Nautique Upholstery!!!!

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.

Looks good, doing the same to mine.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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..

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