A little different my "I/O pontoon build"
 

First time posting but have been reading for a long time. Thought I would share my passion and fun that I have had for the last 2 yrs. (first off I know my spelling and grammar sucks so just look that the pictures if you’re a grammar nazi)

First off lets start with the back ground story. When I got married I acquired the pontoon boat very similar to this one but only 16 feet that was complete rotten out and needing everything from the floor up. Took me 2 summers of getting things the way I wanted and realizing how much I like having a pontoon of my own. Well fast forward to last summer and one of my father in-laws brothers decide that he wanted the pontoon left at the cabin for his drunk a$$ to use. I end up getting paid for the money I spent on the boat but never the amount of time I put in to it.

I had to “give” the other boat back last August, so I have been searching CL and other spots since then. I found this boat in SE Iowa February 26th and drove down and got it March 1st , left the Minneapolis Mn at 4 A.M to try and make it back before dark. When I was talking to the guy on the phone I asked him what condition the tires and lights are in since I have a 600 mile drive back to Minnesota with it. I got the typical response everything works great. I get down there both tires are flat and dry rotted and the lights don’t work. Got the tires aired up shoveled 4” of leaves off the pontoon and head home doing 65mph so I wouldn’t blow the tires up.
I introduce you to a 1989 24” Bass Buggy with a 40hp Evinrude.
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Made it home just before dark.
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At this point I had a lot of “good” ideas running thru my head. I wanted a big boat that would go fast(30mph) and be quiet when it idles down. All on a budget. (didn’t have 10k to spend on a 150hp 4-stroke outboard)
Again CL came into play and search for the next month for an old boat that had the famous GM 4cyl in it. I found this one 2hr away, gave the guy $500 for it.

1972 “something” with a Mercruiser outdrive and GM 140hp 3.0l
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Boat ran really well for being so old
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Removing motor from boat the “easy” way
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Getting rid of boat that no longer floats
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Next was the start of a love hate relationship with my TIG welder. Need to build a 3rd like pontoon that would hold the motor and keep it water tight along with the outdrive. Two 4x8 sheets of .125 5052 alum and stop time in Soildworks laying it and we have something that will work
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The part the motor and out drive need to be 2” thick to support and give the right distance from motor to outdrive. Also need to be tipped back 10’15 degrees to give proper trim angles.
Building the stern for the 3rd pontoon and test fitting the outdrive.
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Over 60ft of TIG welding 2 tanks of Argon and 10 pounds of .125 filler rod shes mostly done. Motor set in place.
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Meanwhile while taking breaks from welding I stripped the pontoon down to its frame and test fitted the new 3rd pontoon.
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Next was getting the motor in 3rd pontoon and getting the frame welded to the old pontoon. Added a few pics so you can get an idea how this was done.
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Woke up from a dream at 1am of having this boat all done and backing it into the water and it just kept sinking. That follow night I went to the lake a floated it for the 1st time. Sits perfectly level and very stable in the back. Even with an 800 pound motor and two guys on the back. (got a lot of looks from people when I was doing this.
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Next was getting the floor and carpet on. You can also see that I add an infloor gas tank that holds 32 gallons.
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At this point I also need to start the body work on the railing as I wanted these to be High Gloss Black. This is where things started to get out of control. Having a neighbor who does auto body work is not always a good thing. One night of talking to him telling me over and over “your building a hotrod pontoon you have to paint it hot rod colors” I gave in to is suggestions an we came up with black railings with a 2012 BWM orange for the center counsel and the sides.
Painting of the center counsel
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Between stripping and sanding the railings down for paint (well over 80hrs) I finished the center counsel and got the pieces of alum for the gauges done and anodize. Really like how these turned out.
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After getting the center counsel back from paint I came the conclusion that this pontoon is turn out way to nice to sit outside while I’m building it. So off the trailer it came and into my 18x32 garage. Still had just enough room to fit the wifes car in every night.
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Over the next weekend I got it all wired up and throttle and steering hooked up. First start up video (she runs).
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We painted the railings in 4 sections each sections took 2 nights to do the primary then the paint.
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Railings and orange sides on the boat. At this point I just cant wait to get it on the water.
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Before I could put it back on the trailer I need to paint and replace the bunks on the trailer. Since my truck was stuck in the back yard and I need 4 18’ boards brought home a TDI VW Golf should work right? (for all the people saying this is not safe I live less than a mile from Menards so go pound sand)
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Next was getting it slide back onto the trailer and out of the garage. As you can see I didn’t have a lot of room and this was rolling it out on the trailer hubs.
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On the trailer with the sides on.
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My goal during this entire build was to have it on the water by June 1st. Surprisingly I was a week ahead of schedule. Memorial weekend was her main outing and she did great. Had one small issue, when you get moving above 25mph it would push water thru the gas tank vent and into the tank. That was easily fixed.
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As I said earlier on of my goals was need to be quiet when idling and be able to go fast when I wanted to. Well with just me in it with a bent up prop with the wrong pitch it did 27mph. Once the bottom skinned ,lifting stakes on and the correct prop I should be good for atleast 35mph.
Here is a few videos of memorial weekend.
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During this hole build I was struggling on what I wanted to do with seats and as the pontoon transformed to what it is today. I knew I could not just throw off the shelf seats on this boat. Thru a lot of research I found the company that builds most of the seats for pontoon boats. I order up the seats and was told I would have them in 3-4 weeks. 2 weeks go by and they call me up saying there done.
Had them shipped to work and man I was like a kid in a candy store on boxing them.
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Nice plush captains chair.
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Installed on the boat .
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That brings us to the end of 2012.

