Estimated Cost of Rebuild - 250 CCP

[Evan337]

After seeing how nice the rebuild turned out on fabuck71's 222 CCP we are considering having some work done on our 250 CCP. The hull is a 1988/1989 model and is in pretty good shape. It has the typical ware for a hull that is 24 - 25 years old - spider cracks, scuffs, chips in the fiberglass, oxidation of the gel coat, faded paint and decals, etc. The deck/floor, stringer, foam and fuel tank are all in pretty good shape. I wouldn't expect this rebuild to include ripping out the floor and foam. We reinforced the floor in front of the in-floor fish box because it had some give and the plywood had some rot. Most of the work will be strictly cosmetic. There should be pictures of the boat below.

I saw that fabuck71 had his rebuild done at SeaForce Yachts. What is the estimated cost to have that type of work done professionally? How long should it take? We live in Louisiana but would be willing to bring the boat to Tampa or anywhere in Florida if that is where the best work is done for the best rate.

We are also considering adding a flotation bracket, if we decide to repower with twin 200 etecs. We were 8 miles out in Barataria Bay last weekend with a 2.5-3' chop when the starboard engine stuck a piston. The single 150 Evinrude Ficht couldn't get us on plane so it was a slow, wet ride home. We may also look at a new leaning post. Any thoughts or advice on a rebuild/repower are welcome.

[fabuck71]

Thank you Evan.  PM sent

[kaptainkoz]

Hey Evan,
Im surprised more people didnt respond, although you have posted a fairly broad question. I am in the thick of restoring my 79 246CCP, however I will be tearing out the floor and the transom. Costs can go from mild to wild and that all depends on your budget and whether you are doing it yourself or hiring someone to do it. It can get pricy but it doesnt have to get too out of control if you have time to stay sharp to great deals. For example, buying fiberglass by the full roll is considerably less than by the yard. Im sure resin in a 5 gallon size is much less per gallon than buying it by the gallon.
I am a few days away from getting the rest of the floor and transom out. I plan on closing off the transom and adding a bracket. I cannot do a thing moving forward with the transom until I have the bracket, and more specifically, the holes drilled for the bracket. I found an older boat, nice Mercury motor and an okay trailer on Craigslist. I immediately listed the motor and within 4 days I sold the motor for what the whole package cost me. I will sell the trailer next which will pretty much have me at break even taking into consideration registration and Sea Tow renewal. The $1,000, 26 inch Stainless Marine aluminum floatation bracket is mine for free. Worth the effort?  You bet!
There was a guy Selling Arjay pourable transom on Craigslist for cheap as well, but he didnt have enough and I want to use Seacast.

So what are some of the numbers I have so far?
its abut $1400 plus shipping for Seacast, however I am pouring 2 inches thick to the height of the bracket mounts, and then 1 inch the rest of the transom (I am closing off the transom opening), and I am pouring the gas tank cover with the self leveling seacast. All that for about $1,400 plus shipping.
I am going to use Greenwood XL kiln dried pressure treated 3/4 marine plywood from Overtons.com which for 5 sheets should run me about $600 to my door.
A roll of 1.5 oz chopped strand fiberglass (about 80 yards) is about $220, which is $2.75 a yard versus about $8-10/yd by the foot at the marine supply. I will need a roll of Biaxial as well.

I still have to price resin and gel coat. I am going to use Vinylester resin so it may cost a bit more than polyester resin. I dont feel the need to go epoxy resin, plus I want to gel coat, which you cannot use on epoxy resin. The boat is fully coated in gel coat... worked well then and it will work well now. Its harder to apply than a "roll and tip" paint but you can make all the repairs you want in the future to dings and cracks.

So I may be in the $3000 range for all the materials necessary for a complete floor and transom. I will catalog costs on my rebuild as it happens. The thread for my rebuld is under my name, "kaptainkoz" as the Captain Koz II project.

[Evan337]

Kaptain and Buck,

Thanks for the help. I will definitely follow your rebuild thread. It sounds like a rebuild may not cost as much as I expected. The deck and transom all seem to be in good shape. We had a soft spot in the deck in front of the fish box around the small forward hatch. After reading it looks like that is a pretty common problem in this model CCP due to way it came from the factory. We braced the floor from below, glassed the mini-stringers and injected resin into the rotted deck. It's very solid now. Everywhere else looks and feels very solid. A new paint job/gel coat is really what we would like have done to the hull at some point.

We are actually re-propping both engines which should help with cavitation and rpm range.

[kaptainkoz]

Evan,
It's been a while since you posted but I was curious if you ever re-propped the 150's? I may be wrong, but it seems hard to believe you could not plane that boat on a single 150. Although I have a 246ccp now as I rebuild I never had it in the water. I had a 150 crossflow evinrude on my 200ccp and the thing was more than ample. I even had a 4 cylinder 140 on there with little difference in performance.  I would think that a 150 should at least get you up on plane.
We played with the prop on my buddies 24 ft Grady with a 225 Yamaha. He bought the boat used. With the existing prop it was painful out of the hole and topped off at 38 mph at 5700 rpm. The motor sounded ratty and we thought it was on its way out. With a new, properly matched prop he now does 38mph at 4900 rpm and tops off at 43 mph at 5600 rpm. His hole shots are awesome now. I would have never thought a prop had so much effect. The motor even sounds much better with the new prop.
Just curious as to how it went for you.

