Restoring 82SN in South Africa

Hi There:

To start, i must say that i have had a burning desire to park one of the CC animals in my driveway for many years. When you grow up boating it is clear that for in shore entertainment....all roads lead to correct craft. As a young family, we planned this acquisition for years. When we bought our house, we planned and built a storage space to keep a 2001, i bought my last car with the specs to haul a 2001 and i also married a woman who supports our ownership of a 2001.

Inboards are quite rare and expensive in South Africa. I would imagine that trade sanctions during apartheid prevented the establishment of dealerships in SA. Also, the exchange rate to the dollar and import tarrifs on the boats made them expensive to acquire and maintain. The result is that there are very few old nautiques around in our parts.

The advent of wakeboarding has also meant a resurgence in our used market so any, and i mean any, are snapped up quickly whilst the same exchange and import tarrif's keep new boats out of reach in terms of price. A new 210 Air will set me back close to your equivalent USD75 000 after duties and shipment!

After a long wait and much searching i managed to salvage this old dog. We took the call knowing up front that all 2001's will need a full stringer repair (no half measures in SA). We chose her because she only has 550hrs and has had her motor and trans recently overhauled (2 hrs since). All her running gear is in good shape bar the pitots. The floor was shot and seperated from the hull from port bow to the motor. The entire bow section was soft.

USD5000 and 450 miles later she was parked at home. Here are some pics before resto:









I plan to go full hog on this old dog as i can see she has huge potential. Everything is to be as original as possible. I plan to:
- Replace all stringers, foam and floor;
- Shine up the motor and auxilliaries (cosmetic work)
- Wet sand and buff the gel, also repainting the striping;
- Cut some new decals and replace the rub rail; and
- Sand and repaint her trailer together with some new rims.

To give you an idea i bought for USD5000, the repair will add another USD3000 ending at USD8000. 2001'S with double the hours and not rebuilt retail for around USD13000 and never stand long.

Although i have progressed a way, summer rains and my day job have hampered my progress so far. I'll be sure to post more pics of the restore in my next post.

Are you going to change your username from nautiless to nautifull. LOL

quinner wrote: Donovan, Congrats on the new boat, sure it will be even better when you complete your restoration! I am no expert however it looks like your engine has an automotive air cleaner, if that is the case be sure and replace that with a genuine spark arrestor, would hate to see your new ride go up in smoke. Good Luck with it.

Yes Definitely, that's what it looks like to me too.
I'd recomend a K & N Performance Flame Arestor if you have to change it. Get the tallest one that will fit under the motor box. Don't forget the hose fittings too.

86, Quinner:

I also picked that up and have been wondering. Although the flame arrestor's name is self explanatory, would you be able to explain how it operates and prevents a fire? What would happen or be the cause of any sort of flame in this area of the motor? Although i am familiar with the workings of a motor, this is sadly my weak point i.t.o knowledge and i'd like to understand the risk.

Thanks for advice so far.

Knowing that a stringer job was on the cards i began pulling the carpet and found significant floor separation at the bow. Although not clear in the photos, i could stick a driver between the hull and floor and virtually peel like a banana.

Port side:



Starboard side, you can actually see the watermark left on the floor where dirty water just lay:



The section of floor under the observer seat was totally cooked. In the pic below you can actually see where rot has penetrated and weekend the original fibre lay-up:





Opening the floor, this is what i found:




That is damn nasty! I'm amazed that no further structural damage is found in the hull lay-up. The saving grace is probably that the PO hardly used the boat the last 2 or 3 seasons. Those stringers were no more, just a fine dust right back to the motor and i virtually vacuumed them out.The bow floor section, support struts and battery box supports were completely disintegrated. Here is an overhead of the observer main, merely matchwood:



The tools use to cut out the floor differ slightly as sawzalls aren't available in SA. I also don't have an air compressor (costly) so air powered tools weren't an option. I used an ordinary electric hand held jigsaw and a mini grinder (hard to reach corner cutting) to cut and lift the floor. Protective gear is a must as the fibre shatters into fine airborne pieces when cut with a rough saw blade which i'm sure would do damage to lungs and eyes. I used safety goggles and surgical breathers (cheaper by the dozen at a local pharmacy)to cover my face. To stop the itch to some extent i also used surgical gloves and long sleeves. I taped the shirt cuffs to the glove at the wrist....Mrs nautiless liked the look.

Taking the foam out is quick. I used the pitchfork suggested and it does come out in chunks. A bread knife and a wire brush work just fine to scratch it out of those cramped spaces.



The rear floor lifted.



