Ms. MAK 20SF
 

I picked up my first SeaCraft the other day. I'm up in the panhandle of Florida and drove about 1400 miles round trip to Hobe Sound in south Florida. I asked the dude what the deal was with all of the raven stickers and he said he liked ravens...


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The hull was re-gel coated two owners ago and the topside got a second coat of Awlgrip non-skid from the last owner. New fuel tank and hoses and it is sitting on a way too big float-on trailer.

The Jeep wasn't thrilled about pulling it but fortunately most of Florida is flat.

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It was supposed to be a 1978 but after getting it home and actually looking at the title and HIN, it is an 88'. I was dissapointed that it wasn't a Potter hull but I really like the 25" transom and the scuppers that run out the back instead of through the floor.

It came with a carb'd 150 Mercury that had no known issues. They disabled the oil injection and ran 50:1 premix so now it goes through spark plugs a little faster. On the ride home, I noticed that there was a big crack in the foot. It is totally shot so I bought one from a dude on the screamandfly forum.

I can't remember the justification but, I decided I needed a 175 Optimax. Same weight, roughly, a little bit more horse pressure and much better economy. I sold the 03' 40hp 4 stroke efi off of my skiff for 3k and found a 2001 Opti a few hours away for the same price!

So off came the 150

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I was too cheap to buy a mercury specific lift ring and thought about getting a 1 1/2-16 bolt and welding something up but those threads aren't common and the optimax has a proud flywheel bolt that would require hollowing out the bolt. So, I spent a few hours of my precious time fabbing a bracket. All to save 45 bucks...(35 on ebay)

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The little cosmetic aluminum plate on the transom was cracked so I pulled it off and found what I thought was a terrible repair job. Looking closer it looks like filler that the factory put at the hull and liner junction. I chipped some out and was pleased to find happy composites. Thoughts?

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Unless the 150 sells in a few days, I'm going to stick with the cable steering and no jackplate.

I don't dig how these short little boats look with a bracket so I was thinking of running a 6" setback jackplate and building an engine cover like the one below. The setback would allow for full tilt/jack whilst the cover is in place without the cover having to excessively protrude into the cockpit.

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I think the covers take some getting used to but seems like a good way to quiet down the opti and provide a work surface all while closing in the transom.

I love the Jackplate on my 23ft. The boat is so much more versatile for inshore and offshore.
Moving it up to run offshore also helps the MPG's a little as well.

I'm not 100% sure, but i don't think an original 1988 Tracker SC would have the vents in the hull.

My 1989 20 SC does not have vents.

Glen - I have a jackplate on my skiff and couldn't live without it. I'm hoping it'll be as useful on this boat.

MrRob - Think they were added in? I kind of expected a SeaCraft logo in that spot. Keeps the bildge a little drier perhaps. Or wetter if it's listing...

Congrats on the SeaCraft and what are you asking for the 150.. Keep your eye peeled for a gulfcoast meet up too..

2k on the 150 once I get a good foot on it.

Glen - What make jack plate are you running on your 23?

My buddy is trying to sell me his Paralift. At about a foot, the setback is a little excessive but it'd get me jackin for half the price of a new one from Bob's.

Mine is a Bob's jackplate since I live in the same area they are made and sold.
It is great piece and I recommend it. I also have the boarding latter attachment for shallow water.

my 82 hAS VENTS but I thought my transom was wood core? I sold mt 93 evinrude 150 in 4 days last week $1000

Glen - I think I'd go with Bob's if I had my choice. My skiff plate is a Bob's and it's done me well.

Mikem - I think mine is wood core too. Why the ? I was originally thinking I could get 950-1000 for my 150 but if you don't ask, you won't get, so I listed it higher.

Sold the 150 for 700 after I discovered that one of the cylinders had 0 psi of compression. Lesson learned: always do a compression check. Hopefully not too late since the 175 I just bought hasn't been tested. Fingers are crossed.

I picked up a 3 blade 14x19 Stilletto yesterday for 75 bucks off of Craigslist. I expect the boat will need a little bit more prop than that but figured it was a good start since I see a lot of people running them on here. Any thougts on a 175 with 19" of pitch?

I'm gonna order the Sea Star HK7400 hydraulic steering once I verify that them Opti has good compression.

I just installed a 200 merc with no prop, at the propgods recommendation I for a quicksilver 15.5 x 17p I haven't got to run it yet

Let me know how that setup runs.

Nice rig.. Im in island view estates area in kingspoint. Would lie to check your boat your boat out

I'm about to start the transom project. I wanna bounce my plan off of you guys to make sure I'm not doing something silly.

