'87 Mirage Intruder restoration pics
 

Growing up in the Seattle area, the Mirage boats were the cool boat to have in the 80s and 90s. About 10 years ago I picked up this Mirage and have been enjoying it ever since. A few years ago I put a 405HP 383 stroker in it. Last fall I decided it was time for a restoration as the floor was getting soft and the colors were dated. I'll post a bunch of pics in the following posts of the restoration. I did everything myself (with friends helping) as I love doing projects like this. We love how it turned out.

Here are a couple pics of it before the restoration. You can see the interior colors are a little dated. The exterior looks good in the picture but the gelcoat was definitely faded.

We started taking out the old interior and carpet to find the floor rot.

More floor removal

Tank removed. Found the rot went into the stringers too. That was a fun discovery. Interesting construction on this boat. The stringers didn't really have any glass on the side towards the foam. I expected stringers to be glassed in on both sides but there wasn't any significant amount on the foam side. That being the case, we decided to replicate how Mirage did it since it was structurally sound for 30 years. So, we retained the original foam which was dry and sound.

Test fitting some of the new pieces.

We glassed both sides of the wood with 1700 prior to it being installed.

We used plenty of "peanut butter" to make sure the pieces were bonded solid prior to glassing over. You learn so much doing these projects. If I had to do it over again I would have definitely pulled the engine!!! It would have saved time and our backs!

Doing some more "peanut butter". We glassed the stringers in with 3 layers of 1700 (as shown before all the wood was also done with 1 layer of 1700 on each side prior to install) Then we installed the cleaned out tank with a new sending unit.

2 layers of 1700 were put on the floor (in addition to the layer already on the wood)

2 layers of gelcoat were applied (wax in the second coat of course)