1994 225 osprey rebuild

[flfisher]

Rain Rain and more RAIN!!!!!!.......... same old thing every  day  we set aside time to work on the boat it comes down in buckets and ruins our plans to get back to work as of now we have prep as much as we can and just waiting for a clear day to finish up everything regarding the floor. sorry guys for the delay but its hard to post any new pics without having worked on it. I will say however that our  leaning post will be done and fabricated within the week.
Any ideas on Electronics would be great I am leaning towards the FURUNO NAVNET 3D or the Lowrance HDS-10 with sidescan sonar and the bottom finder isn't too bad I would have to say its not Furuno but I do think its alot clearer then the Garmin and pretty close to the Raymarine as well. I did however notice Simrad has an awesome unit and the features are  similar to the Furuno and just as pricey. I also looked at the Si-tex/koden but with all the outboard motors I have been chasing all over Florida and electronics I have looked at my head feels like its about to explode. ok so lets recap ................

[Circle Hooked]

I hate that you have to do what your doing but great pics

[flfisher]

I have a quick question regarding the transom on this boat. Does anyone know the exact distance from the top of the transom in the well area where the motor mounts to the bottom of the hull? Im trying to figure out why the 225 johnson that was on this boat was jacked up so high when it was mounted? When I pulled that motor off, the mounting plate on the mid was jacked up to the very last bolt hole on that johnson. Which had a 25 inch shaft. I was under the impression that the manufacturer built the boats to fit 25 inch or 20 inch shafts exactly,So when the motor is mounted the cavitation plate on the lower unit would sit properly in the water. idkany help would be appreciated im just trying to figure this out so I dont have to remount this motor. or get some serious drag if it is done improperly.

[Circle Hooked]

Went out and looked at mine and the motor is mounted using the second hole down from the top.

[pete]

I'm sure sea bob will know the answer to that,my guess would be that different mfgs 25" shafts are all different,show a ship shape tv where he measure the different height of yamaha,merc and evinrude all different.but they were all call 25"

[seabob4]

2nd hole down on any manufacturer is the norm, the starting point.  4th hole down (all the way up)?  Sounds like someone was trying to make up for prop shortcomings...

[flfisher]

Hello again! I know it has been a couple weeks since my last post. Just a quick update this morning and I will be posting pics over the next couple of days.
The weather finally dried up enough for us to get alot of work done. We started of by finishing the fish box just infront of the console in the deck where we had the draining issue, which caused the well to completely rot out. to cut back on weight we used 2 pieces of door skin and sandwich those together using putty and also treating the wood with styrene and resin mix, we let it kick then full incapsulated both sides with matt then glassed the piece in. Our next step was to empty the tank and clean out all of the sediment, there was only 9 gallons of fuel and oil mix in the tank which made for an easy dump. Pinellas county has a monthly mobil dump where they collect gas and other chemicals so I took the bad fuel to them which saved me a bunch of money.After dumping the fuel we used a petroleum liquid to clean out the sediment at the bottom of the tank and now the tank is ready to be put back in!
The deck is trickier then we first thought because of the crown so we had to cut the front part of the deck in 2 pieces, this will allow us to fit under the cap wall all the way to the outside of the hull . underneath the floor we glassed in braces on each side so we have epoxy the floor to those braces. Also so we dont lose any strength we have gone with a  lap joint 3in" in width so when each piece is laid down they will lay down over the top of each other we will also lock those pieces into the stringers with 3 inch stainless screwswith epoxy.
the side pieces will run the length of the gunwale to the back of the repair and will also be lapped .
by doing this it will allow us to put the tank back in and lay one solid piece above the tank.
I think the toughest part of the lap joint is holding up a 4x 7 foot sheet  of marine plywood perfectly on a table saw to cut a lap joint 1/2 thick !!
All of these pieces will be incapsulated with matt and each joint will have epoxy to lock each piece in creating a very strong joint. Also the floor will be locked into the stringers using stainless screws and the gunwale will be drawn tight to the floor using epoxy stainless screws every 9 inches.
one last thing has anyone every used liquid nails on a boat ? I know this stuff is pretty hard and is water proof , Im just wondering if anyone has ever used it before.
thanks
stay tuned

[pete]

great progress!instead of trying to cut that joint on a table saw,a router may make it easier,do some test cuts to get the depth right,as far as liquid nails goes,never used it on a boat  but the stongest is the PL brand with polyurathane,its like liguid nails and gorrilla glue,good luck!

