‘Project Tique’ photo thread

I’ve been meaning to write up a thread for Project Tique for a long time now.
Unfortunately I managed to lose a serious amount of photos taken over the last year so am unable to fully document the work, however this thread will still be rather picture heavy!

Also, sorry its fragmented and somewhat lacking in text, I really haven’t got the time (and to be honest can’t be arsed) to write it all up in detail..

Anyone local to the UK looking to source parts for a similar project please feel free to drop me a line. I should be able to assist as have spent a serious amount of time looking for replacement parts, a lot of which are difficult to get hold of this side of the pond. Also any questions related to any of the work I’ve done so far just ask – I can’t guarantee my way was the best way but am quite happy with progress to date.

1982 Ski Tique, this is how it was as I bought it. Someone decided to dress it as a Nautique


















It turned out this boat has quite a chequered history, the non-drying paint on the transom was covering up a bodge repair due to it being at some point involved in a collision on trailer.
There were numerous large holes that had been stuffed with filler, including one where the starboard platform mount is located and two at the front of the boat where either side meets with the bow stops.

Stripping the transom









Impact from this incident subsequently wrecked the prop, shaft, tiller arm, strut, steering cable tube and both transmission mounts!











I’ve since bought an ACME 540

Home-made prop puller, this is not as good as some of the others I’ve seen on the site but was really easy and cheap to make. The prop was well and truly fused to the shaft and still needed a bit of heat to get it off – big tip, always keep the shaft nut on when removing the prop, mine came off with quite a bang!!



Reconditioned strut, thanks to John (Baitkiller)



Stringer glass damage, I’ve since patched this all up and they do sound fairly solid so am hoping to get a couple of seasons under my belt before ripping them out



Battery box before repair



At some point the PO had installed a sh*tty cheapo helm





So I needed to source a replacement ‘Big T’ unit, along with new steering cable and tube



Helm bezel gritted and coated up



Same with the Morse control



After phosphate and re-coat







Back to the hull, after stripping back all the paint I realised that the gel coat was a complete mess so bit the bullet and decided to re-gel.

Due to applying outdoors I couldn’t build up the layers wet-on-wet as insects seemed to be magnetised to the wet gel. So I went with 4 coats with wax added and a light sand between coats. This stuff is thick and dries VERY fast, the largest needle size HVLP gun I could get hold of was a 2.5mm so I went at it with this and a 100L air compressor.

I found the trick was to mix it up in 0.5L batches and get it out the gun as quickly as possible, orange peel wasn’t a concern as I was rubbing between coats anyway.
Oh and watch out for over-spray, I managed to cover my neighbours car 2 houses away which was not good for local relationships or indeed the bank balance!!





After rubbing down the final coat of gel I applied a blue stripe again using 2K isocyanate.
For the Liquid Force graphics I created these on my PC and then got a local sign shop to scale them up onto vinyl.
The blue stripe was applied over the top of the decals, after which they were were removed resulting in Liquid Force lettering and logo being bare gel coat.

Here’s the logo file



And resultant graphics after decals were removed





This should look a lot nicer once I finally get to give the entire boat a wetsand

Prepping the dash, the PO had installed a nasty switch panel which needed removing and the hole glassing in.






The dash was spray painted black, again with 2K NCO, I also reconditioned the speedos (gritted and coated the cases, converted dials from KMH to MPH) and fitted all new toggle switches.








New rub-rail, I inserted this using hot water to try to minimise the ripple affect. Also swapped the tatty old rope insert for rubber.









Moving on to tower installation, I spent a serious amount of time looking at different styles in order to decide which one to go for. Understandably there are many who disapprove adding a tower to a classic Tique, but I bought this as a functional wakeboard boat project and from the very beginning this was never going to be a true restoration job. Plus it would have cost me far too much in shipping and import duties to bring it back to original!!

The tower I finally decided on (I believe) is re-badged by a few companies and sold in the UK by distributors for Jobe (Jobe Addict 1.3). Although I originally saw this tower on the US Arial website (Arial Airborne).

I’m yet to see any other classic Tiques/Nautiques with this tower (probably as it needs modifying to fit) but personally I think it matches the shape of the windscreen pretty well and am happy with the outcome.



It was not a simple fit, due to the short beam width of the Tique I had to get the 'H' top section of tower modified. Lengths were cut from either side before TIG welding it back together in order to reduce its overall length.



The main tip I would give when installing a tower is to ask some friends to help, I did this on my own with a load of blankets to protect the gel – it was very difficult without a spare pair of hands!



Here’s where I replaced the rotten air intakes with some beefed up flexible pipe and glassed them together






Installing replacement pitots, I decided to cut them back a bit first. Here’s a before and after




Some corroded chrome bits gritted ready to be re-chromed to make nice and spangley..





Moving on to the engine, here’s before



And after a lot of paint removal and degreasing the block was given a fresh coat



^ see above where the oil pan gasket was missing where it mates with the timing case, I ended up buying a replacement Felpro kit which included the front crank seal. In order to fit a new full gasket, the engine needs lifting.

I also fitted new plugs, belts, oil filter, dizzy rotor, HT leads, re-coated rocker covers and all new rubber hoses, I’m sure along with many other things that don’t come to mind at the moment!

