New '93 For the M3Fan family

They're not his decals. He has customers supply them so I'm willing to bet the decals would be coming from any of the known sites we use. I figured he's worried about ghosting too as am I but he only said it was a concern with the transom decals. Idk, figured I'd ask Joel as he's a few weeks ahead of me on the same project. I seen the detail guys work which looked good and came recommended to me by other ccf members.

Hey Joel! Nice find.
You should stop in sometime as you're headed north. You have to drive right past my place (hwy g just before 7 mile)

Looks Great Joel, I guess the SN is heavier and sits taller than the MC but worse than that is that car topper! I hate towing with them, even a low profile one like yours can just kill your mileage.

Hope you guys have a great summer, We need to get up there eventually to check your place out and run around those lakes. Some day!

awesome...but I gotta ask..there is a cover on the lift...right?



john

just lookin' awesome Joel & fun to follow your pictures






john

So, this is interesting. Don't count the eraser wheel out! I started on the decal removal on the other side and though the Singapore decal came right off, the AWSA and PCM foil stickers were again only coming off in dust-sized pieces. Just for the heck of it I threw the eraser wheel into a cordless drill and HOLY cow. No fuss, no muss, it ERADICATED both decals without even the slightest chance of damage to the gel. We're talking 5 minutes to basically make both decals completely disappear, cutting through them like butter. I wouldn't count this tool out, ever, or discount it's effectiveness in any way. Had I thought to break it out on the other side it would have saved me a half hour at least on the tougher decals. Highly recommended timesaver and in my actual hands-on experience it would be really difficult to damage the hull with it.


Highly recommended for stubborn decal removal!

I did a full refresh on one side of the boat so far. This is a lot of work and includes a 4-stage compounding/polish (wetsand on just the rear foot or so of the red stripe, then 3 stages of cutting/polishing compound on the whole side). Then I replaced the big side decals, the small rear side decals, and then finally the pinstripe. I have the other entire side to go but I'll rest a bit before I take that on.

You might recall I did this on the 2000 SN a couple years ago (except replacing the main side decals) so I'm not entirely new to this process.

The gel on the 93 was pretty much perfect other than some oxidation on just the tapered portion of the side of the boat, by the 1993 Singapore sticker (which was a total PITA to get off, BTW). The side decals were a bit beat up, and so was the pinstripe. It all had to be replaced and buffed out to make the boat go from a 8.5 to a 10 on the outside.

For sticker/pinstripe removal I used a hairdryer and a plastic scraper. Some stickers came off easily, some where absolutely horrible to get off. The two worst ones were the little foil PCM sticker and the 93 Singapore sticker. Both came off in a million little pieces and the glue residue had to come off with acetone. The rest came off easily with some heat and patience, including the pinstripe which means I can return my eraser wheel to Amazon.

Rearmost oxidation and the dreadful Singapore sticker in mid removal:



Working the HF rotary like a boss, this is a nice ab workout.



Just the faintest ghosting from the side decals, just enough to align the new ones by.



Mmmmmmhmmmm!



The wheels. The heavy polish was cutting the red gel like a crime scene. Very nice compound. Props to Timmy B, again, for coming up with the 3-stage 3M compound and pad combo that works so well for these boats.



I was a rebel and put the side decals on completely dry. Stakes were high at 114.00 a side. I had no problems, really, doing this. I did the SKI portion first, then cut the backing on Nautique to NAU, TIQ, UE and taped the whole thing up there. Hinged the sections up, peeled out the backing, then carefully applied. These decals are dead nuts on the shadows of the old ones. Trying to see the old shadows in the polished gel while getting the decals aligned was like looking at one of those 3D fractal images and trying to get them to pop out. All of a sudden you'd see the ghost image perfectly, then it would disappear. Interesting. These decals are incredibly high quality, from Nautiqueparts.com. Exact 100% matches in every detail, even the circle R sticker at the end. Very impressive.



Note half the backing is off, I lightly scored the backing sections using a sharp razor.



The result, pinstripe on as well.



Rear stickers for bonus points



One side down, one to go!

Great job Joel. I admire you just going at projects even when you have never done it before. Yup, pretty easy and now you have added to your skill level.

Completed what has been one of my favorite boat repairs to date, and that is taking this crusty old broken Airguide and refurbishing it to like-new operational status. This Airguide had been leaking for some time, as evidenced by corroded internals and a stained faceplate. It blows my mind that a PO would not consider this a more urgent repair. Hell, after 1 single ride in the boat I had to fix it immediately.

I was able to grab a basic silver solder coil (from researching old posts here) and flux right from Ace Hardware. I scraped the surface of the bellows seam clean with a razor, very gently, then brushed the flux on liberally. Then I used my tiny 23W soldering iron to heat the seam, about 1/8" at a time, slowly applying the solder to the joint and iron, allowing it to fill the gap, then inching the iron down the seam and repeating. Looks pretty good, IMO. This literally took 5 minutes to do.

I also had to clean up and lubricate the internal pivot points inside the gauge, as well as the dial, lens, etc. It went from crusty and barely moving to moving effortlessly.

After repairing the bellows I blew into the gauge with a little length of hose and sure enough, no leaks and the needle moved. As a human being I could only get the gauge to indicate 14mph so I very carefully used my air compressor w/blow gun (just barely cracking the valve, carefully). The gauge takes quite a bit of pressure, as Pete indicated in a couple older Airguide posts. 45mph is certainly a decent amount of PSI but the gauge took it and held it repeatedly.

I am so happy about this repair. Taking such a basic, old, mechanical item and getting it to function like new again with minimal fuss is about as good as it gets. Being a homeowner who maintains a fleet of our own land and water vehicles, I've fixed a lot of things. However, something about bringing this little device to life really put a smile on my face.

storm34 wrote: John, curious to hear more about your problems with the Ramlin?

Maybe John had other issues but The Ramlin under the 93' Paragon was a PITA, and Chuck who bought it felt the same way as he ended up dumping the Ramlin and getting a brand new Boatmate a couple years ago.

Unless you leave the tops of the fenders out of the water and powerload the hull would often end up on top of the fenders because it was such a tight fit between them.

When Timmy jumps in and says "that's how you load it, blah, blah, blah" good luck when you need to float on because powerloading is illegal as it should be and when you have a colored hull that gets and shows all the scratches created from power loading.

Would imagine Chris that your colored hull will show scratches if you powerload, the Blue 206 always gets floated on for that reason.

I'm a little late to the party, Joel, but great looking boat!

Lol, good plan. Longer PVC over those guides for the short term to protect the decals!

Correct craft was still in the trailer business in '93... Ram-Lin wasn't born until 95 or so, if memory serves. There is literally no difference in the product either way, the trailers were the same. Only minor tweaks between our '92 cc and '03 ramlin. I've always loved the way they load, we've encountered ramps of varying steepness.

Joel, I could probably accept that homely looking trailer if it loaded nice and wasn't used often... It sure doesn't have much going for it though. Such a cherry boat deserves better. Maybe keep an eye out for another cc/ramlin on the cheap and sell that thing to a Malibu owner? Ha.

John, curious to hear more about your problems with the Ramlin? Seems like they have the closest design to what CC produced for years and load so well.

Joel, good thing you won't be trailering that boat often! Steep ramps and tall bunks don't mix well.