[Evan337]

Well it's been a while since I have been on the board. My original post in this thread was 2 months after the birth of my first daughter. She is now 3 and now my wife and I have a 7 month old little girl as well. Things have been busy to say the least.

We never did a complete rebuild (though I hope we make some more improvements to the hull) but we have made some changes.

We upgraded our bracket. My dad got with his outboard mechanic and a fab shop and reworked the original bracket. It made a significant difference on flotation. We believed we were having small amounts of water seeping into the sub-hull where the old bracket attached to the hull. The new bracket seems to have fixed that issue. We also filled the new bracket with closed cell foam. 

We added a forward fuel tank in back half of the fish box that gave us another 55 gallons of fuel so now we have 175 gallons of fuel capacity.

We finally repowered. We got three more years out of the evinrude fichts but we always felt like they could let us down at anytime. They ran fine and never stranded us but they required a lot of care. We repowered with twin Yamaha 250 OX66s. They are 2000 models. It has been a major power upgrade to say the least. A single engine easily planes the hull and can get us up to 40 mph at 5500 RPM. We haven't explored the top of the RPM range with both engines. Too fast. It cruises at 30 mph at 3000 RPM and 40 mph at 4000 RPM. They have been very impressive engines so far. never struggle to start, crank right up and are very responsive. The added 180 lbs of weight has not had a noticeable impact on the flotation. The new bracket helps. We don't get water coming in through the scuppers when stationary with 3 grown men standing in the back of the boat. That was not the case with the fichts and the old bracket.

Overall, we love the boat and are planning on making further runs to go after bigger fish now that we have more confidence in our engines.

[Evan337]

New engine pictures

[RickK]

That's a lot of horses on that thing

[CLM65]

Nice!  The OX66 engines are great, although a bit thirsty.  And congrats on the family additions!

[Evan337]

Nice!  The OX66 engines are great, although a bit thirsty.  And congrats on the family additions!

Thanks! Any idea on the fuel burn? I know they will burn more than the Fichts but are hoping because we are overpowered we can cruise in a lower rpm range and conserve fuel. We think that between the two engines we can get 1 mile per gallon. That would give us a total range out and back of 175 miles. I've looked online for a fuel burn chart but haven't found much.

[CLM65]

I think I get about 2.25 mpg at best.  That is in the sweet spot of 3500-4000 rpm, with a fuel injected 200 hp on a 205 Osprey.  Are the 2000 models FI or carbed?

[Evan337]

Fuel injected. 3500 RPM would be a good cruising speed. Even if we could get 1.5 miles per gallon that would allow us to go 90-100 miles out. Instead of 60-70.

[RRivas1985]

Dang! Twin 250's is what I'm tempted to put on my 250CCP. Please let us know what the top speed you get is, and how the boat handles with the 250's hanging off the back.

[Evan337]

Dang! Twin 250's is what I'm tempted to put on my 250CCP. Please let us know what the top speed you get is, and how the boat handles with the 250's hanging off the back.

We've taken it out a few times and I don't think we have been full throttle yet. 5200 RPM is the highest we've hit. I think 5500 - 5600 RPM is going to WOT. On test runs in a local lake we've hit 55mph. Over 45mph and it feels really light in the back end. It's nice to know you have get away speed but the biggest motivator in the power upgrade was to account for a worst case scenario - 40-50 miles out and you lose an engine. We wanted to have enough hp to be able to get back to shore not just limp back. If we would have had different/better 150s those may have worked but we just didn't have confidence in them.

As far as performance, they crank without issue on the first turn, plane quickly at about 1500-1800 RPM. We cruise around 3000 RPM and 30mph. Two weeks ago we were in some pretty nasty chop in baratarria bay - some of the worst I have seen. 3'+ stacked on top of each other. The wind was blowing hard. It was actually pretty similar to the conditions we blew the Ficht back in 2013. The boat handled better with the larger engines. Bow up 2800 RPMs and just cruised over the top of the chop. With the 150s the stern felt like it would raise and lower more in a chop. With these engines - the added weight and larger prop size grabbing more water I presume - the stern feels like it's anchored to the water. We had issues with the 150s in rough water with cavitation and porpoising. We were able to resolve most of that by going to four blade props, slightly lowering the engines/bracket and proper trimming. Still in the worst conditions we would experience some cavitation. The 250s didn't cavitate once this last trip.

At this point we are pretty satisfied. We will see how they do the rest of the summer on some longer trips under more stress.

[RRivas1985]

Awesome! I'm glad the setup works well, now I feel more confident about buying a pair of 250's in the future. I always see great deals on the web but hesitated because of the larger engine size.