1987 222 project (She is beat up)

[MikeHall]

One thing I am noticing on most every rebuild is that the the floor is bonded directly the the sides of the hull. Will this cause any issues in the future with possible shrinkage and pulling in on the hull sides? Only reason I ask is yet another project I had years ago which was a old Skater 18 tunnel hull had an issue where you could see the line in the sides of the hull where the floor was glassed to it. It does seem like that hull was very thin on the sides and this 222 of mine seems rock solid on the sides. I was just curious if this could be a possible issues or not. My hull has acomplete inner liner so the floors, casting deck and all of that could possible be removed as a huge unit. This also means the floor is not attached to the hull sides.

[mshugg]

If the boat has a liner, I think that most people cut the floor out leaving a lip around the edge.  The new floor is then bonded to the top of the lip.  This requires raising thestringers a little, but gets the boat back together close to its original form without too mouth extra work.

[MikeHall]

I spent the afternoon stripped all the decals off the other side today. The pictures sure make the boat look better than it really is but, its not a bad starting point at all. This week if I have time, I am going to remove the motors, console, fuel tank or at least drain it and start the process of flipping the hull on the trailer. The last boat I flipped was a 21ft Liberator tunnel hull but that hull was maybe 1200lbs where as this one is more like 2000lbs right? Either way, I will get it flipped this week "hopefully" and get started on the bottom repairs. The more I look at the boat I am thinking about going back with gray and dark blue. My truck is dark blue and silver but the original gray on the boat would be close enough.  What are thoughts on re-gelcoating the bottom vs a good topside paint? I am not going to leave the boat in the water so I do not want to use bottom paint.

[RickK]

I used VC Performance Epoxy paint on the bottom of my boat and wet sanded it down to 1200 grit - nice and hard and shiny. Here is a pic showing the shine on the bottom paint (boat is upside down on the trailer).


https://interlux.com/en/us/boat-paint/antifouling/vc-performance-epoxy

[MikeHall]

Thanks for sharing what paint you used. I had not thought about an epoxy paint for this project. That bottom sure looks slick.

[Capt. Bob]

The last boat I flipped was a 21ft Liberator tunnel hull but that hull was maybe 1200lbs where as this one is more like 2000lbs right?

[MikeHall]

The last boat I flipped was a 21ft Liberator tunnel hull but that hull was maybe 1200lbs where as this one is more like 2000lbs right?

I had seen the specs but I suspect that even as solid as this boat seems it has some water saturation in the foam which would for sure increase the weight. The stated weight is "dry" 

Just wondering, does the stated dry weight include power or just bare hull?  I mean dry would mean with out fuel not without power right?

[Capt. Bob]

Just wondering, does the stated dry weight include power or just bare hull?  I mean dry would mean with out fuel not without power right?

Unless stated otherwise, I have always understood "dry weight" as listed by the boat manufacturer as a completed  hull, no fluids (think fuel or any other fluids) as it leaves the factory and heads to the Dealer. The Dealer then installs the selected power. If manufacturer does the power install then yes it should include the motor/transmission/shaft and prop possibly but again without fluids.


Just the way I always have looked at these hull weights.

[MikeHall]

The old Johnsons are gone. I took a few pictures from inside the bilge and i was shocked at just how clean it was in there. Most of the time the bilge in an old boat is absolutely nasty but not this one.

I found a 2007 honda BF150 for a decent price. It seems like that would be a decent motor for this boat. Any thoughts on the Honda's and if a 150 would be satisfactory on this hull?

[Tampa Bay Mike]

I don't have any firsthand knowledge with Hondas but a 150 in general seems to be a popular choice.

[RickK]

It won't be a speed demon - you might be happier with a 175 or 200.

[MikeHall]

It won't be a speed demon - you might be happier with a 175 or 200.

I am kind of outgrowing the speed desire but I do think a little more go would be nice. The problem is a 200hp 4 stroke weights a 1/4 ton. haha I was looking around and a nice low time optimax 225 may be an option. I plan to either build a bracket or if I find one buy one. I have already priced the aluminum and I have someone that can waterjet the parts for me. I have always had a jack plate on my boats so I am not sure if I need to go with a 24" setback and a jack plate or just forget about the jack plate and go with a 30" setback. It seem no one uses a jack plate on these boats and for sure not with a bracket. I may be fooling myself to think this boat will get anywhere close to the same waters that I used to take my backcountry. I mean 12" of water was no problem drifting along with the motor up, that may not be the case with this boat. I am at some point going to move the fuel tank as far forward as I can and the bracket I build will have as much volume as possible to increase the flotation.

[MikeHall]

I have not been able to do anything on the boat the last few days but I did do a little digging into the transom and I may better go ahead and replace it. It is mostly solid but the very center of the wood core seems to be very wet and soft. I could not see any flexing when trying to move the motors around but that does not mean its not flexing some. I sure wanted to wait until I did the whole restoration before I did the transom but I may have to split up the rebuild into stages. I want to fish this spring so I have a butt load to get done even without rebuilding the transom.

[MikeHall]

I am just going to build my own bracket for this project. I have access to a water jet cutter so I went ahead and drew up a cad model of what I think I will build. I am going to eventually install trim tabs so I left plenty of room for them to be mounted. I added a bit of taper to the flotation part of the bracket so it did not too overly boxy. If my waterline remains the same on the boat there will be an additional water displacement of just shy of 20 gallons or 4610 cu" which would be around 170lbs extra buoyancy. The actual bracket looks like it would be about 100lbs although I may reduce the swim platform thickness from 1/4" down to 3/16 or maybe even 1/8" thick which would drop a lot of weight yet not really loose much strength for something like this. I just worked this up so there may be changes made before I build one. 

[Tampa Bay Mike]

I've seen a few threads here saying the transom felt solid but once they dug into it they found it was soaked so planning to replace it is probably a safe bet.

That bracket looks great. It's always nice to have access to nice toys.