If pulling the harmonic balancer, DON’T make the same mistake as I did by using one of these 3-legged pullers, this will wreck the balancer. Needless to say I had to source a new one from the US



Buy the proper tool, one of these did the job perfec:




Exhaust manifolds grit blast and re-coat






RWP before and after






More engine pics, I’ve since tidied up the cables and fitted flexi conduit for all the wiring





New 3” exhaust hose was a bit of a PITA to wrestle with, I used a dremel to get a clean cut through the wire




Replacement transmission mounts and trunnion blocks





The carb needed stripping due to issues with both primary and secondary boosters dripping fuel, I gave it a thorough cleaned using ultrasonic and fitted a Holley ‘trick-kit’








Freshly painted bilge



For the exhaust pipes I used the same paint as on the hull, but brushed it on.
The fuel tank base consists of 2 planks of wood, both look original so I gave them a generous 4 coats of CPES homebrew.




Found this in the bottom of the fuel tank!!




Moving on to the swim platform, I made a budget replacement out of marine grade ply (along with replacement seat frames, floor panel, battery lid and fuel tank cover).
These were all first treated with 3 coats of home brew CPES and 2 coats of grey bilge paint



With the platform the top side was not painted, here I applied Hydroturf using contact adhesive, this stuff is widely used on Jet skis and I’m hoping will be pretty durable





Removable platform brackets. Here’s the plan which is based on something similar I found on CCF, I’m just waiting on delivery of some flatstrip 316 stainless..



Steering wheel trimmed. The original wheel I first bulked out with Tesa fabric tape before applying PU sealant to smooth it all out and then the leather trim was hand stitched on. Not a fun job.



And finally the upholstery, after making new frames I cut foam using an electric carving knife and set to making patterns out of scrap vinyl.











Here’s the prototype drivers base cushion, it’s a very rough job literally held together using an office stapler.



I’ve since received rolls of 3 colours of vinyl ready for the final skins to be made up, for this I shall use an upholstery machine borrowed off my old folks. I’ve made a start on the welt/piping using rubber cord and the first attempt looks pretty good.

The machine



Vinyl choice is off-white, grey and blue, all marine grade but I shall also look at applying a coat of clear PU resin to further protect it from weathering and abrasion





And that’s about it for now!!


As I now have most of the general work in one thread I shall continue to update this as the project continues..

You did a great job Graham. Glad to see it all coming together. Nice job of making due with what you could find there.

+1 Graham,I can't imagine trying to source parts from there. And as I saw pieces here and there of your project now seeing it all at once makes me realize the project you had. Well done.

Graham is the man.

i think the boat looks great, and perfectly functional for what you will be using it for.

Wow, I'm really impressed by your work. You seem to be very talented, not to mention having access to a lot of great equipment to work with. Do you realize that you've got a sort of a rare boat there? When we came out with the 2001 series in 1981 (as an '82 model) we took the old Ski Nautique hull and cut the chines at the rear as your boat has. We then ceased production of the 16 foot Ski Tique and named this hull the Ski Tique. Not very many of them were built before we dropped it.
Art

Thanks for all the positive comments
Its been very slow progress and to be honest I was expecting to be on the water a long time ago but am now finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.
I'm sure I've mentioned before, but this is my first ever boat purchase so I'm far from skilled with working on these things. CCF, a bit of common sense and a massive amount of spare time is all I needed to get the work done

Very nice work Graham!
Ha, that Jobe tower is very popular over here.
I did not like it, as I found it too big and "heavy" for my '89 SN. So I went for the Jobe Addict 1.1, that I modified also to fit the boat better.

Looking forward to the pics of the finished interior

gR@HaM wrote: For anyone looking to undertake a similar project feel free to drop me a line as they may be able to learn from some of my mistakes!!..

You can bet that's going to happen sometime in the future! Looks AWESOME!!

Some of us have been talking about tackling this for a while now and I'll bet this update will push someone off their a#$ to actually try!

Thanks, theres plenty more to do but starting to see light at the end of the tunnel

Ohhhhh I just love a man who sews! Good work Grahambo. I can barely sew on a button with any success. You saved bigtime $$ yet learned allot by doing it yourself.

Great job Graham...note to self your the man for new seat skins in the UK…

Awesome job on the skins Graham!!

Ha, I know what it's like not having a shop and having to do things in either the kitchen or the dining room... And off course the wife b*tching about it
I have that problem with my tower speaker enclosure version 2.0

Say whaaat?? Women!

Well, winter has officially arrived but I've made a bit of progress with the removable platform brackets.
After ordering in 1M lengths of 100x10mm and 20x5mm grade 316 stainless and a bag of M6 countersunk bolts (grade A4) I set at cutting the SS in to 125mm strips.



The 10mm steel was pretty hard to cut, luckily I have access to a band saw at work!



I'm pretty new to working with metal, but on a plus side learnt a few things from making these. When drilling the holes I needed to slow the motor right down and it took a lot of drill re-sharpening to get them all done.
A good quality tap was also needed for the threads along with some compound.
And here they are, not perfect but should hopefully do the job..