Mojo's Fiberglass V hull Project

[Mojo]

Hi Yall,
I've been lurking around your forums for around a week now after finding it on the net while serching for ideas to upgrade this poor little boat i rescued from a yard sale. First let me say i've been totally impressed by the skills and imagination of your membership.
I just retired from the Navy after 20 years and moved back to Sunny Florida and realized I need a bass boat so that my life will be complete! Seriously thou, my brother in law has a really nice center console gulf boat that i can go borrow any time i would like.. but you just can't bass fish in that monstrosity and that what I love to do.
So after looking around and scouting and hunting i found this beautiful little Fiberglass Simi V with a trailer and Merc 4.5 on the back for dirt cheap.
The boat is a custom fiberglass hull from 72 or 73. Its a wreck. Large holes in the seating area. The paint is chipped, cracked, faded and OLD.. I bet this thing has the original paint.
The trailer is in pretty good shape over all. Its got some rust spots but thats easily fixed. If i learned one thing in the Navy its how to grind, prime and paint metal.
The engine runs strong... but lets face it, 4.5 HP isn't enough. It was plenty for the old guy i bought this from who did some crappie fishing and just wanted to put around but that's not gona fly for me. So I'll be hunting for a larger engine while i'm working on the restore project.
Hopefully I can get this thing sanded, primed, painted, fabricated, painted, carpeted and lake ready in around a month's time. That sounds pretty ambitious but since i'm technically still active duty and recieving a full pay check i can work full time on my new money sink till its finished.
I know it's not a "Tin" boat but I saw there were a few fiberglass builds who snuck in so i'm going to go hang in the corner with them. Hope you guys enjoy the progress as much as i'm going to enjoy fixing this old hag and making her the new prom queen.
Mojo.

 

[Waterwings]

Nice rig and looking forward to the modifications! Welcome Aboard, and enjoy your retirement!

...since i'm technically still active duty and recieving a full pay check...

: Terminal leave!? I had 59 days of terminal leave when I ret'd and was working retail. Had to take a day off to go to my retirement cermony, lol.

WW
USN (Ret'd '92)

 

[Jim]

:WELCOME:

Thanks for joining!

Nice Glass boat! Looking forward to the rebuild. :beer:

I will add it to our tiny Glass section.

 

[Mojo]

Yep Terminal Leave. I rolled out with 90 Days.. I've been enjoying it so far. Will probably take a while before i start to feel like a civilian again. I keep waiting to get the call telling me to come back! If that happens i'm moving to canada.

 

[Doug]

:WELCOME:

Thanks for your service to our country. Great looking boat, can't wait to see the outcome of your mods.

 

[Rat]

Welcome to Tin Boats and civvy life! You can't get a much broader canvas than that little jewel of a hull, I can't wait to see the mods. Are you gonna paint her battleship gray? You are going to have a blast, and yes a month is a little ambitious; the first rule is to never set a date (which I constantly break and get caught on)!

 

[dyeguy1212]

welcome :mrgreen:

 

[jasper60103]

yes, Welcome aboard and congrats on your retirement.

That's a nice rig. I look forward to seeing pics on your progress.

 

[Mojo]

Update time...
My brother in law came over today and helped me out.
Everything got removed from inside the boat. All the old screws and wood and crappy seating got yanked and tossed in the truck bed along with the bumper rail around the outside.
We sanded the interior rail from the top down to the first horizontal rib. This part i wanted taken down to bare fiberglass to get it as smooth as possible... the paint was very rough and i want it super smooth for the new paint in that area. Everything else on the inside got a light sanding just to take the edge off and rough it up and get rid of the dirt and any residue.
After the inside was finished we flipped the boat over and sanded the bottom and sides out real good got any gouges in the paint feathered out and got it all prepaired for painting. I'm going online tonight and ordering paint that should take a few days to get here so in the mean time that trailer needs work. I'll be sanding down the rust spots on that and giving it a good once over then it will get sprayed out. Gona replace the lights and the shoddy wiring along with the rest. The good news is almost all of the rollers are in good shape. I only found one that really needs to be replaced. I'll keep yall updated.
Here's some pics from the day..

