Jon well a least your tank came out easy compared to my nightmare. mine was foam in placed as is yours. The problem was the access cover was a smaller size than the tank.But the area between stringers (which mine are glassed over ) is longer and wider than tank. so Idid not have access to all the foam around the tank. My bright idea was at first to chip all the foam I could with long knife. This worked,the tank was loose and would slide side to side. Now the problem was the front and rear which had 3inches of foam that I couldn't cut. My great idea was to use a power washer to blast foam out! The fun starts now. What I did not know was that area dose not have a drain for safety reasons. Half way thru blasting out foam I realize the tank is starting to float !
This making the little slot to blast foam out smaller!Now
the tank is pushed up against the floor no way to drain
out water to get tank down. I Finlay did what I should have done in the beginning. Break out the sawsall.! with a couple of small cuts tank popped right out. Glassed up floor to replace pieces and life was good.

Well today I spent the day grinding. This part of the job SUCKS. I purchased a Tyvek suit, taped it at the wrists and ankles. Then I put on a hood, repirater, and safty glasses and just went to town. Took me about 4 hours of grinding and it is ready for me to make the new bulkhead. As you can see from the picture it made one heck of a mess!!!!

Jon

This is the port side grinded out.

This is the Starboard side. The hump in the middle is the drain from the bow.

I had a project like yours a few years back. It was on a 77 Magnum 25 ft. I still remember the grinding and the dust (shiver). Make sure you have a good resperator when you reglass the stringers in, my first one wasn't for resin fumes and I almost passed out under the deck. All said and done, when it was finished I was dam proud and a little ichy....good luck and don't give up!

Jon, I know that you are doing a great job. One thing that I would highly recommend is to use a good epoxy such as West System to do the stringer glass work. It will cost about 50% more for the epoxy, but the laminate and the bond to the wood will be much stronger than basic polyester resin. I am the one restoring the Cigarette 35' Awesome. My project has been on hold due to the winter, my mistake in getting headers that are 1" too wide for my 34" engines centerline placement, and the fact that I was downsized out of my career a year ago! Good luck. Bob.

I feel your pain buddy, Been there!

Mark that is not your 302 is it?

I spent another 3 hours working on the boat today. Spent the day vacuming out the boat to make it more enjoyable to work in (if it can be called that :D ). I then took a piece of Luan (sp) wood and cut 2" strips that were 4' long. I then took the strips and used a hot glue gun to hold the pieces together. This is what I used as my template as the cost of the marine plywood is about 160 bucks a sheet. I then took the template that was hot glued together and put it on the Luan again and made a solid template out of that. I then packed it in and headed home to watch the game :D

Jon

Go, Jon, Go!

Keep us posted and show me the way. I cut out the engine compartment liner on the Magnum today and found that there are no real stringers where the engine mounts, just a real beefy liner. Also found about 50 gallons of water trapped in there.

Maybe we should get the board gods to create a Project Section for the trailer queens?

Ok finally got some pictures to update. This picture shows the construction of the first template. The wood that I am using is called OKUMA and it costs about 150 or so bucks a sheet. So making a mistake is NOT a option!!!! So it is a measure twice cut once type of a deal. I took 2" thick strips of luan that were 4 feet long. I then laid them into the boat and hot glued them together.