2008 30 Outlaw Updates "the last real baja"
 

So just a little background; this is the LAST Baja built in Bucyrus OH spec'ed out and purchased new, loaded onto the transport trailer 5/22/08.

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Home in the garage 5/26/2008
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Other than routine maintenance nothing has been done 201 hours on the meter ... until the last two years, nothing really major or impressive but the project/problem/ fix it list begun...

Way cool.

Gorgeous boat.

Cool boat!!

Other than routine maintenance nothing has been done 201 hours on the meter ... until the last two years, nothing really major or impressive but the project/problem/ fix it list begun...[/QUOTE]
...until you met me, lol.

Very sharp and unique boat for sure!

was this a liner or stringer boat

all 30's will be liner boats

so the project's start... the depth finder ceased to work after comming to the realization that an engine will have to be pulled to get to it, that got put on the back burner, then the depth finder worked.... and then there was no longer a dry billge when the boat was pulled out for the day... and we aren't talking a few drops... the float switch kicked the bilge pump on loading it onto the trailer... WTF!! so the search began checking things out, pulling and re installing drives,checking bellowls several trips to the lake and head rush days, it was time to find some help so through oso and his project i figured what the heck torey may know or see something having his boat all apart, member IGetWet(25 outlaw with whipple's) and we did the same thing pulled the drives etc again.... through inspection mirrors and boroscopes we were able to finally find a faint water trickle running down between the liners but not able to find the definite source! how ever after looking at things inside and out the only possiblity was the trim tab!

below you can see the tab mounting bolts and the depth finder drywell and the opening by the bilge pump we were faintly able to see a water trickle..(photos are from the build i have 300 pictures of the construction from start to finish)
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not about to lay the boat up in the middle of the summer in wisconsin. this got put on the must fix list for the winter...

so talking to as many 30 owners I could all summer to gain knowledge and also managing to get ahold of some original baja people.... the inevitable the engines were comming out... in these conversations and my digging around, it was discovered that the tab mounting bolts span about a 1" dead space between the transom and inner liner(look at the previous post you can see the bolts and flat liner surface they tightened up on. so the work began.... never pulling engines before I was a little nervous but took tons of pics tagged everything that came apart and gave her hell!
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Wow!

I feel for you brother.
I have had my share of, “never heard of that” issues that back you in a corner.
Even the pro’s throw their hands up.

Ive had two (used) liner boats and hated that part of them.

Kudos to you for sticking w/it and finding the cause so you can cure it.

525s in that 30 probably Rock pretty good!! that's cool the Last One.

But what about the gage bezels? Where they using leftovers lol.

good enough...80-82 pretty much any day on demand. it will bounce 85-86 when the wind and power gods are with me.... I have wet dreams about a pair of whipple's some day mostly for the wow and why not factor the baby blues will need to be refreshed eventually.... spoke to the multiple owners of the 30 with 600sci's and the report is that it's scary and i think the reports from that boat are like 90/91... what! you don't like the color coordinating?? the entire boat's colors are love it or hate it not a lot of in between

Just messin w ya. Nice package for sure. and kind of cool being the Last one.

Throw extension boxes on while you have the engines out.

They have ITS boxes already.

Awesome work for sure, we boat at Lake Cumberland with the original owner of the Blue 30 with 600's, he and I were just discussing this past summer the fun he had with that boat and also the wild rides it would sometimes give. We love our 2008 30 after buying it a year ago today!!

Very cool

well a couple bolts,some wires and hoses and they are out. rather simple actually...you can see the problem again no way to get to the mounting bolts, with the y-pipes installed and even less room to fix what I though was a bad design of clamping onto the inner liner with the tab bolts, and then discovered was Baja's stash of left over hardware randomly between the inner liner and the hull... one would think if you drop it you would get it out and not just grab another what ever you dropped.... kinda crazy there was even a wire harness about 3-4 feet long that was routed and clamped to the stringers that was not connected at either end... kind of ridiculous
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so after tearing more stuff apart, got the y-pipes off and was able to get to the hardware finally!!! when i started the remove the tab hardware, they had a sealant/adhesive of some type on the washer/nut and after that bond was broke to my surprise it was discovered that the nut and bolt were "tight" but you could spin them in place another eye roll and kept going, they had all too long of bolts the the nut bottomed out on the shoulder of the bolt and was never checked again or realized because they sealed the nut and washer to the liner, it was like this for all the bolts on both tabs.

Now my reference to the fix, was not a fan that the bolts spanned a void in the liners I can only imagine the stress/force on the tabs at any given time and for them to be bolted to the thinner inner liner instead of the thicker transom made no sens to me, so the plan from the start of the project was to drill out the inner liner to be able to get to the transom. what i ended up doing was chucking up hole saw, and instead of the normal drill bit i used a wood dowel about a foot long and pushed it into the already drilled out transom to center my hole saw... worked great! after i got the holes all drilled out, sure enough! was able to finally see a faint black streak at the bottom of the bottom most hole there's the dam leak!! re sealed the tabs and bolt holes, all new 316 stainless steel hardware the proper lengths and better than new!
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Just "wow" on the hardware residing in the void. Any residual water in there as well or all dry?

