roosm
11-29-2016, 04:11 AM
Hi,
Okay. I'll start with a quite long story which will explain what happens later, might be somewhat entertaining but doesn't really matter for the repair itself.
But hey it is winter...
Skip the part between the dotted lines to get to the repair..
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I went to the US in the summer of 2008 to buy a wakeboat. I live in Sweden (Europe) and the market isn't great for used ski-boats and was even worse 8 years ago.
After asking around with some contacts of friends over there (in Georgia btw, since I could be living with a friend of mine and his uncle there for free) I got in contact with this guy who I ended up buying a boat from.
He owned a workshop that did hull-repair-work and had bought a Supra Launch SSV 2001 model that had fell off its trailer on the freeway and rolled on the road... That is the car towing the trailer was in an accident and well the boat didn't come out real well. I first saw the boat in this shape and thought he was kidding with me that I might be interested in this thing. It had broken wind-shield, bent prop shaft, ruined prop and rudder, the tower was also bent out of shape, the swim platform was in pieces and the hull had some spider cracks around the railing.
However he said he would replace all the parts and fix all the damage, get it in good shape, and sell it to me well below market value.
So he got my attention. Then he showed me before and after pictures of another Supra Launch SSV from 2002 with the same paint job even. This one had been driven full speed into a concrete dock, the driver was drunk and it was a tragic accident.
However the final boat looked almost perfect even if what he had started out with was missing most of the bow.
We actually even got to ride the boat as it was in for some service or something. And since we were used to like bass boats back home or what we had demoed in Georgia in my price range, which was like mid 90'ies direct drives, needless to say this was awesome.
So I bought the boat in rough shape with the restoration of the boat included in the price. They actually made a really nice job of putting it back together and I got my custom paint job which I really like. Luckily he had a friend with a Supra Launch SSV from 2002 from which we could "borrow" parts to get it up and running quicker. During this summer the friends Launch SSV which he evidently almost never used sat at the machine shop for most of the summer. Some parts arrived late from skiers choice or wherever they were ordered and some other parts were deemed broken too late so we salvaged a few pieces here and there from the other Supra. Tachometer, Speedometer, Swim-platform, Windshield etc. =)
Finally the day came when the boat was ready for a lake-test, we were just a week away from the day the boat was scheduled to be shipped to Sweden.
We took it out on the lake and after running a little while we started overheating. The guy driving the boat had full control of the gauges and quickly turned it off, let i cool down and we soon idled back to dock (or might even have got towed). Back to the shop and sure enough the oil-cooler-filter was plugged with sea-weed (such a poor design). Removed the sea weed and went to the lake again. Much better cooling but the guy driving almost didn't take his eyes off the dashboard.
Suddenly the oil pressure dropped to 0. He quickly turned of the engine but it was too late. The engine was frozen. Bearings shot.
So the guy running the shop had to make an awkward call. He called the owner of the other Supra and it went something like this:
Hey man!
---
Are you planning on using your boat this weekend?
---
Oh, good! I need your engine....
So in the end I got the engine from the other supra, which had 300 hours less than the one originally in the boat and hadn't been sitting for no one knows how long.
In the end I am happy with the deal as I got a boat I couldn't have dreamed of. I am not afraid of some DIY work and it was a once in a life time opportunity.
With all repairs and new tower, new stereo, new bimini etc I spent a little over 20k and that was 8 years ago, I still see them going for a lot more than that.
Also factor in the exchange rate to SEK at that time which was 20 k USD * 5.90 (all time low) = 118 k SEK. With todays exchangerate of 9.2 that would mean a little less than 13 k USD.
So here is the boat I got:
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5574/30489935824_10dd963574_h.jpg
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I got the boat back to Sweden it was taking on water quite quickly, which wasn't really noticeable in the states during our short outings in the boat, but was a big issue for me in Sweden were I was going to keep the boat mooring at a dock in the water. I found the leak to be where the rudder goes through the hull.
The outside of the boat looked perfect. New gelcoat sprayed on and polished.
The inside of the hull was a different story. It was messed up.
Some of the people working at this shop tried to cut corners even though the guy I bought the boat from seemed to keep them in check he obviously missed this.
All other repairs look good. Even after 8 years I have very minimal issues with any of them. At some places the paint seem to be just barely cracking, but other than that it is good.
I didn't really know how to handle this and I though the issue was that the rudder bracket did not seal against the uneven surface so I just filled it with putty and then put 3-4 layers of glass fiber cloth with laminating epoxy on top. Looked good, seemed to do a good job and did for several years but this year I noticed I had a small droplet of water on the outside just next to the rudder.
I wouldn't have noticed unless I was removing a stubborn prop and got hit in the forehead with the previous drop...
So I removed the rudder and started sanding to see if I had a crack or what. I quickly turned to using an angle-grinder with a flapdisk.
After a while I got to this:
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5537/31167764802_dc3384faa0_b.jpg
Apparently the previous repair was a mess. I am pretty sure that before I fixed the repair from the inside, when the old engine lost all its engine oil in the bilge, this old repair got filled up with engine oil. Thats why everything is black. Also the original piece of board, whatever they used from factory, star board or polyethylene board is also black.
I decided to redo the whole thing.
So I needed a new PE-board as the old one had cracked.
After some looking around, obiously cutting board are PE and I got the thickest one I could find at a decent price.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5508/31167764712_56b1db9f0a_b.jpg
I cut it slightly larger than the old one. I then sanded off the edges to get a phased/45 degree angle at the ends, since that would make laminating it stuck easier.
