1988 Sunsation Rocket restoration
 

Long story short I worked at sunsation when I was 17-18 I'm now 45 so many years ago. at the time they only built the Rocket and I enjoyed working there and learned a lot. always wanted one but never went and got one you know kids and life get in the way. well a week before labor day I browsed CL looking for one and found one in Michigan for sale and liked the low price so off I went to get it did a marathon drive to Michigan from Georgia left Friday night at 8:30 and was back home Saturday night at 10:30 to say the least the boat was rough. Motor was blown. oil everywhere in cockpit, cabin had been redone and not well I might add. first order of business was clean everything to see what I had to work with. then pulled the motor. it had 6 of 8 rods spun and the mains were not much better. so in search of a new motor well it turned out it was cheaper to rebuild it so I did reworked crank 30 over pistons, swapped the peanut heads for 049 heads performer intake, and basically everything else is brand new in the motor :)
so I decided to yank out everything all the carpet and headliner so basically the boat was gutted I had found many wires leading to no where so I traced all of them down what wasn't being used was pulled out.
New dash panel was made, all new lights , new radio and speakers, new cabin doors, new headliner , new carpet, New courtesy lights in cockpit, new cabin lights new rope lights, fixed the rear seat it had been painted , I now have just about everything to put it back together. and can't get it to stop raining here in Georgia. one thing I have been trying to find out is what was the original front seat sizes for the wood .

Here's some photos

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/sh...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/MP...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/aT...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Bc...=w1328-h747-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/e9...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pQ...=w1712-h963-no

theres more photos but don't want to flood the first post :)

Looks Great :bananalove:

Need more pics

Best way to do pics since it doesn't look like you can attach pics is here

https://goo.gl/photos/cVaJQMc98gC9XUDEA

So far I have stripped out the whole cabin removed the carpet from the cockpit wall sides and then removed the glue added 2 LED courtesy lights on drivers side need to add 2 to the passenger side. also need to add 2 red led lights to the passenger side. for night driving the red LED's to save night vision and the white for when people need to get off. the boat came with 2 red lights on the drivers side for couresy lights I'm just adding to it by adding 2 to the passenger side and then adding white on separate switch. the cabin light was gone so I bought one that will be installed when the headliner is put back in. I bought all new lights for the bow and stern. I bought vents to replace the old dated chrome vents on the back of the deck . I bought all new headliner and carpet for the whole boat. replaced the nonworking Kenwood radio with a boss marine radio and bought 4 new speakers 2 for the rear seat and 2 for the front of the cockpit. those have been installed already. the rear hatch weighted about 100 pounds it was soaking wet and delaminated so I pulled off all the balsa and cleaned it up Bought some 3/4 ply to laminate back in. the past couple of weeks I have had bronchitis and had a few teeth removed so I have been down and not able to work on it to much. I did manage to sand the whole cabin area down so that I can glass up a few things in the cabin and then install the new headliner. I made new cabin doors the old ones were made out of Plexiglass 1/2 inch thick and they broke a lot well this boat was no exception so I had 2 boards cut up of starboard and made new doors. also under the rear seat there was a board that was 1/2 inch ply I replaced it also with starboard. same with the porta potty lid in the cabin was made of 1/2 inch ply covered in vinyl so I replaced it in starboard too. the front cabin liner was never glassed in as this boat was one of the early boat it was just put in with a bondo like substance so when I worked there we started glassing that in instead of just the bondo stuff so I will be glassing it in too. and the front bulkhead the ply pulled away from the glass tabs it was held in with so I will be reglassing that. the wiring was a mess when I got the boat so I have redone most of it I will be repainting the deck white because summer here in Georgia a black boat will not be fun. I will be also painting the bottom white but leaving the hull sides Black. here is the plan for the graphics
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Si...=w1778-h963-no

Looks good. Nice work!

Thank you .

Very nice.

Nice project but I say leave the black hull sieds as is, I'm not really feeling that color scheme. Just my opinion!

Couldn't agree more:
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...psebb7d45c.jpg

that's basically my concept but with the graphics white deck white hull bottom and black sides. very nice Pantera

Nice project and a bonus bit of personal history too!

Looking at the Pantera above (beautiful boat but need to clean up that trailer!) makes me question your graphics. First thoughts, I liked the graphics but maybe a bit too 'heavy'. Too much and too dark. Get your deck and hull bottom done then stand back and have a careful think.

Maybe something simple like a boot line stripe and a logo-styled name instead? You could do a matching stripe on the white deck also. Remember, this boat is a bit more of a classic and something simple could give it timeless appeal. A bit like a Donzi Classic, 'less is more'.

Just a thought.

RR

Love that!

Haven't posted in awhile cold weather has kept me from working on the boat but the past 2 weeks it's been really nice so I have been working on it. It's getting there.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/tI...B=w542-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jl...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d3...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/hj...3=w542-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Bh...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/zy...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/04...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/IF...=w1712-h963-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/u2...=w1712-h963-no

thinking about these graphics. this is a Sunsation Aggressor
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/m_...7=w600-h337-no

I like those graphics much better. In my opinion, it won't be long before all these tribal swoshes and slashed we see now look outdated.