Starting with 2013
This spring i started with polishing the toons and skining the bottom side.

I first started with getting the boat off the trailer
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Then I used some JJV’s pontoon cleaner. This stuff works awesome even on my old boat it took all the scale off and brought them to a nice dull finish. I went over each toon twice and I used a little less then a gallon. Well worth the 30 bucks.
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After it dried I sanded the entire toon (everything I wanted to polish) with some 400 grit sand paper on a random orbital sander.

Next was onto the fun and dirty part. This will make your arm feel like jello and cover you head to toe with black dust. I wore Ear, Eye, and respirator for the first half and will be switching to a full face shield for the 2nd half.
I purchased all my polishing products from here. I had the 6” grinder that I use on metal so I didn’t need that.
Aluminum Compound Kits-Hand Held Buffer - $33.14 : Busch Enterprises, Headquarters for Premium Shine-Zone Products

Started with the Yellow pad and the Brown Bar, working from bottom to the top of the boat. Stopping every 16” to clean the pad and apply more compound. Very important to clean the pad every so often as it will get aluminum build up on it and actually scratch the toons.
Next was onto the Off white pad and white bar. This brought it upto where you see it now.
I did all this in about 2hrs (sanding and the 2 polishing)
Next step will be a final polish then a quick hand polish. All said and done I should have 10hrs into both toons front and back and the sides.

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It’s been an interesting summer with it. Spent this spring/winter (we had snow into may) polishing the toons and skinning the underside of the boat. Went to a SBC early in the yr that I ended up spinning a main bearing on it so I put the 4cyl back in.
Need a new Bimini top as the old one from the boat well was old. Also wanted a wakeboard tower and a place to hanger speakers also wanted nice rolled tubing. Didn’t want to spend a arm and a leg on a bender so I made my own. This was the end result. Some pics of the build and the end result.

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In the garage all welded up with the speakers and top on. Right before paint.
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A week before memorial weekend the Wife and I closed on a cabin 2hrs north of where we live on a nice lake. Since then the truck and Boat stay up there. Instead of driving the truck home I use my car and trailer to bring the tower up.

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Tower on the boat. Really like the way it turned out. I can pull to pins on the top and the bimini goes from 8’x12’ to 8’x6’. From there I can pull to more pins on the bottom and the entire thing tips back and the speaker rest on the swim platfourm.

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Next on the list was to get the bow up. Made a hydro foil for it and got almost 10mph more out of her.

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Here is a video this is with the 4cyl in it.

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Over the summer I kept my eye on CL for a cheap v8 boat so I could take all the running gear off the boat and install it in mine. (really wanted power steering).
2 weeks ago I found this on CL the lady said it ran put need a floor. She was asking 1k for it. After looking it over it had a cracked block outdrive was shot but everything was there. Gave her 200 bucks for it.

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“removed” the motor the easy way.

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Sold the trailer two days later with the boat on it for a grand. (800 dollars profit) Once again I looked on CL for a cheap motor and ended up finding to 5.7lSBC out of a house boat gave the guy 200 bucks for them.

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They hadn’t been run for a while but compression checked out OK. My plan is to get one running and sell it off and then rebuild the other one. Running marine SBC go for about a grand around here. The 2nd motor I’m thinking alum heads and intake a nice marine cam and call her good. I also im going to install a 3rd pontoon that goes all the way back to the motor pod along with lifting strakes on all the toons. I’m pushing for 50mph out of her next yr.

O yea some pictures of the boat on Labor Day weekend this yr. 700 people on a sand bar with not a cloud =good times.
Friends on the boat.


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A little beer bong off the back.
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For 2014

It will be getting a fuel injected LS1 with water cooled manifolds that I’m building this winter.

I must say building this boat almost caused me a divorce with my wife since I was always out working on it. But the first time out she figured out there is a method to my madness. She was/still is a little pissed that I went over the 6k budget that SHE set and that the seats in the pontoon are nicer then the ones in our house.

Totally badass, but I would have been WAY too tempted to put a bench and a throttle on that center-pod and taken it out for a cruise first. :D

Beautiful job. You have serious talent. I especially like your easy drive train removal technique.

Tutbom700- You did a great job!!! Keep it up.

Bryan

Thanks guys. How long do you think a MC-1 or 1st gen Alpha will last behind a LS1?

Mike

Wow best pontoon build ever! Great work!!!!!!!!!

There's people that can afford to buy them which is fine. But I give alot more credit to the people that can build one and on a budget. Nice project and Nice boat.

Turned out real nice, can i send you mine to polish the toons, lol

awesome!