I used the same anglegrinder and flapdisk.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5520/31167764572_4b34b42591_b.jpg
Okay. I'll start with a quite long story which will explain what happens later, might be somewhat entertaining but doesn't really matter for the repair itself.
But hey it is winter...
Skip the part between the dotted lines to get to the repair..
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I went to the US in the summer of 2008 to buy a wakeboat. I live in Sweden (Europe) and the market isn't great for used ski-boats and was even worse 8 years ago.
After asking around with some contacts of friends over there (in Georgia btw, since I could be living with a friend of mine and his uncle there for free) I got in contact with this guy who I ended up buying a boat from.
He owned a workshop that did hull-repair-work and had bought a Supra Launch SSV 2001 model that had fell off its trailer on the freeway and rolled on the road... That is the car towing the trailer was in an accident and well the boat didn't come out real well. I first saw the boat in this shape and thought he was kidding with me that I might be interested in this thing. It had broken wind-shield, bent prop shaft, ruined prop and rudder, the tower was also bent out of shape, the swim platform was in pieces and the hull had some spider cracks around the railing.
However he said he would replace all the parts and fix all the damage, get it in good shape, and sell it to me well below market value.
So he got my attention. Then he showed me before and after pictures of another Supra Launch SSV from 2002 with the same paint job even. This one had been driven full speed into a concrete dock, the driver was drunk and it was a tragic accident.
However the final boat looked almost perfect even if what he had started out with was missing most of the bow.
We actually even got to ride the boat as it was in for some service or something. And since we were used to like bass boats back home or what we had demoed in Georgia in my price range, which was like mid 90'ies direct drives, needless to say this was awesome.
So I bought the boat in rough shape with the restoration of the boat included in the price. They actually made a really nice job of putting it back together and I got my custom paint job which I really like. Luckily he had a friend with a Supra Launch SSV from 2002 from which we could "borrow" parts to get it up and running quicker. During this summer the friends Launch SSV which he evidently almost never used sat at the machine shop for most of the summer. Some parts arrived late from skiers choice or wherever they were ordered and some other parts were deemed broken too late so we salvaged a few pieces here and there from the other Supra. Tachometer, Speedometer, Swim-platform, Windshield etc. =)
Finally the day came when the boat was ready for a lake-test, we were just a week away from the day the boat was scheduled to be shipped to Sweden.
We took it out on the lake and after running a little while we started overheating. The guy driving the boat had full control of the gauges and quickly turned it off, let i cool down and we soon idled back to dock (or might even have got towed). Back to the shop and sure enough the oil-cooler-filter was plugged with sea-weed (such a poor design). Removed the sea weed and went to the lake again. Much better cooling but the guy driving almost didn't take his eyes off the dashboard.
Suddenly the oil pressure dropped to 0. He quickly turned of the engine but it was too late. The engine was frozen. Bearings shot.
So the guy running the shop had to make an awkward call. He called the owner of the other Supra and it went something like this:
Hey man!
---
Are you planning on using your boat this weekend?
---
Oh, good! I need your engine....
So in the end I got the engine from the other supra, which had 300 hours less than the one originally in the boat and hadn't been sitting for no one knows how long.
In the end I am happy with the deal as I got a boat I couldn't have dreamed of. I am not afraid of some DIY work and it was a once in a life time opportunity.
With all repairs and new tower, new stereo, new bimini etc I spent a little over 20k and that was 8 years ago, I still see them going for a lot more than that.
Also factor in the exchange rate to SEK at that time which was 20 k USD * 5.90 (all time low) = 118 k SEK. With todays exchangerate of 9.2 that would mean a little less than 13 k USD.
So here is the boat I got:
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5574/30489935824_10dd963574_h.jpg
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I got the boat back to Sweden it was taking on water quite quickly, which wasn't really noticeable in the states during our short outings in the boat, but was a big issue for me in Sweden were I was going to keep the boat mooring at a dock in the water. I found the leak to be where the rudder goes through the hull.
The outside of the boat looked perfect. New gelcoat sprayed on and polished.
The inside of the hull was a different story. It was messed up.
Some of the people working at this shop tried to cut corners even though the guy I bought the boat from seemed to keep them in check he obviously missed this.
All other repairs look good. Even after 8 years I have very minimal issues with any of them. At some places the paint seem to be just barely cracking, but other than that it is good.
I didn't really know how to handle this and I though the issue was that the rudder bracket did not seal against the uneven surface so I just filled it with putty and then put 3-4 layers of glass fiber cloth with laminating epoxy on top. Looked good, seemed to do a good job and did for several years but this year I noticed I had a small droplet of water on the outside just next to the rudder.
I wouldn't have noticed unless I was removing a stubborn prop and got hit in the forehead with the previous drop...
So I removed the rudder and started sanding to see if I had a crack or what. I quickly turned to using an angle-grinder with a flapdisk.
After a while I got to this:
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5537/31167764802_dc3384faa0_b.jpg
Apparently the previous repair was a mess. I am pretty sure that before I fixed the repair from the inside, when the old engine lost all its engine oil in the bilge, this old repair got filled up with engine oil. Thats why everything is black. Also the original piece of board, whatever they used from factory, star board or polyethylene board is also black.
I decided to redo the whole thing.
So I needed a new PE-board as the old one had cracked.
After some looking around, obiously cutting board are PE and I got the thickest one I could find at a decent price.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5508/31167764712_56b1db9f0a_b.jpg
I cut it slightly larger than the old one. I then sanded off the edges to get a phased/45 degree angle at the ends, since that would make laminating it stuck easier.
I used the same anglegrinder and flapdisk.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5520/31167764572_4b34b42591_b.jpg