86 barefoot floor replacement

Welcome and good luck! Any pics?

The general consensus is that the boat should be up on stands when the stringers come out. You can tell that your weight will bow the hull in spots so the assumption is the trailer bunk could deform it inward. I dont think it is necessary until they come out but wouldnt hurt to do that first if you arent planning on moving it. Good idea on the composite, I would have if the budget woudl have allowed. What kind of composite? not all kinds are suitable. A few on this site have used coosa.

Thank you for the stand advice, a bit of a way to get there as i just cut out most of the floor and still in the process of getting the unbelievable amount of foam out.. i have cut the floor abo type ut 3 inches from the actually gunwells and not exactly sure what the best saw to use to cut the fiberglassed in floor smooth off.. any advice on pulling the motor as well...either rent a forklift or built a swing set type over hang and hoist it out...not sure what composite yet, took a few pics and will do my best to load!

I agree with pete on the diamond blade, or if you have a rotozip they make a little 3 inch circular saw blade that works well. That is nice too because its variable speed.

I lifted my engine off a beam in my garage, I have seen people do it with a cherry picker but that is tight.

You'd need a tall ceiling in your garage to get the engine out of a BFN and over the gunnel. You may want to get creative- search for a thread called "red neck engine hoist" for ideas. Heres what we came up with:



A 4.5" angle grinder with a diamond blade (cutting) and the most aggressive flap discs you can find (grinding) will be both your best friend, and worst enemy on this project!

A few of us have rebuilt these boats a few different ways. BuffaloBFN went the classic wood+foam route, as did The Grinch. Hasbeenskier went the composite route, using poly resin and some sort of foam cored material. We went epoxy and coosa on ours. There are a bunch of good threads, so do a bunch of searching and reading. I would highly recommend taking a lot of pictures and measurements before you get very far with the disassembly... figuring out where everything needs to go back together when starting with a clean slate can be challenging. Engine location (height and position in the boat) is especially important... I highly recommend taking measurements from multiple points, as one (or more) will inevitably change or move!

We also chose to leave the lip of the floor in place up until we got the stringers back in. It gave us a good place to rest the level and do a quick sanity check that things were getting put back together properly.

+1 on leaving the lip around the edge, and rephrasing something Tim said-try to have 2 or 3 hard points to measure back to. He's right; some will disappear.

The picker will work but it's a pain. You'll have to pull the fender and wheels, drop the side, and it's still close. You'd also have to pull the near exhaust manifold so it doesn't hit the boom.

What's that new saw on TV? It looks like it might be the ticket for this except that it's electric.

My local hardware store rents all sorts of tools, a chainfall being one of them. Find a big tree and go for it.

not too bad. To say that is not original, is an understatement!! What the heck is on that dash? Is that woodgrain? and a GPS?? You should put a cadillac emblem on that boat, that is luxury!

wow, I feel inadequate. Thats gonna be a luxurious model when you are done. Maybe you should put in a stained teak floor and some heated seats. Take this thing to the next level! Did you win pimp my boat or something!

I cut glass with a pnumatic die grinder with a cutoff wheel, with a garden hose nozzle zip tied to it and aimed at the disk, small stream.
A little spray, but no dust. Just shop vac up the slurry afterward.
I think its the way to go.
Wear ppe of course

Shane
I test drove that boat last year in Mt Dora. It has a monster engine in it. If my memory serves me right, it's a left hand rotation. When I backed away from the launch, it went the wrong way. The dash pod is sweet. It's not a GPS though, it's the computer that controls the engine. I think that engine is only a few years old. We never got to run it through it's paces because it overheated. They guy later told me the pickup screen was clogged. For the short time it ran, you could tell it had some balls. Sounded great.
Did you find a trailer for it?

Such a small world! Thats my boat, it is left hand. Yes your right it has GPS speed not nav. She runs great had a lot of trouble getting an acme on. Ive had her 57 with a 4 blade but i have bill at acme. Going to be making a custom prop.enjoyed it for the summer just wanting to do the last thing, the floor.lol, i did by a trailer from the original owner all aluminum tandum which is nice.

So do you foot? Or do you just like big motors and speed.

I do not foot....yet! Will be getting to that over summer hopefully. We do wakeboard though. I do like speed every now and then. Nice to have the leisure though. What about yourself??

This is a good method,but due to the fact the left hand tree is dead it has a limited life span.It would take a lot of cpes to maintain it. The next best is to use a live tree. I think you should rent something,by the time you fix the boat,repair the engine and pay the medical bills you'll be ahead.





We never had to but we thought if we needed to change the engine on this one that we would just use the front davit