[81walkaround]

we need to do this job on my neighbor's '96 225 also.

his floor is so bad the t-top and the leaning post rock back and forth while we're running..  

[flfisher]

pete we got the cuts perfect.....it wasnt easy but they came out good ........
81walkaround I will be posting more indepth detail regarding the steps we are taking for people that are having to do the same repair on these model boats. I have a feeling you will see more of these floors going bad because of this draining issue in the front. If you have any questions regarding the repair feel free!

[flfisher]

HEY GUYS ! just got back from a nice long hunt out of state .........Had to get in the woods and fill up the freezer with some meat..... anyways back to the task at hand I just wanna recap where we are at with some pics and a break down of where we are. the first Pic will show the rebuild of the well in the deck just infront of the console. This well was in real bad shape when we got the boat and was completely rotten. I grinded out all of the fiberglass to one inch lip all the way around and used 2 door skins snadwiched together with putty. We then used Matt to treat both sides of the skin for strength and glassed it into the well.


after glassing in the core we then added an inspection hatch that was   there previous to us rebuild it.

[flfisher]

the next set of pictures we then added a lap joint to the piece of plywood that stretches the width of the boat closes to the transom which is where we cut the deck away.in this area we added stainless screws locking the top fiberrglass skin into the core and all the way into to composite stringers that run underneath the floor to add support along with pushing the 5 inch plywood back in between the top skin and the bottom skin of fiberglass. behind this long piece we added putty to lock the piece in as well as the 3" screws every 12 inches to make sure this piece does not move.If u look closely you will see where we grinded away the gelcoat and countersink the screws so when we add the 1708 to lock in the top skin into the existing deck along the cut line , the screws will not be noticed. Also down the sides we added braces that go from the stringers to the hull so the deck will have more support and allow us to lock the deck into these rib type braces.As you can see we had to remove some foam along the side of the hull to make room for the braces and enough room to glass them into the sides of the hull and the stringer. The reason why we did this is because we noticed the gap between the stringers was to far and over time people standing in this area along with the pounding would cause the floor to possibly separate from the top skin as well as the gelcoat repair would crack once it starts to flex.





I have more pictures I will update you with shortly just waiting for Allen to send them
Thanks for all your patience with the updates stay tuned !

[flfisher]

Hello again all aquasport lovers!!!
Just wanted to go over a few things done this weekend. Saturday Morning we were able to dry fit all of the pieces for the floor and make sure all of the lap joints were correct. I did not lock the pieces in place because we have decided to switch from standard gp or boat yard to epoxy, we are just waiting for it to come in via fedex. The epoxy we decided on was the system 3 because of their reputation and quality. because we have lap joints we wanted more strength at each seam instead of using standard boatyard, the other reason is because we decided to salvage the original nonskid skin we also wanted more bonding strength when locking this piece back down over the wood. On the back of each piece of wood we are putting down we will use a mat cloth to treat each piece. on the center piece that goes over the gas tank area we will use a heavier 1708 since there is a wide gap from stringer to stringer. I also noticed that the braces on top of the stringer that supports the deck are not square so we had to beef up the braces so the that the lap would sit square on both sides and we would not have the lap sit on the outside of the brace causing a weak spot in this area.
Talk about a pain in the you know what !   :evil:
just a little off subject regarding the deck we have landed on our trim tab system and steering which should be coming in via ups in a couple of days as well. the Uflex system for us seem to be a great fit I wanted to go away from seastar since I have used them in the past and just had too many issues. we will also be using uflex trim tab system as well.
thats it for now see ya soon

[Capt Matt]

I bought the Uflex steering system and am very impressed. its well made, works well and is less money than the seastar. The only draw back is trying to find the right finish nut to mount the wheel, I think is is a 14mm which is not the standard 2 sizes. Waiting on my two finish nuts coming from edson. Let me know how the Uflex trim tabs work out for you, I almost went with them but opted for Lennco's which I have used for 10 plus years with very few problems.
Capt Matt

[gran398]

Looking good! If you need some filler strips of the original nonskid, just let me know.