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13ft Contender to Bream/Bass Boat
no front is a bit interesting. these boats used to be a runabout style. very similar to a Haines V133.
After taking the rubrail off i was confront with all this crap over the join of the deck and hull. i had to hammer and chisel it all off the sides what a fun mission that was....
Another Fun mission. this thing had been glassed over and had to open the join up.
after chissling my way round i got a jack and some wood under the splash well and jack it up and CRACK they seperated. and there was much rejoicing.
First look does not look good.... starting to think this boat has spent some good time in davey jones's locker arrrrghhhh.
you should seee the barnacles on the bottom :(
not an easy task. the wood was all water logged and just chipped away slow. i used the grinder as much as i could but then it came down to a hammer and a chisel. needed a few mexicans for this job i can tell you....
I cut it back to here then had to grind the outter layer of glass off..
wasnt easy as you dont want to go through the hull.
Transom was alllll goooone. most of it just fell apart, some was a bitch to get out but we got there. interestingly the transom had also soaked up a fair amount of fuel as i could smell it as i cut it away
can see here ive done the middle and need to get rid of the other sections ready to dry fit our new stringer.
stringers are made up of all sorts of woods in boats. as long as its something treated it should last a bit longer than others. just make sure its glassed and sealed well.
After all sorts of grinding sanding chiseling the list goes on we are finally ready to go on the offensive. here we are dry fitting our sexy new looking keel stringer.
Lookin good. some ppl might ask why ive ended it there. well basically thats how the old one was and it gives me room for a bilge pump. also allows the floor panel to slope down towards the bung.
we sort of jump a few photos here cause i cant find them. must be on my other pc which is a bit dead atm. ill upload them later.
first time fibreglassing was the keel stringer and had a mate help me. it went well. specially when i didnt put enough hardener in it. luckily over about 4 days it went hard. hehe. heres the dry fit of the transom. looks good.
With Dads Skills he made up a mould and made us up an anchor well. how good is that. the boat now has a front
The deck looked a bit ugly as it stop where the windscreen had originally been. we needed to make it a bit better and the decision was to take the taper forward to where the anchor well was.
after filling 100000 holes we got to work in progressing it to the front.
got this on good ole ebay too. needs a good fix up.
gave it a coat of paint. changed the bearings and replaced all the rollers with red fibreglass ones. mission to get it registered but its all sorted now. oh and replaced the winch cable.
We got the now heavy hull turned over and were greeted with some nasty looking barnacles. which covered 90% of the hull. brilliant.
out comes the sander and it didnt leave for a long time
looks alot better now but unfortunately the barnacles left a shitload of little holes which will now have to be filled.
we opted to spray the boat and we went and spent about $400 on undercoat and some paint.
lots of filling sanding and a few coats of undercoat and it was almost ready for painting.
undercoat was great. ive never spraypainted before and it gave me a good chance to learn. i was just paranoid about breathing any of it in.
Sprayed on the paint and how glossy does that look!
unfortunately being outdoors alot of crap stuck to it and it lost is gloss quite quick. will need a good buff at the end of this. the colour is also alot more purple than that. it looks really blue in this pic for some reason. happy with the result though.
well what a mission to join them back together. pop riveting the flanges then they wouldnt pop in so using some straps some muscle we got them back into place and glassed the inside join. shouldnt really need to but better to be safe than sorry.
made up a hatch for the anchor well. pop-up cleat installed
bungs installed just a few things. next is the rub rail. boy that was a mission. stretching it round with 4 ppl and managed to get bog on my new paint job. not happy. hope it comes off eventyually
can always touch it up later.
next was the making of the front cast deck. made it super high. but makes for lots of storage. hope shes stable at rest ;)
forgot to take some really.
ok well the motor is on that was a mission. specially when i break drill bits cause i had the drill in reverse!
cast deck is completed it looks great. lean seat is on deck.
drivers seat installed. nav lights installed. and flow coated the inside.
and the console is slowly coming up lookin good now!
weather has been horrible of late. but i managed to get the leccy on the front and transducer on the back and a few other bits and pieces.
