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Helps having a painter help you restore your boat! Endless knowledge and sometimes I'm lucky enough to get him on the end of a buffer! Buffing is finished! Time for graphics and interior!
Nice job!! I've always loved that graphic design on the hull. Have you thought of getting rims matching your trucks' for the trailer? That would be nice!!
Current : 2000 Pro Air Nautique, Silver&Black accents, pulled by 2012 black Chevy Tahoe
Previous: 1990 Ski Nautique
DLafont that would be a nice addition! Believe it or not, even after the trailer restore, I am still looking for a tandem axel trailer. Have a lead on one local I may be able to trade the guy for. His boat is the same color as mine so the trailer would match the boat and his boat sits on a lift all summer long.
Did you do anything to "lockout" the surge brake hitch? I'd love to convert to electric brakes. Where did you get those?
Which decals are you going to reinstall?
-Grant
The graphics will be the same that I took off. The old ones were pretty sun faded and had lots of bubbles underneath. I would have thought about changing it up and going with a different style, similar to the new Super Airs, but I knew from my last boat that it is extremely difficult to get rid of the decal shadows in the gelcoat 100%.
As far as the hitch, I took the guts completely out of it. The shock spring are all gone. So right now it still slides when I hit the brakes but I will eventually weld it solid before the summer. And I got all my electric brake stuff from a local trailer shop. They are actually pretty common part between all trailers. If you take your hub and backing plate into a trailer shop they should be able to get you fixed up with what you need!
Taping the rubrail is a good idea. I wish I had done that before polishing. I didnt realize my polisher would scuff it up...ooops.
plus 1,000 on this!
If you end up swapping out the bilge outlets they all come out very easily except for the cooler drain one by the water line but not sure if your year still had that one or not. Since it is close to the water line they used 4200 or something similar to seal it up. A little heat on the outside and some twisting and hammering from the inside should free it up.
Keep up the great work!
Shawn
2012 Blue Metal Flake SAN 230
1999 Black and Tan Python 502 Powered Super Sport (for Sale)
If you do make sure you find some that have a small enough diameter threaded portion to pass through the existing hole (the existing on mine are around 1 to 1 1/8"). I had a hard time finding ones that fit. The only ones that seem to work are the plastic chrome plated ones. I guess you could not go with a 90 degree, but cheap 90 degree stainless steel thru hulls are hard to find. I love this boat by the way. Probably my favorite color combo ever.
MaineDR, it was quite a few years back that I did mine but I got all stainless ones from wakemakers for about $14 a piece. Pretty sure these are what I used on mine in the 3/4" size. Maybe they changed something with the 2000 and later models to move to a bigger size? Using 90s in the rear would have been a little bit easier as that is what the factory did, but I didn't realize that until I had already gotten the straight ones in the mail. There was more than enough slack on the bilge hoses to add a little radius to make the straight ones work for me luckily.
So it's been about a month since I had worked on the boat. With the recent time off work I have had, I'm all but done with it for the winter, and **** does it feel good! A little irritated the new graphic didn't quite match up to the old one...and this one got into the white gelcoat a little bit. At least I was able to wetsand and buff enough to get rid of the shadow from old graphic. This side looks great! Call me crazy but this is what I had to do in order to set these graphics by myself. Was a little skeptical, but it payed off! Surprisingly I was able to match this graphic down to the gnats ***! Between this boat and the Air Nautique I restored last winter, this was the only "identical" graphic I bought that actually ended up being identical. Moral of the story, don't count on your new graphic being the same as the old!
Going in the water for the first time since being finished. Only thing that caught my attention was the V-Drive light in the dash that is supposed to go away once hitting 1200 rpm. Stayed on for quite some time. Water temp was approx 48 degrees and air temp was about 55. Let it idle for about 15 minutes and ran it up to about 20mph and light still stayed on. Let it idle longer while I looked on thru some threads to see if there was an easy way to test the sensor. No luck on finding that, but then I ran it around some more and it ended up turning off. Didn't have anymore issues with it the rest of the day. Just something I will keep my eye on in the future, and maybe get a backup sensor just in case. "We gather here today to join these two in holy matrimony..." 😂 Just finishing the last piece to the puzzle, welding the surge hitch solid, no need with the electric brakes now!
Did you weld the trailer to the truck? Just kidding!
That picture can be used for many comments. Like...my wife hates trying to back the truck up to the trailer when I'm not around, so I welded them together to help her.
In all seriousness, as the owner of an all red 2003 Nautique, your work looks amazing.
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