First off, I'm going from the outside because I perceive it to be easier than cutting through all of the boxes and such on the inside and I'm hesitant to pull off the cap for fear of opening a can of worms that needs to stay shut for a few more seasons.

Phase 1:
-Cut about 3 inches (1/4" skin at 1:12 scarf sound right?) from the outer perimeter of the transom.
-Remove rotten wood, prep inner glass surface for bonding.
-Measure and decide what thickness foam to order.
-Trim Coosa Bluewater 26 foam to fit.
-Drill holes to allow for air to escape and insertion of lag bolts to squeeze it all together.
-US Composites Thin, Slow 635 Resin thickened to mayo consistency and slathered on Coosa and inner skin.
-Bolt together and let it setup.

Phase 2
-Prep outer skin and Coosa surface and coat with thickened epoxy as before.
-Use long, stiff boards to ensure outer skin is flush with the remainder of the transom and bolt it all together, remove squirted out epoxy and let it set.

Phase 3
-Prep skin scarf for VINYL ESTER fiberglass repair, build up per standard procedure and let set.
-Sand/fill/fair with color matched gelcoat. (I think I need to use a wax free ester for the last glass layup to allow for the gelcoat to stick?)

Phase 4
-Overdrill holes/fill/redrill for engine mounts, scuppers, etc. (maybe do predrill ahead of time to make things easier?)

Phase 5
-Catch fish.

Thoughts and advice much appreciated.

I would grind about 10-12" around the stern quarters and wrap glass around the quaters.i think it will give you a stronger transome. 1.5" coosa is pretty strong stuff.. Good luck and hope all goes well. I regretted cutting my outer skin... Although i had two on my 20 cause the transom was so rotted that the glass had sagged and buckled which left me with a bad layup... Good luck

I don't think you should overdrill holes. You should use a large doubler that is thick enough not to bend. A piece of 3/16" or thicker aluminum 3 or more inches in diameter as a washer is a good start. Overdrilling and filling doesn't get rid of the stress concentration of a motor mounting hole. But a large thick washer does. Or the C-channel I mentioned. (which I wholeheartedly recommend) It will also reduce the compressive stress on the coosa and make the whole thing much more durable.

You should use unwaxed resin all the way thru unless it is your last coat of gel coat. If you have more than 16 hours between coats, put down a layer of peel ply. Then you just peel it off next time you work on the boat. No sanding needed.

Sandblast the transom before you cut into it rather than sanding. But first acetone wash it. Then grind in your taper with a disk sander, then wash again with acetone. Then cut into it. Sandblast the interior of the transom after the wood is gone. It is fast and it gets into every corner. Then vacuum and water wash and vacuum and acetone wash.

Personally, I don't like epoxy. But I can't say it won't stick. Although you might check to see if the vinylester will stick to it, else you will need to make sure very little (just the saw kerf on the outer skin) comes in contact with the outer layer of vinylester and glass. A test batch will tell you this. Some vinylesters will stick to epoxy well.

Also, if you can make mega C-clamps like flyingfrizzle to clamp your transom, that's better than drilling lag bolt holes, obviously.


Those are my suggestions.

Go to Home Depot or Lowes and get one of these to do your "slathering":

http://www.homedepot.com/p/QEP-1-4-i...0113/100192636

It will give you an even distribution of thickened epoxy that will squish down (technical term) nicely to give a uniform bond coat.

Overdrill and fill is a technique usually used for wood cored laminates as a method to isolate the wood core from any moisture that might enter the drilled hole. It is unnecessary when using inorganic cores with adequate compressive strength. Coosa 26 has a pretty high compressive strength, so you can skip this step. Do what the stretcher of fishes said and use large washers or plates to spread out the compression load from engine bolts.

Good luck with your project,
Dave

Thanks for the replies.

Down the road I want to close in the transom and put on a bracket. Any thoughts/concerns on this design?

-2" motor mount (Coosa bluewater 26 1.5" + .25" 1708 w/ epoxy on each side)
-.25" skin on floatation chamber
-3 1"x8" structural members made of (Coosa Perhaps) w/ 1/8" skin
-Deck cored with Divinycell in three places like Strick's
-Deck joined to flotation box with adhesive at junction and tabbed in on the outside underneath.
-Access port on the deck w/ rigging coming through as well.
-I intend to isolate the floatation chamber from the bilge but still have drainage holes in the spars and a garboard plug.

Still some details to hash out.

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I envision making a mold for the deck and a mold for the box. Vacuum bagging the two and joining them after cure.

At first glance, that looks good to me. I did some FEA on one a while back, and the deep rib in the bottom helps lots.

