Hi guys,

After sensing some enthusiasm from my better half, I finally deciding to give my Sea Rider 5.2m a serious birthday. I have been keeping an eye out for a suitable four stroke to repower with for a long time and always thought repowering would be a good opportunity to do a refit and restoration. So after finding a mint condition low hours well priced Honda 90 locally at Muhling Marine I decided it was time to retire the old 85hp pre-mix 2 stroke Yammy and do some work on the boat. Repowering obviously presents an opportunity to do some refitting so I decided to strip everything back to bare, respray, repower, rewire and refit. She's a good hull, has taken us on a lot of great trips over the past 5 years (several Gnaraloo trips, 6 month in Broome, a heap of mid west trips etc) and was definitely deserving of a restoration.

I got a lot of inspiration for the rebuild from Rob's Genesis restoration post earlier this year. Rob also put me onto Daniel from DMACC Blast and Paint who did a great job on the paint. 

See below a bunch of before during and after pics. I still have some work going on: new windscreen being built, new steering wheel to go on (old one is seized on), remaining ultralon decking pads, under gunwale LEDs to do etc, and will post a few more pics once done.

Thankfully she’s now back in the water though and I dropped my cray pots back out on Monday after having them sitting in my carport for the past 3 weeks. I’m hoping I haven’t missed the best part of the season whilst doing the rebuild as I put in some serious hard yards with the pots in the month prior to rebuild.

I’m also considering my options with trailer which is currently stained badly with Pindan and starting to show signs of corrosion on main chassis. From the research I’ve don it sounds like acid bath and hot dip galv will be the go. Except for the mud guards, she’s still in good shape and I’ll be catching the corrosion early. Budget wise however, she may need to wait until next year.

Enjoy:

A quick shot at home before the engine came off.

The Kimberley earlier this year. Got to love that Pindan!

Got in touch with Meeuwisen on FW whilst up in Broome and we did a bit of time out on the boat. Did pretty well on the mackies, blue bone, trout, cod etc whilst up there.

Got this cray on my last run out with the old yammy that had done me so well. Seemed like a fitting way to send her off. Boat went into Muhling and engine came off the next day.

Yep - due for a bit of a tidy up! I removed the old tranducer on left and had a bunch of old transducer holes from previous owners welded up.

Back at home and the strip down begins. Was very satisfying pulling all of the wiring out. Not as satisfying drilling out all of the rivets.

Having taken everything off I then dropped her off with DMACC. He then spent approx 5 days sanding her back, etch priming and spraying. My brothers a boat builder in Victoria so I'm pretty concious of importance of prepa and using the right type of paints. DMACC used a full industrial barrier paint with extreemely hard wearing characteristics - just what I wanted. He did a great job and i picked her up looking like a new boat. Attention to detail is evident as my topsides had a fair number of little corrosion spots which he sanded back, cleaned, etch primed, tidied up and gave around 7 coats in total of etch primer and topcoat.

Etch primer.

Topcoat white.

I was away for the week Daniel was prepping and spraying the boat so to say I was pumped to come home and pick up a practically new boat was a bit of an understatement! The wife and I went for a dark midnight blue colour on the hull and white on all topsides.

My old fuel guage hasn't been working for a fair while. I took the opportunity to swap the sender out for a new wema and managed to find a Faria Honda fuel guage that matches the guages with engine at a wreckers online. New wiring and she's now back in action - yew!

Rather than replacing absolutely everything with new I have reused a few things such as my scuppers. These scuppers have leaked on me for the past couple of years. I tried replacing the seals with propper repair kits, rubber weather seals from bunnings, replacing the springs etc but nothing semmed to work. After pulling them off for painting I found that the actual scupper plates and frames had warped and were no longer flat. We did a bit of beating and bent them back into line, reinstalled them and they're now working a treat. So stoked not to have water trickeling in from them when reversing into slop or listing any more. Particularly important now as the Honda is about 50kg heavier than the yammy so she sits a bot lower aft than previously.

Pindan stains on my canapy and canapy cover. Nothing a bit of CT18 truck was can't fix! I should get some onto the trailer also!

Hatch covers all riveted back on. I soaked all stainless hinges and latches in alibrite which rought them up to a near new finish.

Honda fitted! Woohoo! Hello four stroke : )

Time for some sea trials and prop testing!

Honda came with a 19inch but after a few runs it was clear that a 17 would provide a better all round prop. James at Muhlings swapped the old prop for a brand new 17 (no additional charge) the next day and sent me away very happy. There are definitely some benefits of buying second hand from a dealer rather than privately.

Next was to put my floor mats back in, wiring (fun!), electronics, canapy, and start putting down Ultralon decking on top decks.

Got some family out at first opportunity on weekend to do a decent run with her and test the new 17 inch prop. 17 was spot on.

Hard to find white numbers so some white duct tape did the job for rego untill I get some decent ones.

From start to current state (not quite finished but close) it has taken about four weeks with quite a few late nights and early mornings before and after work.

All in all I couldn't be happier with how she's turned out. I go a decent run out near Stragglers on Monday morning to get the pots back in the water and she ran and rode beautifully. The additional weight aft has improved ride and the Honda is an absolute pleasure to be around. You literaly have to check tacho or tell tale to be sure she's running at idle. It humms contently at 4k revs cruise doing 20 knots and then happily opens up to 6k revs at WOT getting 32-33 knots. The run East Freo to Stragglers return used around 15 ltrs. With 100l in floor plus a couple of auxiliaries, my range will have almost doubled with the Honda compared to Yammy 85hp.

A big thanks to my wife Elysia for letting me do it and approving the spend : ), to DMACC for going all out and doing a great job on the paint work, to James and Ross at Muhlings for great service to trade in my Yammy and fit the Honda and to Craig for help with refit.

Looking forward to hopefully picking up the new removable windscreen later this week from the guys at Sealed Marine.

Thanks for reading!

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