shakeanbake

first things first, hello from Wisconsin and thanks for having me. After months, "6" of putting pen to paper and a lot of research, The wife and I, (well she let me LOL) buy a project boat.

a little about my background, which made doing a project boat easier than just buying new. I grew up around cars and boat my whole life and owned quite a few, we had a family owned body shop / dealership for 25 years, we bought and fixed a lot of cars and boats. I have good knowledge in fiberglass repair, body and paint work, electrical work etc etc. Being self-employed in the industry I am in leaves me with winters off and after the honey do list are done, time to work on a project.

The boat will be in the family for a while so doing it right is the first priority, I won't cut corners just to save a little money. I plan on pretty much re-doing the whole boat from the bottom up, stringers, bulkheads, wiring, interior, paint, having all the railing and things of that nature powder coated and so on. The list is long LOL. I am open to all opinions and any knowledge from anyone that is willing to educate me on thing I don't know or that have way more knowledge than I do, which will probably be a lot of you.

So that being said here is what we bought. a 1990 292 SR1 with factory twin 502's with Bravo one drives.

The good: the hull only has 290 hours, the 502's were recently refreshed, there are no major cracks in the hull or damage, no major damage to the interior structure except one crack by the cuddy corner. the floor from the cuddy step forward is solid as a rock from what I can tell and the transom seems to be rock solid. That is the end to the good.

the Bad: the bulkhead by the engine is rotten, bulkhead under the step by the cuddy door is BAD, all the electrical is in need of TLC, gauges switches and things of that nature need to be replaced, upholstery is junk, can't even save the wood for patterns, bolster seats are shot except the main metal frame and the fiberglass parts, the Gelcoat is faded like it's been sitting in the sun and never cared for, for the past 25+ years, stringers are probably bad in the back for sure since the wood by the rear of the fuel tank is rotten, all the hatches need to be replaced or redone with new seals and glass because they leak or the glass is missing, refrigerator is shot, other than that it's not too bad lol.

I will try keeping updates of what we do and what we use during the restore process. I have looked into using products like Starlite for rebuilding the seats, side panel, where plywood was once. Cossa board for stringer and bulkhead repairs (encapsulated in epoxy and fiberglass mat) If anyone has experience with any of this feel free to let me know your thoughts. Thanks and let the project begin.

Also if you fallow the link below, everytime I add new pictures they will add to the dropbox link.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bfi71uw47...iFAEzHYWa?dl=0

Mr Maine

Please post your progress on this, I'm sure plenty will want to follow it. Also, many people on here know these boats very well, and can offer input. Do you plan on splitting the deck from the hull? I would think you would want to at this point.

shakeanbake

My plan is to split the deck from the hull, this will be my first attempt at ever doing that, funny, I have talked to several companies (fiberglass boat repair places) and a few of them recommended never doing that and cutting away the floor, I laughed inside, thought why would I ever wanna cut the floor from a deck that is molded as one piece and lose that structural integrity. I figure bracing will be the key to keeping the hull straight after everything is removed or at least make sure it stay level on the trailer and doesn't deform in any way.

Sonic24

Since you are taking it to a bare boat, give some thought to periodic maintenance, such as sea water pump replacement, oil cooler cleaning and winterization. I have a 1991 272 and regret it every time I question if I got all the damaged impeller pieces after a replacement.

Just food for thought.

shakeanbake

all of what you just said will be performed, cleaning the boat today for probably it's, first time, in ten years, I can not believe people buy nice boats like these "when new" and neglect them the way these last owners did. here are a few pictures of today's cleaning, you can see how bad the mildew was from sitting outside un covered for so long. Sad but the boat looks 85% better after the wash with 50/50/30 mix of bleach, water and comit. Next, more disassebly.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]556642[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]556643[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]556644[/ATTACH]

shakeanbake

few questions?is Mcleod doing interiors and bolster seat again? or have they not gotten back into it, looking at how I should do the Bolsters and bench seat since all the wood was pretty much powder and I really don't have anything to go off.

am I able to get the F-292 SR-1 stickers anywhere and also the small square emblem that goes in between the two stickers?

badmonkey

Looking forward to seeing all your progress.

Chris

humbler

Wow, that's a shame someone let it go like that, but glad to see someone like yourself willing to bring it back to life. I did see someone on the facebook Formula owners group that was redoing the stickers on the side, so not original, but looked very good.

tpenfield

Nice project. I'd like to do a restoration like that (some day . . .)

If the engine compartment bulkhead is rotted, then it is a good assumption that the damage extends into the stringers, both going forward along the tank and aft toward the transom. I had a similar thing with my 242 that I caught in time to do a reasonable fix. the fuel tank is probably sitting in wet foam and may have some corrosion underway.

you could separate the 'halves' ( hull and deck/cockpit) of the boat in order to get full access to the stringer grid. It is a bear of a job, but probably the best way to re-do the stringers, if there is a lot of damage. If you did that, you could do a lot to stiffen up the boat. You mentioned using synthetic materials for the structure, which is a good idea IMO. You could make the boat stronger and lighter.

Check out the other foam-based structural materials, like divinycell and nida core.

I can share what I learned in fixing the structure on my 2 Formula's.

Looking forward to your updates.

shakeanbake

if you happen to come across it, could you let me know? Thanks