Okay, back to work.......Project Yard Sale begins!!

[El_Guapo]

Okay, so I've been sitting on this project for a while. My wife procured it at a yard sale for the princely sum of $400, and it pretty much reflects the awesome price in every way. Here is what we've got so far....a 1984 Tracker Tournament TX with most of a 70 Yamaha hanging off the transom. After overstuffing my trash can with most of the "freebies" that came with the boat, we can get down to business and generate more stuff for the dumpster.

It doesn't look quite so bad with the trash gone:

The console is pretty much gone:

Front deck is in dire need of Extenze:

This is going to require some fab work:

Why spend $20 on an actual SAFE trailer jack, when you can put hours of labor into creating THIS?

Next time the Snap-on guy is having the "trade in your box" promo, I'm taking this to him:

 

[El_Guapo]

Today's plan involves removal of a bunch of stuff, and hopefully getting a little closer to the point at which I can get it off the trailer, turned upside down and started polishing. While the hull is off, I fully intend to put a couple thousand miles on my needle scaler and replace every questionable piece of steel with new stuff. I am going to replace the rusted out crossmember with some structural channel and work on designing some taillights/housings that offer some degree of protection and don't look like they recently escaped from a 1978 KMart ad.

 

[Johnny]

oh my wow goodness !!
I would have given $400 for the hull alone, even if I had to
put it on a utility trailer to get it home !!
A W E S O M E find !!! That's gonna be FUN FUN FUN

what size is the hull ????

 

[El_Guapo]

It's a 17' Hull with a 69" beam.

Other than finding a good outboard and either fabbing a new console or finding a replacement, it will all be pretty easy work. The motor suffered an attempt at repair by a wholly unqualified person and is only good for parting out. The lower unit is probably salvageable, prop is good, powerhead is roached.

I'm currently looking at a 1986 vintage Mercury 50 for it. If I had my way, I'd put a 'Rude on it, but I'll take what I can get.

 

[earl60446]

Don't throw that "jack stand" away, if it has a regular hitch ball on top, you can use it for security by dropping the trailer on it as the picture shows than putting a lock on the trailer hitch. Thereby preventing anyone from removing the jack stand so they also cannot hook it up to their tow vehicle. I know... who is gonna steal it? Plus how much ya want for the yellow tool box? :LOL2:

Tim

 

[bobberboy]

I'm going to guess it's a diamond in the rough.

 

[El_Guapo]

bobberboy » 13 Jul 2014, 13:17[/url]"]I'm going to guess it's a diamond in the rough.

I'm hoping so, but for now it's more of a turd in the driveway.

 

[Attwanl]

Cool thing is that "your wife procured it for you" ....... Not many would do that. Looks like you got a keeper..... Boat and the wife.
Boats doesn't look in real bad shape, seen worse. I got mine from my nephew...he was heading to the dump with it. And yep it was full of garbage... That I had to empty for the boat. I ran it for a couple of years before really working it over and fixed the leaks and painted this winter.

 

[El_Guapo]

Did a little tinkering after work today....all told I expected worse!

Mold?!? What mold?

I really DESPISE "pool bottom blue" paint at this point!!!

Does anyone know of a source for repops of this logo?

Nice big hole for no apparent reason....more TIG time coming up!

Not too much left to do for stripping down. Pull the rest of the hatch lids and rip out all of the remaining wiring, get the TM and outboard off and then I can mess with the trailer. I'm going to try and save the existing hull decals, but I'm not sure it's gonna happen.

 

[Stumpalump]

People make those stands to be higher than the jack will go so the rain water runs out of the drain.

 

[richg99]

Re decals...look on eBay. Often there are a number of offers to make any stick-on logos for a reasonable price. However, when you only have $400.00 in the boat, the logo may seem high-priced.

Try this site.
https://www.ebay.com/usr/d.black_desgins?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

 

[onthewater102]

earl60446 » 13 Jul 2014, 14:36[/url]"]Don't throw that "jack stand" away, if it has a regular hitch ball on top, you can use it for security by dropping the trailer on it as the picture shows than putting a lock on the trailer hitch. Thereby preventing anyone from removing the jack stand so they also cannot hook it up to their tow vehicle. I know... who is gonna steal it? Plus how much ya want for the yellow tool box? :LOL2:

Tim

Unfortunately we just had a guy on my CTFisherman forum that had his offshore boat jacked, which was later found ditched on the side of the road stripped of EVERYTHING including the stainless screws to the hull...

 

[onthewater102]

Looks like your boat was the victim of a poorly done restoration at some point in the past. There should be closed cell emergency flotation foam behind those side panels and under the floor - another member on here is diligently restoring an 84 tracker as well and included many pics along the way showing all the foam he had to remove/replace.

 

[El_Guapo]

I took out the foam already. Like most older Trackers it was a hodgepodge of scraps that "fit". I'll be replacing it with 2" closed cell insulation once the reassembly begins.

That jackstand thing has 2 things against it: First, the guy that built it dug through history's scrap bin and found an old UHaul proprietary 2-1/8" ball to put on it, using no less than 5 pounds of farmer rod (6013 judging by the painted over slag) to attach it. The second thing is that where I live, theft is virtually non existent. If you live here, you work for the company - not many people are going to risk losing a good job and becoming homeless over anything (even the motel clerks and the Starbucks clerks make something like $15 and change an hour). Even the screw ups from neighboring towns avoid this place because there's always someone home and watching, and every house has more than a couple of guns. (and the women are more likely to shoot first than the men are).

I don't think I'll be getting any work done for a few days, since the doctor put me on the DL until Friday with some mosquito-borne virus that "Isn't West Nile but is closely related".

 

[El_Guapo]

Okay, after an extended period of illness and that obnoxious "work" thing getting in the way, I found some time to get some work done today. While searching through the garage for a doorknob (long story involving a 2 year old testing the tensile strength of doorknob fasteners), I found a piece of 3" flatstrap that I had picked up for some project lost to history. I found inspiration in this little piece of steel, and here it is.

One of the things that has always bothered me about the USS Ghetto has been the halfassed appearance of the fenders.

A bright idea, a couple of hours and some .035" welding wire later........

Now I've got a flat space to put some reflectors or some flush mounted running lights.