'86 ADVANTAGE Bubbledeck

[78Southwind]

Great Job! Keep it coming.

[Holorinhal]

This boat has a stock Berkley intake in it and I want to swap it out for the intake from the Kona which is machined for a shoe and ride plate.
I used a propane torch and a floor jack to apply pressure. Make sure you strap the boat to the trailer to keep it from lifting up.







Cleaned up the hole.



Before I set the intake, I needed to add some glass to the inside of the keel at the transom. Reason is that when you add a ride plate to a rounded keel without a full setback, you need to clearance the bottom a little, for the plate to clear at an upward angle. A lot of keels are not that thick, so the added material on the inside allows for the removal of material on the outside, without breaking thru.











I did not want to cover the stringers with the carpet and wanted to Purdy up the bilge and transom. I prepped the stringers, bilge and transom for gel coating.



I had to coat the stringers with two coats of resin to fill in the weave.



I filled in all the low sots and sanded to 220 for gel.








Masked off the boat and any thing I didn't want overspray on.

[Holorinhal]

I got the stringers, bilge and transom, primed today. Tomarrow after the primer has cured,I will sand with 220, and then spray the black gel.










I busted my ass and got the stringers, bilge and transom, shot with color.
I sanded all the pimer down with 220g, cleaned up and wiped every thing down with acetone. Man I love this prestec poly primer. it sands like butter and did not clog up the paper.




Here are the products that I used. Prestec 27x1 clear gel addative, black polyester gelcoat, MEKP catalyst and some acetone to reduce





The clear doesnt look all that clear, kinda rose colored? no matter it is going into black gel.



Mix the clear gel and black, 50/50





mixed catalyst 2% and started spraying. I started with the transom and got a good tack coat on, then went up front to start on the stringers. The gun spit a couple times and then nothing comming out. I am like Holy Shit, the gel has gone off allready!
I got back to the bench and sure as shit the gel was hard and the gun was toast.
It was rather warm yesterday and I found out that 2% was too hot. I backed the catalyst down to 1% and reduced the gel with 10% acetone and had no more issues.







Well that gun was fried! Its a good thing that I have stocked up on these harbor freight throw away guns.





I shot a generous tack coat, let that start to kick and shot two more wet coats, letting each coat just start to get tacky,before shooting the next.
As You can see in the picture above, the transom looks really wavy, because I didnt add any filler on it to flatten it out.
On the other hand, I am really stoked about the way the stringers and bilge turned out. The stringers especially came out very flat and no noticeable waviness.
Its not perfect, but I am happy with the way it turned out.
I still need to sand, and I have some clear coming from Sher-fab, that should be here tomorrow. I will shoot the clear and then it is on to rigging and carpet.










I flow coated the stringers, bilge, transom and front bulkhead, yesterday, with prestec 27x6 clear gel.
I almost killed me to sand on the fresh black gel, But I got it all preped out with 220g.





I got every thing wiped down with lacquer thinner, and started shooting. I shot the transom first then turned to the front bulkhead.
I shot one generous tack coat and two wet coats, letting each coat start to kick before shooting the next.



After shooting the transom and bulkhead, I shot tree coats on the bilge and stringers.










now that that is done, I can get on to putting this thing together.

[Holorinhal]

The gauges that were in the boat were 2 1/8" and mine are 2 5/8", so I had to enlarge the holes.
I backed out the holes with a board, so that I could get a centering hole. I used a 2 1/8" hole saw and used the arbor drill bit to drill a center hole. I then chucked up a 2 5/8" hole saw and used the centering hole, and cut the new hole.










I am running a calgo steering and I have 6" post, but I would like the post to be a little longer.
I have a billet steering helm bezel that went to an obsolete Detmar rack system. The shaft hole is threaded, but is an exact fit to the calgo steering shaft.



I am going to use that as the base,or bezel, for the 6" post, which would give me a 8 1/2" inch post, plus the wheel, for a total of
11".
The Calgo post has 3 bolt holes on the bottom that bolts to the dash, in a fixed position and the calgo slides into the post and You can adjust to what ever length post you want. All I really need to do to make it work is drill the bezel to the same bolt pattern as the post, use threaded rod from the post ,thru the bezel, thru the dash and backup plate and nylocks behind the dash. the bezel even has room to put nuts behind to actually bolt the two pieces together before going thru the dash.
Of course one problem is that the two pieces are not the same color and I would probably want to get them coated.


I drilled the base to match the post bolt pattern.




The base was a billet helm base for a for an obsolete Detmar rack steering. It is threaded for the shaft, which the hole is the right diameter for the calgo shaft. The only problem is that it has a collar or seat, at the top , which is smaller than the shaft hole.
So I chucked up a burr in the drill press and milled it off. Not the prettiest milling job, but it did the trick.



my ugly drilling job, because my cheap azz drill press sux ass!




And here is how it all stacks up.









I need to make some longer studs from threaded rod, to go all the way thru the dash, but you get the idea.


I installed The base of the calgo steering post on the dash. I used a transfer punch to mark the holes on the dash.



I thru bolted the post to the dash, using ss threaded rod and ss nylocks on the back side.
I reinstalled the gauges, installed the switches and ignition switch. The dash is basically done.

[Holorinhal]

Spent time under the dash and got the wireing done.

[Brian]

How come none of the pictures are showing up?


Nevermind

[SofaKingFast]

That boat turned out super sexy Hal!!! My favorite part is the scoop :-) nice work. Cant waiit to see it in person.

[Holorinhal]

That boat turned out super sexy Hal!!! My favorite part is the scoop :-) nice work. Cant waiit to see it in person.

Thanks Dave. Not near as sexy as Your Daytona!
I told You the scoop would look better on my boat than painted white!

[Sandeggo]

Like the new scoop hal

[Holorinhal]

Thanks Kevin. I like it 100% better than the one I had on at the AVI.
This is the scoop that was always planed for this boat. I just didn't have the hardware ready for the AVI trip. I gotta thank Dave for selling it to me!