It is here: http://www.classicseacraft.com/commu...t=23274&page=4

I could never figure a good way to get the swim platform well connected to the tub, though.

Others who have glass brackets had some good observations in there, too. I suspect that tabbing at the crown of the rib is a PITA with epoxy. Mat glass has a bad rap, but it wets out in poly and vinylester(epoxy) and goes around compound curves. It doesn't wet out the same in epoxy (it stays stuck together when there is not styrene in the resin). I have a hard time with 1708 on compound curves. Others might have tips for this. I would just use mat in VE/PE, and a fair amount of it for tabbing the top of the rib to the ends of the bracket. But I haven't actually built one. Others have. They might have good advice (and maybe I can learn something from them with 1708 for compound curves).

I'm still debating how I'm going to go about the transom fix. To get a better look of what was under the deck, I unscrewed the CC and gas tank cover. The guy before me replaced the tank and hoses but used a quite a bit of junk from Lowes (treated 4x4s, great stuff, zinc plated shelf brackets and screws, and to round it out, a door mat under the tank).

The deck seems surprisingly solid considering all of the holes from the CC and the two holes for wiring chases that have exposed the core.

I'm surprised how light they made the CC. I thought it'd be a good place to cut down some weight while I'm in there sectioning out 6 or so inches but it uses less plywood core than I expected.

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Aft end of the tank and a corroded bookshelf bracket.

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The brown in the bottom half of this picture is the box stringer and the lighter colored stuff on top of it is the putty they used to join the deck/liner to the stringers. It seems pretty hard. Anyone have a feel for how difficult it would be to separate the two if I were to pull the cap to fix the transom?

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Pardon the fat finger on the left, this is a shot of fore end of the gas tank hole. I presume the tank is sitting on that roving. Seems like a big space that isn't being utilized.

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Rehab
 

Hey that looks good.. It looks like there is a poly tank in there.. Man how big is your tank...?.. I do belive that poly is sufficent for stregth especially when using coosa board.. You need to be careful on the weight..i over built my tub and platform and the weight of the bracket is around 170 its a little heavy i would have like 150 But it was my first bracket...take your time laying glass dont put to many layers on at atime the transom angle at the front of the tub will want to sag and pull away. It did for me.. So just becareful ther.. Strick and hermco definitley build some really nice brackets.
My platform is glued and tabbed to the tub with epoxy and cabosil... It was an big pia especially when the acces ports are 5 " debating on taking it to 6" so i can reach in and access the compartments

Tripletail season has me working on the boat again. I've been debating for a while about how to go about the transom and I think I've finally come up with a solution.

Today I removed the rub rail and started to break the cap loose from the hull. The more I dig into this boat, the worse it gets. Probably not the first one down this road. I'm still concerned about getting too deep and never getting the boat into the water. I've been considering hiring an experienced hand to keep it moving along.

boat
 

Call starboard marine on back beach road

In the words of Kansas, I'm to the point of no return.

I cut the top off the cap today. Have a EMT tent to build around it to keep everything dry after the first few steps of demo.

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Can anyone recommend a good place to get the tyvec suits to keep fiberglass off my skin?

Try Lowes or Home depot in the paint department.
Dave

Safety supply store on 11th street. They have suits that at 4.00 they r not tyvex but do a pretty good job..plus he has gloves for cheap as well, also paint hoods, mixing containers... Not to mention he delivers

Southern supply store. On 11th

Thanks guys.

My helpers
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Hanging the cap out of the way.

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What's that PVC elbow for?
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Looks like a dyi anchor hanger...

I got some tyvek suits from US composites - they are ok but run small - if you order there get a size or so larger.

For good nitrile gloves the best price I found is from Harbor Freight (they run small too):
25 pair for $12
http://www.harborfreight.com/9-mil-n...rge-68511.html

Should move this to the repairs and mod.. Section

done!

Thanks guys. It has certainly taken an unexpected turn.

Lol. Hope u had a good Christmas. I am going to try to get on mine hard this weekend.. Stop by have a beer.or help sand glass

Back part cut off and out. Transom core is as rotten expected.

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Front's been cut and ready to lift out. Background is a forestry mulcher for my business KW Land Works. Shameless plug: Forestry Mulching Panama City Beach http://www.kwlandworks.com

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First layer of front deck off.

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Shelter erected.

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Should be getting hate mail from the neighbors any moment.

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The gas tank support was very rotten. No evidence of wet foam as of yet. Should I take a core sample or would it be obvious?

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That is looking real good...those cherry pickers are nice when working on these boats... Great job

Interesting pictures. Looks like that inner liner adds significant stiffness to the hull sides!