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American Offshore Restoration Thread
Well, I figured I would go ahead and post up a project thread for the 2600 American Offshore I picked up in early February. I haven’t done a whole lot on the boat up until the past few weeks. I will start from the beginning…so bare with me.
Last spring I restored a 1980 Ron Jones tunnel hull that I picked up in New Jersey, I went all out, stripping the years of paint, opening up the hull for extended seating and had it custom painted. I sent the interior dimensions to PPI in Sarasota FL and had them create of their masterpiece interiors. All new hardware and I completely refurbished the trailer…you get the idea, spent a few bills. After all this was said and done, I decided that this particular boat did not fit my boating needs, ran it for a few weeks and decided to put it up for sale and focus on some other stuff going on in my life. Fast-forward to December 2010, right around Christmas time, I found myself within my daily routine of scowering the various boating forums and internet sites. I will sometimes get on different craigslist city sites to see what boats are for sale around the country. Upon my browsing I came across a short and sweet ad in Lake Havasu City AZ that read: “1993 26 foot American Offshore cat boat. Hull only.” I quickly purged this ad from my brain as the last thing I wanted was another long drawn out restoration process like I had the prior year. (oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that I was just about to pop the big question, so planning a wedding and working on a boat was DEFINITELY out of the question…well at least in my fiancés mind) So I left it at that, and continued on my internet journey. Over the holidays I could not keep myself from thinking about this ad I had come across, why was the listing so short, why no pics and why haven’t I seen it listed anywhere else? I have previously ridden on many boats that were derived from the 25’ Talon, and enjoyed the ride on all of them, so this got the ole wheels turning…what could it hurt to reply to the ad and just test the waters…well we all know how a simple slight interest can sometimes spark a full on desire. (I know it did for me:evilb:) Upon returning from visiting family members and friends in 3 different cities across 2 states, I finally decided to reply to the ad via email. I sent your typical request, condition, pics, story etc. The next day I had pics in my inbox and request to call a number to speak with someone about the “technical” aspects of the boat. I was relieved to see in the pictures that the boat had a full interior, trailer, gauges and transom assembly. Well…the gears were really starting to turn now! Within the following days I phoned the number and found out that this was a one owner family boat that had been retired years ago and put up in storage. What I found out next about the boat was extremely chilling, and made me take a step back to appreciate life a little more. I will not go into details, but I found that the family had recently given the boat to their eldest son who was a member of our US military. He was in the process of getting the boat lake ready on his weekends of leave. But tragically he was killed before he was able to finish the project and ever get it wet. The family obviously devastated, just wanted the boat gone, as too many memories were wrapped around it. Being a former Marine myself, I know what it means to have something back home that keeps you grounded, be it family, friends or a certain toy that you just can’t wait to get back to. I was officially hooked. I knew that I could take this boat out of its years of storage and finish what had been started, brining the neglected girl back to life, and finishing it the way I know the family would have wanted. So that was it, I had made up my mind, a new year, and another project, one that I could be very compassionate about. I called the original poster of the ad back and told her that I would finish the boat and give it a home her son would appreciate. We worked out a deal, and the boat was mine. Well this leads us to the beginning of our journey, and when I say journey I mean it! I guess I have forgot to mention that I live in the Charlotte NC area, on small lake that splits North and South Carolina, and the boat along with several boxes and miscellaneous items were located in a storage compartment in Lake Havasu AZ. After debating on having it transported I decided to make the trek myself, and enjoy a “little” countryside drive. Total trip would put me just shy of 4400 miles. Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that I had yet to tell my future fiancé about this transaction…guess it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission…right? :lolhit: Three weeks had passed since I made the decision to buy the boat, my time was running out to pick her up due to storage restrictions, and I needed to man up and have a little discussion with my girlfriend before I made the cross country trek. Let’s just say the initial reveal was not warm welcomed, but after she calmed down and we discussed the situation at hand, she was fully onboard :coolcowboy: I somehow was able to convince 2 of my buddies to make the haul with me. So we were set, 3 friends, multiple coolers full of drinks and snacks, 4 trailer tires and almost 4500 miles of road ahead of us. Let the journey begin. Well think that’s enough for tonight. Getting tired of typing, and for those who actually read all that I’m sure you’re tired of reading. I know pictures make threads like this, so I have attached the pics I received from my original inquiry. |
Pics
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Have Fun
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More Pics
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Keep us updated, that hull looks like it wants to haul some @ss!!
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Good looking project. Shouldn't have to worry about any rot with it being from havasu. Enjoy.
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Keep us updated on the project. I spent all last year @ New River MCAS NC, working for the Marines.
