'86 Sunsport Facelift

O.K. so I decided to start a new thread on the facelift... why not the Internet needs more pages doesn't it?
Started to remove the decals yesterday with the eraser wheel... about 30 sec in the drill broke. So I decided to go the razor method... not bad took me about an hour. Started sanding and the wax was so bad I needed to do something different.
Picked up some acetone this morning and stripped the wax off. Will get back to sanding after I take care of the kids for a bit.

My to do list;

1) I have to take everything off the transom still Platform, speedo pick-ups, and was thinking of taking off the Cavitation plate and putting a hinge on it... any thoughts?

2)Wet sand and polish whole boat.

3)Put on tower

4)New Decals? will post what Titan did up for me... was thinking Chrome on Black or Black on Grey.... ooor... Red on Grey. All input will be considered.


Yesterday
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Today
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New Decals
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I am in the same spot.

I used a heat gun to get the stickers off works like a charm once you get the hang of it.

I found a new turtle wax product that works wonders on the goo left over.

Big work day today, after consulting with a friend who works at a marina about my sanding issues, he suggested a "total refresh" of the gel coat. Said that my boat needed it due to the years of abuse/ over waxing. What dose this mean you may ask? I have to take off 1/2 mm of gelcoat. Sounds bad but hasn't gone to badly. Got one side rough sanded today. The pics are of the boat wet... but it's what it will be when finished. Enjoy..
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What were the colours of the lettering ??? Perhaps you could incorperate that into the new stripe package. Blending the classic look with modern stripes..... Looks great too, once you are done I have another which could use a little polish!! :)

What did you use to get the 1/2mm

I am all the way down to 600grit it still looks like I havnt touched it.

Some people are going to cringe... worked my way down to 150, My friend said to work my way down till I found something that would cut it. But after I got the hard stuff cleared off it sands pretty easy. I also am dry sanding and washing off the dust between sand paper grades, and am using and 6" orbital air sander. I'm going to wet sand from 600 up. Am hoping to have the whole bottom end roughed by the end of next week,the top for some odd reason doesn't seem to be as hard and 600 and up will probably do. I figure by the time I'm finished I'll have sanded buffed and polished the Hull around 9 times. Lots of work but I'm looking at the payoff in the end. :)

And for all those who are shaking their heads, I'll say this; you know the shell is hard when 220 won't make a mark.

I am finding the same thing 320 wont make a mark.

I started with 1000 wet nothing
600 wet nothing
320 wet same
320 dry started to bring it up.

This is a bigger pain in the ars than I thought.

Are you doing it by hand? If you have the tools I would suggest an electric or air orbital sander. Light to no pressure just gliding it across... although I tilted the electric on a bit of an edge and, for lack of a better word, lightly scored the hull and the sanded the scores out... does that make any sense? I can take some pictures this morning.... I'm by no means a a pro but I know there like 5-6mm of gel coat on it. Just have to remember No pressure when scoring, kind of just touching the surface. It's seems to be the only way to get the hull one color and get rid of the stripes.

I agree after reading all the posts on wet sanding I thought this was going to be a cake walk..... Wrong. Oh well just thinking of the results. :D

I wonder if a final pass of automotive clearcoat would make things pop wit much less effort...

I was wondering the same.
Here are some pics for you Century.
This is the scoring I was talking about I will say that the right side of the boat seems to be coming off easier I'm using 220 on the electric orbital.
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This section took about a minute to rough although it's not completely done
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Then I sand with my Air sander with 150 to get the swirls out and get this
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I want to rough the rest of the hull like this before I more up to the next grit. After I rough it I wipe it down with a rag and water sand it with the 150 then wipe it down again. This way if I miss any swirls I can see the and after it dries go over that spot again.
Hope this helps.

So you're basically cutting into the gel coat with the aggressive grits and then polishing out from there with the less aggressive? You're not going to be applying more gel?

Yup.No to adding gel. Was told I didn't need to... although I have to fix a few spots that were covered by the decals. When all said and done will have taken off less than a mm and hopefully will never have to go to this extreme again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wiatowski

I was wondering the same.
Here are some pics for you Century.
This is the scoring I was talking about I will say that the right side of the boat seems to be coming off easier I'm using 220 on the electric orbital.
Attachment 9344Attachment 9345
This section took about a minute to rough although it's not completely done
Attachment 9346

Then I sand with my Air sander with 150 to get the swirls out and get this
Attachment 9347Attachment 9348
I want to rough the rest of the hull like this before I more up to the next grit. After I rough it I wipe it down with a rag and water sand it with the 150 then wipe it down again. This way if I miss any swirls I can see the and after it dries go over that spot again.
Hope this helps.

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Its funny I thought mine looked ok before I pulled the stripes off.

Thanks for the pics that is a big help.

From the factory how is the gel coat applied??? Is it sprayed if so can you respray it..... Perhaps an automotive clear is not the way if you can re apply the gel/shine.

Turns out 320 on a da with a bit of work will bring down.

Takes a bit of time 3hours in I have almost half of one side done.


Did you do the top of the gunals to.

not yet.... just below the rubrail so far.... I don't think I'll have be so aggressive on the top. was going to start with 600.

Im glad mine is white exept the sides.

After this little venture im not messing with any thing else.

Progress....

I hope he hasnt killed himself trying to get it done.

I can bearly lift my arms and my ride still looks like crap.

