TS6M Stringer Repair pictures

[wakemanwillis]

My family and I own a 1986 TS6M. It has a little over 1050 hrs. My family and I are the 2nd owners. We purchased the boat about a year and a half ago. This last spring I rebuilt the stringers and floor. I did the whole project for pretty cheap. I Did all of the work myself, and it turned out pretty good. I wanted to start this thread because its hard to find pictures of a stringer replacement project from beginning to end. That is the goal. Hopefully it helps. Thanks!
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Happily ever after....
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[92SupraComp]

nice job. but, one thing, please tell me you sealed the wood in that drain hole you made at the back...

[TitanTn]

Looks great, and congrats on bringing another dying Supra back to life. It'd be great for future rebuilders if you also gave a little narrative about your rebuild decisions like limber holes, using foam, cap-on restoration, extra thick flooring, etc.

[haugy]

Nice work. I would also like to see a more detailed narrative when you have time. And yeah, that exposed wood in the drain hole makes me very nervous. Seeing the work done, I'm betting he sealed it up. I hope.

Good job on saving a classic.

[Supra_Comp]

Boat looks fantastic, great job.

On the side panels it looks like you cut off the bottom half where that flange would be with all of the holes to attach to the floor. What did you do to finish that off and bring the structure back?

[cjennTS6M]

Just getting into my '87 ts6m, thanks for posting! Lots of great visual help to see exactly what I'm about to be involved in. Looks good man! Enjoy.

[wakemanwillis]

I chose to leave the cap on the boat. Now, That is a controversial decision around here, and for good reason. My boat still has a fair bit of rot under neath the bow. As best I could, I tried to seal off all of the old stringers, and floor using an Epoxy resin, which is more intrusian resistant than a polyester resin, and several layers of 6 ounce Roving. Eventually that rot will seep through and get into the new wood. However that will take quite a bit of time as (to the best of my admitedly limited knowledge) even lower quality Epoxy resins are very intrusian resistant. The other reason I chose to leave the cap on is because we were able to buy the boat for $2000.00 becuase we knew that the stringers were bad. So spending an extra month or more to pull the cap off hardly seemed worth it to me.

[wakemanwillis]

nice job. but, one thing, please tell me you sealed the wood in that drain hole you made at the back...

Thanks! Yes, I did seal the holes in the back. I went over them with resin 1st. After the resin dried I used resin to glue in a PVC pipe for extra water protection. I also leveled the... floor in that area so that the water could easily drain. I figure that the super traps are going to leak. no matter what i do to them, but i actually really like them because they really lower the noise level without losing the sound of the motor.

[wakemanwillis]

AS for the side panels: Yes, I cut them out completely. I still have the pieces I cut out in my garage. I am by no means an expert on fiberglass composition, resin strength under various types of forces, a structural engineer, or really even very smart in general. So, take all of my advice with a grain of salt. :D But as I see it, All of the ski boats in the mid 80s Including Nautique, Malibu, Mastercraft, Centurion, and so on do not have fiberglass panels that are screwed to the floor for strength. I acknowledge those manufacturers have their own ways of tying the cap to the hull and bracing the cap itself, but some of those methods are already being used in the TS6M. When I really looked at boats of the era, I didn’t see major structural differences between the overall manner in which those boats were constructed and the way that the Supra’s were made. One exception would be the late 80’s Nautique 2001’s (GREAT WAKEBOARD BOATS FYI) which were making the transition to less and less wood a little ahead of the curve. So, I decided to simply cut them out, use the boat over the summer and watch for wear, stress cracks and so on. I used the boat for most of the summer in 2013 (mid-July to late September), and didn’t see any evidence of wear on the cap or on the hull itself. If I begin to see wear I will reattach the cut out pieces or build braces to re-establish that structure. Also, if you’ll notice in the pictures, I didn’t completely take them out. They are still attached at the front. It’s hard to tell because the whole boat drives completely different now, but I don’t think I can feel any real flex in the boat in rough water, while turning hard, or any other structurally stressful situations that I encountered. From my experience, it seems acceptable to remove part of those side pieces. One plus is: it feels like by cutting them out it adds a suprising amount of room on the inside which is nice.