Dean |
The Trip Out
We hit the road around 7 am Eastern Standard Time on Thursday February 24th, truck loaded down with pillows, food, trailer tires and overnight bags. Neither of my buddies had ever been far out west, one of which I don’t believe has ever been past the Mississippi. I knew we had a long haul in front of us, but we were eager to see the countryside that lay ahead. On the leg out we decided we would play it by ear, drive in shifts, stop at places of interest and get a hotel only if we thought necessary. Below is a breakdown of the trip there:
7:30am – Departed Lexington SC 8:20am – Crossed into Georgia 10:00am – Stopped just outside of Atlanta to eat at the Cracker Barrel 11:00am – Back on the road 1:30pm – Birmingham Alabama 3:50pm – Crossed into Mississippi 6:30pm – Memphis Tennessee 8:30pm – We Stopped to eat dinner in Little Rock Arkansas 9:30pm – Decided to keep trucking, back on the road 11:30pm – Crossed into Oklahoma 1:45am – Oklahoma City, the half way point of the leg out 4:00am – Texas 6:45am – New Mexico (gotta love that 75mph speed limit!) 10:00am – Albuquerque (Should we have taken a left there?) 12:15pm – Arizona…bout time! 2:00pm – Stopped for lunch in Flagstaff, another Cracker Barrel :evilb: 6:00pm – Lake Havasu City Arizona, we have arrived! Upon our arrival we drove around Lake Havasu, checking out all the various powerboat manufacturers and stopped in at the bridge to take in some sights. We then checked into a hotel and all took showers, by the time we got there you would think I was growing onions in my truck, nasty! I called the owner of the boat to let her know we were in town. She told me that she was already at the storage unit, and that if we wanted we could drop by. I had four trailer tires strapped to the roof of my Armada, so I decided to head her way and drop them off in the unit so that they wouldn’t go missing over night. Once we arrived at the storage facility (Advantage boats) I dropped the tries off, had a quick look over the boat (will regret that in the morning) and was eager to get a good recommendation to a good local restaurant (our hotel clerk was super excited to tell us about the new Chili’s they had just gotten, thanks, but no thanks) and finally get some real sleep!! |
Pics Out
http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/9...4170154573.jpg
Crossing over the Mississippi http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/9...4170203688.jpg I didnt know the Luxor had an east coast branch! http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/8...5062446586.jpg Good morning New Mexico http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/9...3516532299.jpg I thought it is supposed to be warmer out west!! http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/5...3511062299.jpg Now thats a change of scenery from the east coast |
Still truckin...
http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/5...3503832299.jpg
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3...3548937299.jpg No thanks, I'll stick with the intersates http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/2...9123411751.jpg Looking for aliens in the middle of the desert http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/8...2514474967.jpg Thats a sight for tired eyes! http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/7...5163104409.jpg Brought it over block by block hu, pretty impressive |
Originally Posted by BBADWS6
(Post 3418013)
Keep us updated, that hull looks like it wants to haul some @ss!!
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Saw the hull at Sparks. Looks good. Your gunna want more power. Something to think about. You could bolt a couple of outboards on there. Congrats on the project. Bob
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Lets get this party started! (or try to anyhow)
After a much needed night of rest (you would think we held a lumberjack competition in the hotel room with all the heavy snoring) we woke up around 8am our time, which was 5am in Havasu. We decided to hit the breakfast bar up in our hotel and then drive around Lake Havasu again, waiting to meet the boat owner around 8am at the storage facility. We had a game plan, and we were very serious about sticking to it, even though we just got off the road, we wanted to get right back to it. We had planned on stoping in at a local tire shop to have the tires replaced, as we didnt want any unexpected problems on the way back. (I had previously asked if the trailer was in road worthy shape, and I got a response of its ready to go, but tires may have some dryrot from sitting) So we had it all planned out, we should be back on the road by 9-9:30 at the latest. Right?...WRONG! :angry-smiley-038:
Once we arrived at the storage unit, we waited out front for around thirty minutes for the owners. Once they got there we opened the storage unit, and my buddies got out and began packing up all the spare parts. I backed up to the trailer and got out. The tounge of the trailer was sitting on the ground, the cover that came with the boat was draped over it, so I couldnt see the tounge itself the day prior (big mistake). I removed the cover and reached down for the jack...wait, wheres the trailer jack? No where to be found! Great, how are we gonna hook this thing up! Well thankfully the owners lived 5 minutes away, and being that they lived in Lake Havasu meant by law they must own tons of toys, and with that ment tools. So a quick 20 minutes later we had a jack to lift the tounge. I began to hook everything up...wait where is the safety chains, and more importantly the pigtail for the lights. Guess what, yep, they were MIA too. We were able to find the wire harness for the trailer lights, the pigtail was cut off, and it was stashed inside the frame. We decded that we would take it over to the tire shop and while they were mounting the tires and greasing the hubs we would stop by an auto parts store and grab some chain and a pig tail to wire up the lights, to be safe I opted just to by new light housings too. 10:00am - (Havasu time) we drop the boat and trailer off a the tire shop, give them the tires I had brought with me, and headed to the parts store for a quick parts run. Upon our return I noticed the boat was still on stands in the parking lot, I immeadatley knew this was a bad sign. The tech walks up to me and tells me he needs to show me something. We walk over to the right rear wheel and he begins to shake it. The whole hub almost comes off the spindle! Not a bearing left in it! Great!! So I tell them can you guys throw a new hub on for me? They replied they cant do that type of work on Saturdays! To which I reply, what type of work? Its a stinking cotter pin, a nut, some washers and the hub assemby. They then replied sorry, against policy! I told him our situation, and that we had a 2200 mile trip ahead of us hoping they would be compassionate, nope, no luck there. I then asked if they could lend me some tools leave it on the stands and I would do the work myself in their parking lot as I had limited tools with me, of course due to insurance reasons that was out of the question too! :angry-smiley-038:I then asked if any other shops could do it, he called around, and the one shop that would work on something like that was booked until 3pm, no way were we gonna wait that long to get on the road! The entire time, the orginal owner was with us, she felt bad about our situation and offer for us to bring it back to their house, use their tools and get the trailer roadworthy for the two thousand mile trip that lay ahead. I jumped on the offer. We pulled the wheel and hub off in front of their house, got the right hub and bearing numbers and headed back to the parts store. While I was picking up the new bearings, my buddies began wiring up the lights. Just as I was about to leave the store they called me and said the orgianal wiring is shot and we needed to run new wires. So I went back into the the store and told them I needed 60 ft of trailer lighting wire, amazingly they carried the stuff on a huge spool, at least something was going right. We tag teamed the lighting rewire and bearing issue, and finally got on the road around 12:30pm (again havasu time). None of us were happy campers, it certianly was not a good start to the return trip home. I was very weary about he condition of the rest of the trailer (and the boat for that matter) but we put it in drive, grabbed some lunch and hit the road. |
Originally Posted by bulletbob
(Post 3418455)
Saw the hull at Sparks. Looks good. Your gunna want more power. Something to think about. You could bolt a couple of outboards on there. Congrats on the project. Bob
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On the road...again
Well I wont bore you with more details about the trip out to pick the boat up. We were all pretty grumpy with the late start and all, so we didnt take very many pictures. We did go through the Rockies just as a snow storm hit, which was a pretty cool sight.
I pulled into my driveway in Lake Wylie at somewhere around 3am Monday Feb 28th. The trailer was good to us the remainder of the trip. I put the truck in park, left the boat hooked to it, and slept for the next 10 hours. Not sure I will ever attempt to drive across country and back in 4 days, well, at least not anytime soon.:lolhit: http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/3...4456257299.jpg Snowing in the Rockies...anyone have a Coors Light? |
Let the resto begin!
The next day I began to assess what exactly I had gotten myself into. I already knew I needed a motor and rear bench/engine hatch combo, and later found out (the hard way) that the trailer was not up to par. (By the way, the trailer was not done with me just yet. When it came time to unhook it from the truck I found that the coupler mechanism that releases the coupler from the ball was broken and would not disengage. I was by myself so it took me 45min or so to get it to budge. This became the first item o my list to replace.) The hull was in very good condition, very few stress cracks in the hull, and almost no nicks or gouges. The gelcoat on the other hand was a different story, from the years of the desert sun and limited maintenance it had became very oxidized, almost to the point where it looked like the entire hull had been dusted with flour. The pores of the gel had also been saturated with the desert sand, so it had a slight yellowish tint to it. The white vinyl that covered the front seats was almost black in areas, and the seat frames were trash. The coming panels were warped from the sun, and the vinyl there was also in poor shape, with tears in some areas. I am not sure if it was the desert sun, or the boat being stored indoors, but there was not a single area on the hull that had any signs of rot or delamination. The structure of the hull is perfectly intact.
