come this weekend. And i know they all might seem a little boring to you guys, but they show progress for me.

Browse if you wish, comment if you want, and criticize where necessary haha. Have a good night everybody!

Looking good Nathan and welcome to CCFan. Glad to see another CC being repaired and repaired right. No one said anything on your prop picture but if your going to the means to restore the boat to her glory then send the prop to site sponsor Delta Props. For about $100 you'll get the prop overhauled. Just be sure to mention you're a member here to get a discount.

Thanks SN, that's actually my dads barn, he was nice enough to let us use it as long as we keep a clean workspace at the end of the day.

And I appreciate the info on the prop guys, I hope it wont be a major factor, but I will definitely put it on the next season list of to-do's.