While all of this was going on i got master nautiless to fix the PO's mess of varnish on the swim platform. He helped me sand down the platform and later finish it off with teak oil. It's amazing when you buy a boat that all of a sudden..your five year old loses his fear of noise...wonderful.



This boat will eventually be owned by my son as life passes. He will also get much enjoyment from my ownership. I like to keep him involved all the way....it's also good quality time between father and son...working a project together.

More to follow.

you have a good choice of wood in your area, what are the different types of wood on your continent?
welcome, at first I thought....it wouldve been a first.
nice to see your getting your son involved

Sounds like you've done your homework. I didn't know of meranti so I did a little quick reading.

In the help I received on my project, there was discussion of adhesion. It might be worthwhile to test how well your epoxy or poly will stick to the meranti; and also how well CPES will soak in if you are using it.

For reference, I had to chisel the original glass off of the semi-rotten stringers for disposal. Excellent adhesion after 20 years on rotten wood!

Cutting the stringers out was tough. I did say that i was using an electric jigsaw, which was a real cheap one. I budgeted burning one out while cutting out stringers and i did. I kept with the rule of one stringer out at a time but started with the drivers secondary as this would give me the best pattern to work from with the least risk of the hull distorting despite bracing.

Two points of departure from what i've seen on the site so far:

First, when cleaning the channels left after removing the stringer, i noticed how water had degraded the fibre and glass bonding the stringer to the hull. It looked as if unglassed/exposed raw fibre had absorbed moisture (capiliary action?)which led to it's breakdown. I decided to bond the stringers to the hull by retaining the channel at 1/4 inch deep and filling it with epoxy resin/cabosil with cotton flock and ground fibre. The flock combined with ground fibre would replace fibre mat and strengthen the bond while minimising the risk of bond breakdown as is would effectivley create a single piece of solid glass compound bonded to the hull. Getting the consistency just right was important; it had to flow easily into the channel edge and be thin enough for bubbles to escape or easily removed to give the solid section effect

Secondly, i decided to exclude the foam filled core on the midship secondaries and rather form a complete laminate block of timber. Perhaps this was an odd decision, but i had a bit of surplus timber and i figured this would only add strength.

Filleting along the hull/stringer, followed by ever widening layers of epoxy resin, mat and finally cloth were done on each stringer as you've seen before.

Two secondaries glued in:



The worst part of all of this is grinding...and grinding...and white dust..and white dust. Mrs nautiless will need a new vacumm cleaner after all of this...which is not in the budget.



Mrs nautiless was also very knid to arrange a set of these....Nice!

Eric:

The boat doesn't seem too "flappy" and rather tank-ish, agreed. Not often you see a hull this thick? This i can confirm by my fuel consumption and dead weight under tow. She's pretty solid on the road too.

Wakeslayer:

I've been following your posts too. I too am keen on a second and have my eye on this one. I hope it's around early 2010. The owner took it off the market for sentimental reasons, maybe he'll sell in a year or so. Not quite sure which it is. 6.4l interceptor motor, 1965? I really like the speedo's!










Gotta Ski:

Thanks for the tip. The problem here is that our state declared new water craft legislation August 08 which closes that as an option. I need to achieve a volume/%weight bouyancy of 30% with approved materials on a boat like this. With a hefty motor and tank design i'll just get through my inspection with foam. I'd like to whack the inspector with the pool noodles

hey Nautiless

That second is a pretty sweet ride as well.    I just got a 68, but it ain't in anywhere near that kind of shape. Needs a full restoration. That will be my winter 2010 project.
It has a 396 in it? If so, WOW.     Mine has a 318. not a motorhead at all, so cannot say from looking at it, one of the dudes here will know.

those look like Helen Keller gauges

That is your shifter.

LOL...

To bring this up to current. Two main stringers glassed in and so to say done.









This week i began cutting and sealing the bow bulkhead. I will try to complete it's installation together with the braces between the primaries and secondaries. For the bulhead i'm using 1 inch ply, the braces will be 2 inch ply laminate. Everything is thoroughly drenched in epoxy.



Being rainy season it's not always possible to work in the cockpit. I often find myself finding that something else to do....

I've polished the motor mount so long...




A great thing to do in the wet after removing the old decals is to wet sand.





I have gone through sanding her over with 800 and 1000 grit. One more shift of 1600 grit the we can begin buffing and polishing. By my progress on the wet sanding you can tell we've had a bumper rainy season.

That looks like you are making some pretty good progress. I assume you had quite a bit done before you started this thread. How much time do you have in so far? When did you start? I have right around 100 hours into mine, and I started at the end of October. Iexpect another 50 hours and am shooting to be done by the end of January.