Appears the transom wood in the exhaust cutouts was not sealed with resin which is to be expected on a Baja. As far as you've gone now I'd go the rest of the way and remove the transom assemblies and check for moisture and seal the drive cutouts while doing the exhaust cutouts. Piece of mind for you and the next owner.

Nice job on the repair.

BTW on a new boat I purchased back in the 90's one of the seat backs came loose and behind it was about a dozen or more random holes drilled into glass near where the mounting clips were installed. It was like someone was bored waiting on some screws or something and sat there and just randomly drilled one hole after another thinking that no one would ever see them.

I’m not up on liner construction, so maybe these are dumb questions for the boat know it alls out there.. Is the liner solid where the motor mounts are bolted through or is there still a stringer under there and the liner fits tight around it? Surprised that there’s that much void between the liner and transom, I thought a liner boat got its structural integrity from the liner...?

the middle "stringer" was a lot thicker! ~1.5"+ best photos i can find showing that... but there were definately NOT stringers under the liner, limited access in various locations but i could get boroscopes and my hands into places and nothing...
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there was no residual water in the bottom but with a very steep driveway we always came home pulled straight in and then backed in when all the water was done running out and i'm sure the fact that the garage is fully climate controlled helped keep it dry., it is 70 deg and 40% humidity all summer long in there. i am assuming the drain plugs were about 1" above the very bottom of the billge, so trapped water is a very likely situation,

yeah there are several similar things here also, broken screws that werent removed and just put a second right next to it, 3" long screw when you need 1" etc, screw holes here n there they made and decided not to use...it's no industry secret baja could have cleaned up their rigging.. I cleaned all that up, vise grips to remove the broken screws etc. I put some clear silicone in the unused holes just because not sure if it was needed but why not, looked better than my attempt would have been plugging and glassing them...

so like stated before the depth finder stopped working,then started working intermittently, the ammount of work involved to get down there it was decided to start with a new transducer and fresh install, a little bit of original riggging clean up and done... https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...5e1f840fe2.jpg

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I hate reading about what you’re Finding.

Again, Good for you having the backbone to fix it.

Will be a bad ass boat when you’re done.

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Water leak testing… sat at the launch for a couple hours, enjoyed the spring day, had a few beers, no water leak! So the right tab lower mounting bolt was the problem! Depth finder install was good, no leaks.

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Little bit of updating, got the new style stickers for the ITS transom and drives, went back and forth about the alignment… shouldn’t have changed with offshore mounts but a $100 alignment bar was cheap assurance that they were aligned… and they were perfect, engines went back in in the same spot.


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And after several years of behaving and being a law-abiding boater… it was time to take the factory Corsa mufflers off! Made a difference! She has a nice bark now. The mufflers had an oversize flange and the normal tips would require new holes, so I went to my local fab shop and they made custom tips, the 4” needed for the header side, and then 6” outside with an oversize flange to use the original holes. Then dropped them off at local plating shop for the polish job and they informed me you can’t chrome plate stainless steel…

Wow that is a lot of work, but well worth it for a cool boat. I do have one question though, why is a Wisconsin boy enjoying Bush Lights Vs Old Style, Miller or another local brew??? Oh BTW, make sure you seal the transom holes real well before installing the exhaust tips or other external items. Best place for water intrusion and transom rot to start. Seen it on several boat where we have replaced the factory tips, where the lack of or the original sealant had dried out or was never there.

ha ha! because I can drink a 30 pack and wake up without a hang over!... there is a fine line between lake water and bush light that is hard to differentiate! :ernaehrung004:

and yeah to sealing the tips, I was able to retain the orig gasket and well as a nice bead of 3M 3000 to seal them, hind sight is 20/20 never though of sealing the actual wood on the transom before I put it all back together, but I am pretty confident it won't be an issue... with how I sealed the tips to the hull and how high the tips are above the water line i am more concerned about ever getting them off again then water getting in . boat has also been stored in a fully climate controlled environment from day one. you can still smell the fiberglass resigns when you go in the cuddy.

LOL, good answer !! Backing down is when the water gets forced around the exhaust seal. I would highly recommend sealing all the wood in the transom where there have been holes drilled. Just sayin...……...Good Luck ! Wish I had your garage. I looked at one this past weekend, these Ozark boys have a lot of $$$$ signs behind their eyeballs. If the mancave is finished inside at all and has a furnace and you can see the lake in the middle of WINTER it is worth too much..LOL

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...fc0b35e035.jpgand ready to roll... not giving a lot of oh **** room it was the weekend before the 2019 Lake Winnebago Four Horseman poker run was able to get it out to bleed the lines etc. not knowing what to expect never having engines out before wasn't going to go into the poker run without a test run... was kind of surprised no issues! started and ran perfect had a nice bark without the mufflers ITS system bled it's self... it was a great weekend on the water!