Now time to survey the various boxes that came with the hull. The boat was originally rigged with a Mag 502, I found the intake complete with injectors wiring harness, and other parts of the fuel system. Various smaller boxes filled with nuts and bolts. Bellhousing and flywheel, and a sad looking bravo outdrive. Well know I know what I had, and it was time to put a game plan together to get this boat in lake ready condition, without breaking the bank. As I mentioned earlier, I am recently engaged, and am in the process of planning a wedding in Charleston SC. (For those of you not familiar with Charleston, it can get expensive) So this is going to be somewhat of a budget build for this season, until I can get this wedding out of the way. The remainder of my posts for this thread will be less story (I know you're sad :kiss:) and more build thread. Hope to see you all on the water sometime soon! |
Damn JB thats a hell of a road trip! Remind me to tell you about the purchase of my Thouroughbred on the side of I-85 and it's sale at 11:00 pm in the dark. Theres plenty of time for engine upgrades. Keep your partner happy and Congrats on your up coming wedding.
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First thing was to strip out the few items still attached to the hull. After removing the seats, and the coming pannels, I realized how poor conditon they were in. First on the list, rebulid the frames, and recover.
http://img857.imageshack.us/img857/1...0914367299.jpg First thing was to rebuild the frames http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4604/...2190019302.jpg This was the orignal seat (after I cleaned it once) vinyl was in good shape, just really nasty, so I decded to take some others advice and clean with magic eraser and sipmle green. http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/4...2190032591.jpg Fitting the sections http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/7...2190224700.jpg http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/3...8161406342.jpg http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/9...8161350213.jpg Magic eraser works wonders! Other than a few knicks, looks almost as good as the new vinly on the coming pannels. |
After I finished the front seats I focused on the coming pannels. I used the originals as templates, ordered new vinyl and hardware, and tried my hand at my first bit of upholstery work. Think they came out ok, I will more than likely have the entire interior redone professionaly once the wallet is a little more full. :drink:
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/143...2151224338.jpg http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/151...2151341135.jpg |
The boat has been at Vicious Custom (Sparky Olson) boats for around 4 weeks now. Sparky is going through the drive for me and is also going to help with setting the new motor in and making sure evrything is aligned properly.
It is also being wetsanded and polshed while its at his shop. He has sent me a few pics of the progress. I am heading down tomorrow to start the rerig of the hull. http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/6...6201195001.jpg Pulling out that desert sand http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/8...7201195002.jpg making some progress http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/7416/06012011z.jpg Starting to shine up pretty nicely:coolcowboy: |
Great thread
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Thanks for sharing. Sparky does great work. Glad to see it restored. Congrats on the wedding ! Best of luck :)
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Brock, How's it going with the boat? Give me a shout if you get a chance. 803-743-7680
- Lee |
LOOKING GOOD.....UPDATE US!! I HOPE THAT RING THING ISNT TO BLAME :drink:
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The boat has been pretty much put back together for around a month now. We have had some fuel/carb issues that we have been trying to get the bugs worked out on. Been slack on updating this thread, I will get some pics uploaded once I find the cord to my camera. Here are a few of it on the water.
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6...5602621617.jpg http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/5...2802551617.jpg http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/6...9202711617.jpg http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/2...2002781617.jpg http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/9...aquapalooz.jpg Lee, I will give you a buzz this afternoon. |
Mr.Sneak, would love to see some shots of your AO, what numbers are you running with 1k hp?
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Originally Posted by JBrock
(Post 3463235)
The boat has been pretty much put back together for around a month now. We have had some fuel/carb issues that we have been trying to get the bugs worked out on. Been slack on updating this thread, I will get some pics uploaded once I find the cord to my camera. Here are a few of it on the water.
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6...5602621617.jpg http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/5...2802551617.jpg http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/6...9202711617.jpg http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/2...2002781617.jpg http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/9...aquapalooz.jpg Lee, I will give you a buzz this afternoon. |
pics to come....good weather 5600pms 114mph REAL speed on river water.....summer weather 106ish all day with load....short blast on river so its hard to strech it out....5000rpms is 100mph.....1:30 spinning a 32 bravo....a chop would bump it a few....this is my second ao ive own.....my first ao 600hp and ran mid 80's....boat handles great for the size/speed....
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only running 8lbs of boost.... can run more but its very realible.....588 merlin roller motor 1071 mooneyham blower with inner cooler (2) 1050 carbs big dart al heads cmi....pulls hard...you tube american offshore sneak attack....vid not to good but more to come...
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Love these threads. Lets see more of the rebuild pics.
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Originally Posted by MrSneakAttack
(Post 3463275)
only running 8lbs of boost.... can run more but its very realible.....588 merlin roller motor 1071 mooneyham blower with inner cooler (2) 1050 carbs big dart al heads cmi....pulls hard...you tube american offshore sneak attack....vid not to good but more to come...
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thanks.....the windnoise is bad in the vid.....its a fun boat and it hits hard and has a huge roll in the motor at idle.....i'll post sum more vids and pics.....
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