1994 225 osprey rebuild

[flfisher]

Hello all I just joined the board so i could share my 225 center console rebuild.
I picked the boat up 2 weeks back just outside of Tallahassee for 1600 bucks.
The guy I picked the boat up from told me he never used the boat and said it had no more then 50 hours on it since his father gave him the the boat back in 98 which is very believable since there was not even one spider crack in the gelcoat anywhere on the boat. even though the boat needed everything redone from the floor to wiring , fuel hoses, steering    , Motor has very low compression(1990 225 johnson)I knew what type of hull it was and the model I have wanted as long as the boat had been made. The great thing is the inner liner stringer system was all composite and the transome was bone dry and rock solid. The only reason why the deck rotted was because the manufacturer made a mistake and that was on the front of the boat starboard side between the rib and stringer there was a drain made of pvc that goes thru the stringer and suppose to drain into the bottom of the hull but for some reason the sprayed foam over the pvc drain and would not allow any standing water in that area to drain causing the box area between the stringer and rib to fill up and rot out the deck . This wasnt discovered until we pulled the deck and removed the gas tank. we should have the deck in by the end of the week or going into the beginning of next week.
I have ordered the uflex hydraulic steering and am currently looking for a 250 yami hpdi or 250 four stroke. also waiting on the canvas for my T-Top which will be royal blue.
The new wiring system will not have any fuses but breakers since we are going with a digital switching system. electronics will be all furuno Fcv and gp 37. With all of the ethanol issues we are using 2 raycor drainable bowls with the see thru glass. Last night I took some aquabuff to a small area of the hull to see how much of the chalky gelcoat I could get back to normal and it truely looked like new again.
Included I have a few pics to give you an idea of some of the work done , you will notice that my buddy alan is unstrapping the fuel tank and the hull is full of dirt the next pic included is 2-3 hours later after a good pressure wash and some bleach. This is when I got really excited !!!
Stay tuned lots more to post

[flfisher]

lets try this again

[flfisher]

[flfisher]

will post more pics of what she looked like before we tore into her !

[pete]

Wow,great project!Now would be a great time to run wiring or hoses from the front to the back,you might want to put in a fresh water tank and pump and run the hose to the transom door,great job,would love to see more pics of the under deck layout.

[fitz73222]

I can't tell from the picture; is that a poly or aluminum tank. What is the general condition of the tank? Is it reusable? There was no hatch over that tank, correct? You had to cut the floor away to gain access? We've had some sidebar discussions about tank ventilation, materials, contact with water and longevity based on the installation environment. Thanks for any input. I just looked at the photo again; looks like poly by the raised area at the fuel fill hose connection. I`m not sure how many 15+ year old poly's have been exhumed for inspection but any information about cracking, stress, thin walls do to alcohol erosion and brittleness or other observations will be much appreciated.

[flfisher]

fitz it is a plastic based tank....... I personally am not to familiar with the all of the tanks on the market and if the plastic would be considered a poly based tank but from our inspection so far after pressure washing and cleaning it I dont see any   cracks or wear ....however we are going to pressure test this tank to make sure there isnt any leaks that we cannot see....if you do know what pressure to set our tank at when we do this would greatly cut out alot of the leg work on finding what the psi should be when we test. I will take more pics of this process as well. I actually just talk to a mechanic about this very same issue with the metal tanks compared to the plastic tanks and he told me the only problem he is seeing is with the metal ones. he also told me think about it we store alohol in plastic bottles lol .... makes sense to me I just hope this tank is good last thing I wanna do is dump another 800 in a tank

[slvrlng]

Most get tested at about 4 to 5 psi. I would not go over 10, that why they have a vent. Kind of like an egg, a chick can peck itself out but they are relatively strong from the outside.

[flfisher]

ok so this is what she looked like when we picked her up and before we tore everything out



This boat hadnt moved in three years so on the way back to clearwater from St. Marks we blew 3 tires! lol at one point one tire was so bad it blew a hole thru the trailer fender so bad it looked like someone shot it with a grenade launcher. but after a 7 hour ride back we got her home safe and sound.
Stay tuned  

[flfisher]

Hey guys sorry for the late update things have been crazy at work.
So far we have been able to finish a few things we decided to hold off on the floor last week and do some more planning because we ran into a slight snag. We noticed that when the manufacturer built the boat they press the cap into the hull making the deck form a slight crown. Well this created a problem for us because the 3/4 plywood that we want to put back into the boat would not bend the way they had it. on each of the stringers when the boat was built they used an epoxy to support the floor.


in the image the white you see on the right side is the epoxy which we have decided to remove allowing us the slightly bend the plywood under the lip on the left side. ( the chop glass you see under the lip will be removed today) we will push the plywood sheet as far back under the lip and closes the the hull side as possible and using an epoxy to tie in the ply to the hull and lip.

[flfisher]

Because the non skid on the boat was in perfect shape and impossible to duplicate without getting waves and correct pattern alignment we have decided to clean out the skin that was removed and chip out and grind all of the old core from the deck.
Let me tell you this was a B**ch



the 3/4 marine plywood will be resin treated on the back side and add a chop glass to protect it , the cool thing about sliding the ply under the lip is that it will give us the same depth as the skin that was removed allowing us to treat the top side by using standard gp resin we will use a styrene to thin it and let it kick for about 10 minutes then add the epoxy to sandwich down the skin putting the non skid  back in place.

[flfisher]

our only concern right now is pressure testing the tank.
we pressure test the tank out of the boat and noticed the tank started to balloon when it hit 3 psi. should we test the tank inside the boat or can this still be done outside of the boat and how long should the tank hold the pressure ?
also I have been doing alot of research regarding the plastic tanks and the only failure I see is when people are installing them incorrectly . what would be the best way to install the tank should we just use the original straps that were in the boat ? and should the  straps be snug or should they be really tight?
any help would be great because once that deck is on that would be a nightmare to get that tank out again.
thanks for you help will have more after today

[flfisher]

Oh one other thing before I go ALan ( the guy you always see in the pics and myself Reggie  the guy behind the camera)
were driving back from FGCS yesterday and saw a 2000 225 osprey we wanted to take a look and noticed that the floor was having the same issue as ours was having. Im wondering if the drain on this boat that i mentioned at eh beginning of my post was the cause of this. And that is the PVC tubing on each side of the stringers on the front of the boat were filled with foam not allowing any standing water to drain properly. If you have this model I would check it out could be an issue that might cause you some problems in the future. just a head up

[pete]

can you get some pics of the drain area you are talking about?to get that crown in the deck, weight the sides of the floor,I would put the tank back in the way it came out,great project

[flfisher]

Pete here is the drain I was talking about . It is located under the deck on the port and starboard side. to get a true idea of where it is on your boat if you were to stand next to the fish boxes on either side of boat closest to the side wall it would be below you. now there is a hatch in the deck just in front of the console that leads to a storage locker that pipe Im referring to drains below that  storage area , I know on my boat you could access inside the hull through a inspection port where that pipe leads to , however on mine that storage area was completely rotted so I had to cut it out and I am currently in the process of rebuilding. I would imagine you would be able to remove the inspection cap and stick your hands down in that area and check to see if there is anything blocking your PVC drains , its tough because they made the pvc drains so small but its something I would check.

now the ideal situation for you would be run a snake up into that pvc just to make sure its not blocked I will get you more pics but if you look closely you can see the pvc tube on the right lower side of the pic it has a piece of fiberglass cloth over the top of it