Planning on doing some work on her today.... took off all the stuff on the rear yesterday.
I had to work too..... and lets not forget the bunch kids I have. lol

I'm in the exact same boat (no pun intended) as you guys. I started with an electric buffer, wool pad and polishing compound. That made-it shiny but the color was still faded. I then switched to a cutting compound (same wool pad), that worked a little better, but I would still have to stay in one-spot for a long-time. Right-now I'm wet-sanding with 600 grit. I'm afraid to take my stripes-off, because I know then I will be forced to sand-it all the way out.

I'm hoping I can buff-out the 600 grit with just one pass of polishing compound, I don't really want to make 3-4 steps...

Keep-us updated with your progress, I'm gonna work on mine for a few hours today and will follow-up after.

So I cut the other side of the boat today and have rough sanded half of that. I decided to finish a small section on the back just to get my hopes up. So I wet sanded 320,600,1200,then used rubbing compound then used Buff Magic.... I didn't put polish on it cause I want to finsh the whole boat first... but I needed to see the light a bit.

Cutting
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Cutting to rough Sanding
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320,600,1500,compound, and Buff magic ... sorry it's wet the weather wasn't co-operating today
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Lets not forget what it started out as
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Nice progress. Any thoughts on the strip package and colours... By the way your comp is still here !!!

I'd like to at least put "Supra" on it the wife wants me to leave it blank.
Finished rough sanding the bottom today and got 1/2 of one side done with 320.
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???????
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Keep her plain-ish. I think the stripe on the all white 10th anniversary boat would be perfect on yours. Try to match the same grey/white as the top portion of the boat. Simple elegant and timeless.

What ever that discoloration on mine is hard as a rock.

150 takes a bit of time to cut it then 220,320,400,600dry,600wet,1000wet, and finaly 3m heavy cut compound.

The more I think about it I should have just painted the darn thing.

pics, pics...more pics!!....86 century, you're getting some befores & afters i hope!

i've still never seen red gel like wiatowski's from the factory. anyone else seen that before? where's haugy?

paint is nice but gel is more durable. i don't think we'd be reviving 20+ yr old paint jobs as well as some serious elbow grease can bring gel back to life.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 86 century

What ever that discoloration on mine is hard as a rock.

150 takes a bit of time to cut it then 220,320,400,600dry,600wet,1000wet, and finaly 3m heavy cut compound.

The more I think about it I should have just painted the darn thing.

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You read my mind! lol are you doing yours a section at a time?

O.k. now for my update... worked at her hard today as it's suppose to rain the next 5.... although I will be wet sanding I don't want to do it in the rain. I hadn't yet done the off-white part on the hull. So I broke out the painting tape and though " heck with it I'll just take off the rub rail", so that's what I did.... Honestly it's just because I'm anal when I do repair work. So now the lower half of the boat is completely rough sanded and ready for the the next grit.

Note to Daff... you were right the cap has been off before, but for some reason it looks like they didn't take all the foam out. :(
the reason the floor moves/ creaks.. you know what I'm talking about... is because they nailed the floor down instead of screwing it. But the stringers look good... Guess I'll have to do a cap off resto one day.

Question to the viewers.... How much of the underside of the hull should I do? what thinking of just doing the first part... I'll include a pic.
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I want to sand this before I move on to the rest so I can sand 1 grit at a time.

Here are a couple from today... anyone tell me how hard it is to put the rub rail back on?
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One more question.... How can I take the teak railing off with out drilling out the plugs... any suggestions?

Yes I have taken a few pics.

Im so worn out I cant lift my phone.


My hull has a step about 4" from the bottom it changes to white so you have a lot more color to work on.

Salty as for the red gel I have another just like it. My 86 comp. It has the exact stripe package and grey wrap on the top side.

As for the floor they are all nailed from the factory. In time the nails rot and become loose feeling. My comp did the same thng but the floor was soft too... I must say the ol SS looks alittle naked with all her trim removed. But with all your hard work and attention to detail she will look like new. The boat looks so factory still perhaps the original stripes should be put back on. Sure the rainbow stripe was outdated but in a wierd way it looked correct.

I'd leave the bottom of the hull till later. You have enough to do getting her back in the water....

Daff did you get my message about the swim platform?

Nothing is teak on the Comp. So putting a teak on the rear would look silly. Why get rid of the teak?? With a little elbow grease it will look 100% beter than fibreglass. It looks great in the water....

Probably right... I wouldn't mind making it bigger though.... tell you one thing I have no intentions of sanding it this year. :p

Got home from work today and started sanding with 320. Decided to finish the transom completely to see some progress.
Still haven't started on the cap, but I want to get the bottom done first.
Before
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During
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After
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Lookn good man when you are done with yours I will send you the tickets and get all the crazy canadian beer you want to come down to finish mine up.


Will get a keg a day if I haft to.

For the life of me I just can't get over how hard it is to sand. I will make this suggestion, dry sand all grits. It's dustier, but a lot easier. Dry sand, then wipe with cloth and water let dry and repeat. Ive been using an air sander, and It's still so much work.... hoping to have the bottom done by the weekend...let's hope.:|

The SS is looking much better... Lots of work but the results should be stellar. Daw the add on Kijiji too. Guy is a dealer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wiatowski

For the life of me I just can't get over how hard it is to sand. I will make this suggestion, dry sand all grits. It's dustier, but a lot easier. Dry sand, then wipe with cloth and water let dry and repeat. Ive been using an air sander, and It's still so much work.... hoping to have the bottom done by the weekend...let's hope.:|

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HA HA i just finished block sanding mine with 1000 and thats 3x 320 / 400/ 1000... it does suck

Gotone side done today.. here are the results.
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Time for a shower... I'm exhausted. :)