still a fair way to go but its lookng promising.
well i finally got to have a serious look at the motor.
thankfully she started fine and ran well. had a big night before. and mate was holding the motor in place, i said be careful as i would put it into gear. i pushed the throttle up and nothing happened. oh no throttle cables. lol.... bought some cables @ $50 each and realised that the screw and a piece of staino that holds the cables in place at the motor end were missing as well....brilliant
order them and ordered the missing rubber grommet as shown on the pic. least it started well!
well it came to install the steering cable and ah shit. i cant feed it into where its gotta go on the motor! couldnt get the right flat angle to do so.
now this boat originally had the old pulley system style steering. so i thought i might have issues.
i basically had to cut a hole in the well as u can see in the pic to get it through. unfortunately where i started i still couldnt get the cable to go in so the hole got bigger and bigger. i made a bit of a mess of it hey....
not happy
ok i got a bit excited and after a redbull i got down and dirty and got the console bolted in. the rod rack done, the switch panel. the rev counter/safety check gauge. and the thing that the steering bolts too installed. go mac go
I installed my cup holders today! these babies are awesome.
$6 for a 2 pack.
and what they do. u either use the dbl sided sticky thing or screw it in and it hangs on the boat. the plastic insert comes out and it goes into ur stubby holder and then u can hang it back on there.
how good is that! theres one on the edge of the cast deck on drivers side, passenger side and one at the transom i have a bunch more too if i want to use them anywhere.
ok well i got the steering wheel etc all hooked up and was connecting the ram etc. all sorted. i now have cords and steering stuff hanging out the side of my console. not happy hey it looks messy as but we will deal with that later.
gave it a turn mm kinda smooth but i then realised i cant go left much ;)
for trucks sake. nothing is ever easy is it.
ok so i had to cut another hole in my now disapearing engine well.
as you can see ive got full lock available now but at what cost!
i got home from my girlfriends place and noticed that dad had "helped" me out by cutting the hole for me. cheers dad but unfortunately he had a shocker and the hole was massive. thats gonna be a fun fix...
well its sorta fixed one side of the steering issue. looks messy but as long as it helps keep water out. i need to sikaflex it or tape or something as its open one side of the grommet....
still have the massive hole on the other side.
these are the shit man.
i put 2 strips of these on each side of the cockpit and they shine down nice and bright but not in ur eyes and easy to fish with etc.
ill take a pic at night later. but im pretty impressed with them. i went with boring old white but i have some aqua blue ones for when i do my bait tank mod later on : ) : ) :)
ok everything is pretty much done. i just need to wire all the guts in the console, get those parts for the throttle cables. and generally tidy it all up. then its blast off. yeaaah baby!!!!
im totally lost when it comes to engines but this i managed to do and run them back into the throttle and it works. yes!!
tidied up a few things up and went and got the boat registered and plated it was ready to go.
i was so nervous and shaking from anticipation. this was the biggest test ever and there were so many things that were being tested. it was mind blowing too think what could go wrong how much could go wrong and oh my god i hope it doesnt sink!!!
well here it is in the water and me standing on it nervously
i started it up and the engine started with no issues! yes!!!
checked the steering and it was all good no water coming in from the bottom thats good too. time to give her a run!!
how good is that!!! what a feeling!
its really unexplainable to open up the throttle and fly down the bay in something you have put so much hard work into and having it all go the way it should!!! i was hammering down the bay punching the air i was stoked!!!!
just an edit here after a couple of trips out we corrected the following issues:
the outboard was rooster tialing a bit so we jacked the motor up to the next notch on the screw holes and that fixed the issue.
i had a leak in the engine splash well. that was sikaflexed up.
and on one outing hte rubrail on one side fell off lol. that was only bogged on to begin with and i guess we didnt put enough on. i sikaflexed it back on this time and it hasnt moved after a couple of months of good hours on the water. im very happy with this little project and was worth all the hard work. there are alot of things i would do differently if i built another but hey its all a learning curve and im getting so much enjoyment out of the boat now.