Nautique Upholstery!!!!

I have a 2005 206 Air Nautique and am wanted to replace the back seat upholstery. Any one know how to remove the back seat? Are there bolts on the back or does it slide into notches? Can’t seem to figure this simple issue out. Thanks in advance! Jerry

I suspect the wires (or at least 1 side) goes directly to the Blower Breaker/switch on the dash. I'll take a look and verify that..

Calum,
If you want, I suggest taking the broken manifold to another welder. I feel it's very repairable. It looks like a clean break and no erosion. After the repair, it would need to have a skim cut across the flange faces.

Hi, Yes, I looked at repairing the manifold by wading through all the advice on this forum and beyond but there are 2 issues. First, the damage is a little more than a crack that can be epoxied (sp?) or welded!! (see photos below and also check out the state of one of the few better bolts that came out intact) Second, advice seems to be that the manifolds should be replaced every 10 years or so. I can't find any evidence that these have been replaced since the boat was built in 97 so perhaps they should be replaced in any case. The risers are actually pretty good so I'm leaving them.

It's quite a fun project but since it's a high hours engine (1800), we decided to do a top end rebuild at the very least. The good news is that having torn it down, it turns out to show virtually no wear at all. Bores, valve seals, valves, rockers, rings all seem great so it's really just a clean, valve grind and rebuild with fresh seals, gaskets, bolts etc. It was a ski school boat in England for most of its life (hence the missing back seat) so I suspect that it has done a lot of idle/slow speed time but also been well maintained. The top end of the engine is so good that we thought it had already been done but the nightmare in removing the risers and manifolds suggests it hasn't been taken apart before. Carb was a mess but that has come up beautifully with a rebuild kit and some hours of my Dad's expertise.
Everything is a bit harder given that we bought it in Scotland then brought it over to France where we live. Fortunately I'm in the US all the time which makes sourcing parts much easier and a lot cheaper than trying to buy them in Europe. We got the boat for the equivalent of $2900 and that was with an almost brand new transmission (less than 50 hours on it) with a supplied bill of $2700. Seems reasonably good value to me! I'm doing a blog on the restoration if anyone is interested.

Wetskier; thanks for the photo - very helpful!
8122 - Yes, I think I'll have a go with tinting gelcoat. Has to be worth a shot unless I find someone who has some "grreen" gelcoat. A chap over on the planetnatutique site did a frankly stunning resto on a similar boat with amazing results. (I found it quite inspiring to be honest). I swapped a couple of emails with him re gelcoat but nothing came of it. I have no idea how many boats with this colour scheme exist so I may be hoping for too much. Tinting may be the answer but I don't mind admitting to being a novice when it comes to gelcoat mixing!

Goldcup101 wrote: 1 of the exhaust manifolds has broken. I can get hold of Zephyr and Neutral gelcoats ok but I also need a tiny amount of Green which is only available in 1 Gallon quantities.

Calum,
Have you looked into repairing the manifold? Where is it broken? External cracks can be brazed and some have even had good luck with epoxy. Internal cracks can also be repaired but they get more complicated. A section of the outer wall is removed to gain access to the inner wall repair and then the outer wall is brazed or welded back up.

On the green gel, you may consider getting one of the gel repair kits that come with the tinting colors. The tricky part is matching the color. I find that before adding the hardener, adding the color is very small amounts until you get the color needed works best.

No idea on the gel coat.... Those are come scratches!

On the manifolds, I needed a replacement skeg and actually found one off a boat being parted out much to my surprise. Maybe you could get lucky? I'm in the NH if I could be of assistance with shipping or checking something out locally.

The blower is mounted to the starboard stringer about the middle of the engine. I'll get a pic.

..... like your spotter's seat....

Looks good, doing the same to mine.

Do I think that a local shop could make and install the upholstery cheaper than Christine's skins? Possibly, but my experience was that local would be a bit more. And admittedly, we are talking about labor included in the local quote and not in the Christine price. However, I had such quality issues with local that I needed a better plan.. That plan was Nautique Skins. You know they'll be perfect and correct.

Thanks.

Can you give me an idea what Christine's charged for the back seat on your '97? I've been dealing with a seat upholsterer for years on my cars. He guaranteed me that he could reproduce and install the vinyl (with the exception of the "Correct Craft" embroiderie) on my '97 for less than Christine's.

Wow talk about pulling your boat to the lake. That must be a long ride.

So I started on my first piece today. The stern seat back. The foam has a few black spots in it that look like they cod be mold. Has anyone dealt with this before?

Can it be cleaned or does the foam need to be replaced?

Here is a link with some

pics

One would be well advised to compare new vinyl color samples to the gelcoat in addition to the old vinyl... both surely have changed color slightly since new... the idea being to match the interior and exterior colors (in their current state) as closely as possible. They may not have been a perfect match originally anyways.

Installing upholstery is one of those skills that is not easy to acquire. I have seen many pro jobs that look pretty darn awful. I am fairly handy but am quite certain that my skills would not match my high expectations of how a new interior should look... especially considering how expensive factory skins are. Hopefully you guys have a lot of patience and untapped upholstery skills!

wetskier2000 wrote: I would guess that I took most of the aforementioned 10 hours just to do the stern seat. But, I had never done any upholstery work before... Even number 2 will be much faster... Take lots of pics, take apart (and put together) 1 piece at a time. Read Christine's suggestions on the website a few times. But her pneumatic stapler if you can...

I have the stern seat back and coaming pads out of the boat and at home. I removed them from the boat before shrink wrapping. I'll start with these over the next month and then once it warms up I'll work on the passenger seat back and small parts (walk through and throttle pads). Driver's seat, bow and motor box will come last. I did get the tools and stapler from Christine's.

I don't mind doing this in pieces even if it's done over the next year. Stern seat back is in the worst condition and where I want to start and then the coming pads and passenger seat back as these all touch and tie into each other.

The original teal vinyl wasn't available anymore and the replacements where more green then the original Vinyl. Since the orignial color wasn't available and I don't love green or teal, I decided to use a little artistic license and went for the blue color that was closest to the original teal in my boat, rather then going for a more green teal. The color I choose is what I would probably get if I was ordering the boat new and I feel is close enough to the exterior stripe color that it won't look out of place. If you look at the pic in my signature you will see that my boat has an unusual coloring as it is mostly a white hull with just a teal accent stripe.

I was originally not going to do the Drivers seat and motor box as they are in decent condition but because I have changed the vinyl color, the interior won't match up until I get all the pieces done. That said I am in no rush to get everything changed out and will take my time and get it done properly. I'd like to do this myself as I can know that any vinyl damage can be repaired with a replacement skin for the damaged part.