Hi crew, This is my old boat that i sold to my friends early last year. It was a great boat for me but was looking a bit sad, and the guy's had a problem with the motor. To have the motor fixed and serviced was going to cost half the price of a new one after spending a few dollars on it allready. So the decision was made to replace it brand new and i suggested we give the boat a make over while we had the chance.

The old boat looking a bit worn out .

We started with the strip down and with the paint in bad condition, the guys decided it needed to go back to bare aluminium.

There is no easy way to do this . Stainless wire brushes on a grinder was the best way we found without causing contamination to the aloy.

There were a few anoying problems that needed to be fixed . At the bow there was an old steering bracket that got in the way of getting to the esky and other items up the front.

Also there was a 50mm lip on the top edge that cut into your legs if you sat up on the bow.

It was time to get rid of these so they were cut out.

This left the problem of no strength in the front and also the sides of the boat now seamed to have twice the flex they used to have .

Working with the supplies we had, a 32mm heavy wall pipe was cut and shaped to go from the transom, along the side , across the bow and back down to the transom.

I formed it to fit the hull and clamped it to tack in place before the final welds were done.

4mm plates were fitted into the two back corners of the transom , and two more plates were weled up on the bow corners as well .

The pipe and plates worked out pretty good and made the bow and sides alot stronger .

With all the work done inside it was time to flip it over and continue striping the hull ready to paint. Afew repairs were also done while the boat was upside down.

Finaly the painting had begun .

After a weekend of painting it was ready to be put back togeather.

This is how the front turned out after the mod's were done. The rod holders were fitted through the 4mm plates i welded in .

Plenty of room now for the esky and no more dead legs from sitting up there .

The console was rewired and fitted up ( this took quite a while as all the wires were replaced and a Bus/fuse box was installed )

I also made a new windscreen that can be removed, so the boat can be stored inside a shed or carport with a problem.

After fitting the motor i had a big problem with all the instruments. Some how power was runing through the hull. I found the sterio had earthed out and isolated it. But i still had power to the hull. The motor was fully insulated from the hull and all bolts were shielded from hull contact. After a couple of tests i found the motor was earthing out through the steering cable all the way to the console. I had to isolate the steering bracket from the console and this did the trick.

In the picture above i have highlighted the contact points. This also made me wonder how many boats have this problem and the owners are unaware.

Anyway the boat turned out looking pretty good.

Just waiting for a couple Decal's to arive . But she looks sweet hooked up to the cruiser. ( it's riding a bit high on the hitch in the pic but that has been sorted out )

Cheers Grant ..

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