Only thing I am really not happy about, is the dam depth finder still doesn't work!! it is very sporadic at best, sometimes works sometimes doesn't there is no rhyme or reason to when it works or not, location on lake/speed/water depth. Sometimes it gives a depth, and sometimes it is just 3 dashes across the display. I replaced the transducer and did a new install on the base it doesn’t leak and is flooded with antifreeze. it is an airmar p79 that is built to mercury smart craft specs, it plugs into a diagnostic port on the right engine and is supposed to go through the ecm to the vessel view race edition. I have several hours in phone calls to airmar and mercury and nobody has an answer clue or suggestion. I just don’t get it and totally out of ideas so I’m all ears to anything anybody has!!

July of 2019 and it was time to go boating! Pulled out of the house like any other weekend and as we were coming down the hill to the gas station, noticed there wasn’t a whole lot of help in the braking department from the trailer! cycled the manual brake lever a few times, turned the gain all the way up and sure enough there were no trailer brakes. Now what! Pulled up to the gas pump and walked around and heard the pump on the EOH actuator running and it was hotter than hell, the cover was starting to melt un plugged the connector to the truck right away scratched my head, the trailer disc’s were ice cold so no action there at all, checked the EOH reservoir and bone dry and thought to myself that’s not good… bought a couple pints from the gas station plugged the brakes back in and the motor ran for a bit and then stopped… cycled the manual lever a few times and all seemed normal… filled the boat up and thought we were off, didn’t take very far to realize there are no brakes again, got to the launch and similar deal, pump was hotter then hell, this time not running checked the reservoir again and empty…. Wasn’t about to let the beautiful day get away so we went boating and said we will figure it out later! Now for all towing Nazi’s out there from the house to the launch is about 5 miles and with the speed limit the whole way 35 MPH, wasn’t too concerned about stopping.
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Tore into it on Monday and could not get any function to the EOH actuator so figured it burnt its self-up no big deal ordered a new one, oh was I sticker shocked how much those dam things cost! but there are a few words I’m sure most of you know that are never used with boat or boating…now never seeing any puddles in the garage under the trailer first problem was where is the dam oil going? All the brake pads and rotors had nice wear, and all the ridged lines across the axles and hoses from the axle to the calipers all perfect, only one line you cant see, must be the one in the frame rail from the actuator to the first axle. Pulled the steel line out and there was the problem!! Wish I would have taken pictures, but the line was bent at almost 90 deg and kinked, obviously a bad install from day one and took this long to present a problem, I was surprised that it was just a standard steel line and not stainless, but suppose that shouldn’t surprise me really… replaced it with a new rubber hose fished it through the frame rail bled the brakes and good to go….

I'm guessing the spot where the transducer is located has balsa coring or there are voids in the fiberglass.

There is no coring in a Baja hull, maybe voids... but it worked originally from the factory in that location, one would think Baja has that figured out they were making the 30 since 2004... frustrating and not sure exactly where to go from here...

How did you get this picture? This looks like it was taken before the floor was put in? Do you have any more construction pics?

I don't know much about the 30's and liner boats, but all the baja outlaws I had before they started using the liners (24, 25, and 29) used balsa coring in the hulls. I know for a fact, because I had to replace the coring under the gas tank in my 24. I'm guessing the hulls still have balsa coring in them. Usually they have a small cut out under the engine where they did not use balsa coring so the transducer could be placed there. I would assume that what they did on the 30's also. I don't know for sure. I'm interested in your posts because I just purchased a 30 outlaw and I like to know how things are put together.

I sanded the bilge paint smooth before I installed my P79. not sure if that would make a difference in your case. my only thought is you have a liner boat. If the liner goes on top of the exterior on the bottom as well you essentially installed the depth sounder on the liner which means there is a small gap between the liner and exterior hull which would cause it not to work unless the gap is filled with water? possibly. The other thing I have run into is if I power-on the chart-plotter before I launch the boat the depth sounder won't work. It calibrates each time you power on and it needs to be in the water to calibrate properly.

yeah have ~300 photos from the from the day it came out of the mold to completion

if you look back in photos, the liner is cut out, so it is mounted right on the fiberglass hull, never turned the keys on before the boat was in the water, and being wired to the engines there is no switch for the depth finder it’s is powered up when the key is turned on...

Never had luck with transducers that shot thru the hull. Only the ones where the puck went completely thru the bottom of the boat ever worked consistently.