Awesome Project!!! Have you checked out Raceline Digital for graphics? They just did my boat and I think they did a couple other guys boats who are posting on this thread. Chris at Raceline was great to work with and never complained when I changed my mind on colors and design. They have about 100 different graphic designs and about 50 different colors to choose from. Send them a side profile of your boat and they will do free concept mock up for you.

https://www.racelinedigital.com/store/

that's where the graphic design came from :)

I don't even know where to start I have done so much lately. Boat is out of the garage. Motor is in and wired up, dash is wired up, cabin is back together, carpet is in , the added red lights in the cockpit are wired and working now, the white led courtousy lights are wired . just waiting on a few breakers to show up so I can wire the switch one breaker was bad. had to have the header welded , replaced nav lights work. Kill switch and ignition have been replaced and wired up and now work . added a phone port to charge phones. wheeled the boat out had to buy new batteries and trays and new starter. cockpit interior is out getting redone. a few more weeks it should be in the water. :) here's some photo's.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ae...=w1748-h983-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xB...Y=w553-h983-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/1D...k=w553-h983-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ei...=w1311-h983-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/yj...=w1311-h983-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/YM...=w1311-h983-no
also added some polished valve covers .
here is the Google Photo's shared album of the boat so far.
https://goo.gl/photos/cVaJQMc98gC9XUDEA
and the first firing of the motor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5_I-PBnpsI

Looks great!

Im doing a similar project on a 98 Sunsation Agressor, ill post up some pics soon in a new thread not to take over yours. Unfortunately mine didnt start in bad shape, just had bad luck and and replacing the motor shortly.

What size engine did you put in the boat?

it's a factory 330 hp 454 that's now .30 over I got rid of the peanut port heads and went to the cast 049 heads edlbrock intake and a bigger cam with the cmi split tube dry exhaust figuring about 450hp now

Sounds real good! Ive got a 502 ProCharged in mine and there is no room to fix anything. Yours looks like youve got enough room to get around the engine bay to get to things.

I really like the build, Id love the boat with black on black theme, matte black with ultra high gloss ; )

-Matt

the interior was horrible when i got it I had kicked around the idea because of that repainting the whole thing but in the end i decided not to I'm doing the interior to match the black
here's the colors for the interior.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Jp...YDEbUk=s250-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/cm...ncglEY=s250-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rV...ombE94=s251-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/MK...RNLPCI=s251-no

in this design
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/12...w=w800-h600-no

I think that will look great. My company make aftermarket accessories for the powersports industry and we produce knee pads and such for ATVs, Motorcycles, Snowmobiles, etc using hydro-turf and i have been using it as accent pieces on the boat where you get in and out and on the front which you could always do to add a little contrast if you decide the black is too boring in the end.

the interior should look something like this color wise
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2c...8=w400-h267-no

with the exterior something like this
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RT...=w1345-h432-no

Nice! Are you going to be using the newer style "Carbon Fiber" cloth for the interior material?

Also, Sunsation just sent me the artwork files of their logo if you need them for your design guy to save time/money, i can email the files to you if youd like.

nope just normal vinyl. Joe sent me the same file about 2 weeks ago too.

You didnt happen to pick this boat up near Keego Harbor Michigan did you?

yes I did about a mile from my aunts house it use to be on lake st clair then the guy I picked it up from used it on cass lake

I knew it as soon as I saw it.

I actually came close to going and looking at this boat back when it was listed on CL out by Lake St Clair a few years ago. Then I was sitting on the sandbar on Cass Lake 2 Summers ago when it showed up. It had some god awful high back seats in it!! He ran it all that Summer, I dont remember seeing it last Summer.

he popped the motor and replaced the seats so it has been a almost daily rebuild of the boat since I got it last labor day. here it is as of last weekend.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LE...=w1748-h983-no

Looking good. The seats used to be higher than the windscreen, ruined the whole look of the boat.

there's videos of this boat on youtube do a search for sensation rocket and the videos are of the only black sunsation. it shows the high back seats.

cabin before
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/oe...=w1748-h983-no

cabin after
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2I...=w1748-h983-no

Dash before
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/eo...=w1748-h983-no

Dash after
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/4o...=w1748-h983-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/79...=w1748-h983-no

motor before
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/v1...=w1748-h983-no

motor after (still cleaning it all up tools and such were in this photo)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/fw...=w1748-h983-no

hull before
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ME...=w1748-h983-no

hull after
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/NV...=w1748-h983-no

Hahaha, I just youtubed it.....and YUP....those were the seats I remembered.

You've done a nice job with it.

Looking good.
One thing I would fix is that spliced up fuel line.

I live on Cass Lake. I remember that boat. You have brought it back to life............ Nice work................. Bill :)

thank you :) waiting on interior still then I will take some good photo's on the water :)

WOW! Looks great man, the white or gray stripe really makes the green pop.

it's a silver metallic stripe and thank you very much

nice job looks awesome