 

[Rat]

Cool, sanding is the worst part, on Alu. or glass hulls!

 

[RStewart]

Welcome aboard. Thank you for your service. This will be a cool build.

 

[Mojo]

Update time..
Yesterday was beautiful! It was sunny in the mid 50's. Great weather for going out and working on the rusty trailer. So armed with my trusty grinding and wire wheels i jumped in and got busy busting rust. It didn't take me very long to go over the trailer and knock out all the rust bubbles and rough spots.. then it was a quick trip up to the auto parts store to get $20 worth of primer and paint. While i was working hard temptation showed up in the form of my brother in law with his boat in tow telling me to hurry up so we could go down to the river since it was such a nice day out. Well... i couldn't resist temptation and did a quick primer job on everything i had cleaned up then away we went. We spent a few hours running up and down the river, fished for a little while then got back home before dark and I had enough time to paint over the primer coat. So I got the trailer looking good AND got to do a little fishing.

Someone needs to come over to my house and take away my credit card and cancel my Ebay account. Good thing i'm not married so I don't have to justify all the money i'm spending on my new baby. All the fun stuff should be arriving at the house soon and i'll be able to lay it out and show you whats going into the build. That should be some good boat porn to keep you all happy.

Mojo

 

[dyeguy1212]

Where are you located? You should update your profile to include location.. top left User Control Panel

 

[dearl]

First, Thanks for your service to our country, Nice looking rig you got there. Those little boats are real sturdy and stable in the water. Have fun with her.

 

[Mojo]

Rained all day Saturday so I didn't get to do any work at all. Today was nice and sunny thou so I went back out and started sanding on the hull again. There are giant long cracks all thru the paint, just from the age of the boat and the paint i'm sure.. but i've sanding them all out which is taking forever. Pretty much have it back down to bare fiberglass in spots. I'm almost tempted to just strip down the entire hull and throw another layer of fiberglass and resin on it to make sure all those cracks are sealed up good and don't come back any time soon. I'd hate to spend all this money on paint just to have it crack in a year or so. If i decide to go that route i'm going to break out that belt sander and go to town on it... i'll have to think about it.

The good news is some of the goodies are starting to roll in. Got my Volt Gauges in and also the LED's I ordered for the accent lighting and interior hatches. Once i get this hull finished and painted I can move the boat back to the trailer and start working on the mod build.

I'm in the process of scrounging for a place to work on this inside when it comes time to paint. Been hitting up the folks at church seeing if anyone has any spare garage space i can borrow. We'll see...

 

[Waterwings]

Sounds like you've got things rolling now, and it'll come together. That last shot with the turkey vulture & the sign is great! 8)

 

[dearl]

Maybe Rat will chime in on this build, his fiberglass work on his boat is top knotch, he may be able to give you some pointers on those cracks.

 

[Rat]

Do you have some pictures of the cracks?

If they are in the paint/seal layer I think you will be fine; if they are through and through you will need to bolster the area that is flexing to stop future cracks.

If it just the paint layer, you can apply a seal coat of Epoxy (no glass matt, just epoxy) then repaint with a good quality paint like Sterling or Interlux. the good part is on a blown form hull like yours you will not need much, if any, fairing to get it looking great. A good quality paint will last years (20+) without cracking.

If they are through and through you will need to find the structural failure. I can't ell from your images if she has stringers or not. You may need to rebuild them if they are weak, or add them to stop the cracks.

Pictures and locations of the cracks will help. Between me and huntinfool we can get ya where she doesn't crack any more!

 

[Mojo]

Cool.. Thanks Rat. I'll get some pictures tommorow for you to inspect. I can tell you thou.. In some places its just the paint and after i get down thru that its fine. But in others it's cracked down into the glass work. Nothing Huge.. just little stress fractures that led to the paint cracking. That's why i was leaning towards taking it all down and then putting a new layer of fiber on the bottom.

Also.. Boat Porn for the rest of you. Got my new motor and trolling motor today. There was a show this past weekend at a local place and i got a good discount. Went by there this afternoon and picked them up.

 

[dearl]

Oh yeah, Christmas in March! Thats a good looking motor you got there, what did you do with the little merc that was on it?