Thanks for the information. We might use it for the last coat on the transom...

6 hours of prep, then glassed in the last 4 stringers tonight....

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Got more done tonight. We finished up the stringers, set the tank in, and finally got the tub back in. I'll have to get some adhesive material to go around the edges tomorrow.I'll also have to get some structural foam to go under the tank. It's just setting in place right now. We went ahead and ran a 1" pvc pipe under the tank and will use a plug in the engine compartment just like the bilge drain on the outside of the hull. The tub sat back exactly in place. The screw holes around the rubrail line up great and the floor rest right on top of the stringers in the correct position. This was a point of concern for us. We did a lot of measuring. We are very happy to be at this point now.



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Looks freaking awesome man. The work is gonna be worth it I hope to do as extensive a restoration on one of these one day I think it would be fun to resurrect a classic.

Thanks Gh700xx,yeah we hope to be done about may-ish. we've still got a lot of work left to do though!

keep the pics coming looks good man

are you not doing the stringers and the transom in the bilge? the reason i ask is i just did the transom and stringers in my 86 panther that were rotten

Yeah we already replaced the transom. The three main stringers in the engine compartment (the ones that support the engines) are solid. There are two small stringers (about 3" tall) that are hollow. The wood was rotted out of them. We vacumed the mulch out of them, and filled them up with resin. We decided not to replace the wood because they were so small we figured they get all their strength from the glass and resin and that the wood more or less acted as a form.

Got some more done today. I bonded the rubrail flange with 3m panel bonding adhesive (epoxy). Before I did that, I shot liquid nails down between the inner and outer in an area about 3-4 inches wide, all the way up to the rubrail flange. Also drilled the stringers up front for the 8 carriage bolts that hold the tub to the stringers. I tell you what, these boats are built like tanks. Everything is heavy and very strong. We also sat the two closets in place. We're gonna keep a lot of the interior, with a few changes. We plan to cover the mirrors with some off white vinyl or carpet material. We'll be install a monitor in the front of the boat and an inverter and bluray player probably in the port closet. In the last boat I had, the kids made big use of that. And while this thing is apart, it will be easy to install now.

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Moving right along. Looking awesome.

moving fast!!!

Foamed and installed the gas tank today. Had to remake some of the wood support for the gas tank cover...

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Looking nice man

Amazing work. Looking good!

Thanks guys. Got the hoses run to the tank and the cover screwed down.


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Nice ya gotta love the wood some of these old tubs had it just looks awesome sometimes.

Yeah, I'm kind of a fan of the wood when it looks good. I know most guys get rid of a lot the wood when restoring these boats. I know 502ss did, and his boat looks great. With this boat I decided to keep the wood partly because a lot of it is in good shape, and I think it looks good. This will be a boat version of a "resto-mod" (on a budget).

I think that is a cool way to do it. its more of what the average Joe could do type build which I really dig being as I myself don't have huge sums of money to throw at my own semi resto project lol. Its cool to seen these boats put back to a semi original look with updated power etc.

awesome thread....I have a 79 panther to re do..your post and pictures have given me a lot of insight to the magnitude of the project at hand....I was considering cutting the tub around the bottom.to expose the stringers...but your approach seems to be the best way to maximise work areas for the repairs .....one question I have tho....is I was considering using lvl..or paralam...as my stringers.....unwaxed and epoxy resin wrapped....is the break in the stringers necessary from bulk head to bulkhead...or I was considering ordering full length and add bulkheads where necessary...since the whole enchilada is exposed.....again I love your detailed ..progress..i hope to do the same...as I progress..i am a newbie here and am so glad to have found this site....russ,ontario,canada

Same here Gh700x. I have 2 kids in college and #3 graduates high school this year. Thanks Russ, when you're taking the boat apart, keep in mind the deck and the "tub" are very heavy and you'll need some engine hoists and a lot of muscle. As far as the necessity of butting the stringers to the bulkheads. I don't know. That's how they did it. So we just put it back like that. One thing we changed though was originally all the stringers and bulkheads were made of two pieces of 3/8" plywood laid flat against each other (without resin inbetween). Which seems odd to me. I'm sure they had a reason to do it that way. We went back with single 3/4" plywood (or 25/32 or whatever the modern equivalent is)

Getting closer to putting the deck back on. I decided to paint the mirrored plastic (or whatever material) pieces instead. We painted them the color of the hull. The cushions are stained worse than I thought they were. I hope they clean up.
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Looking good man

Gonna be out of town til Sunday. I've got 6'x10' more of the heavy fiberglass cloth that just came in. This should be plenty unless I decide to redo the engine hatches. The reinforcements are starting to break away from flat part. I dont know if its because of rot in the wood or what. I'll have to check that out.

We're gonna try to get the engine bay glassed up, sanded smooth and epoxied ( got 5 gallons of sher wil 2 part white epoxy coming) and also the rot on the rear section of the deck repaired and bonded back together with the deck screwed back to the boat. Hoping to get all that done next week. We've gotta get moving on this boat in order to get it water worthy before too far into summer.

Whats you guys opinions on painting the bottom with auto paint? The only concern I have is the weight if the boat on the bunks. I know it will hold up in the water (boat will be kept on trailer) Unless the bottom paint is a dead match, I think it looks bad, and would rather risk a little paint damage on the bottom than have an ugly mismatch with the bottom paint (unless you guys give me some information I havent thought of)

No opinions on bottom painting with urethane car paint?

Guess not, ok, got some more done tonight. I hope we can paint the engine compartment tomorrow...

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Wow, great work! Seems like a big job with great satisfaction once it's completed.

Thanks NVR2FST. The engine compartment is taking longer than we hoped. We put a final layer on the transom tonight, did a lotta sanding and made acover to go over the rear of the gas tank. I'm not a big fan of the raw look of the tank and the foam in the engine compartment. Also this will allow us to stand in the front center of the engine compartment without worrying about stepping off into the gas tank cavity.

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Looking good man

Thanks GH700xx. Well, still don't have the engine compartment painted. We're gonna try to paint it tomorrow. I've gotta do something with the thru hull exhaust. It was installed too low on the transom and interferes with the power steering. The two inner exhaust openings have to go up at least 1 1/2". I think I'm gonna move them all the way up against the rubrail. Even so, they won't be high enough to allow for the swim deck. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about the swim deck.

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Where did the swim deck fit before?? Or did this boat not have one??

It had one, the previous owner removed it when he installed the thru hull exhaust. I've got the swim deck that was on the boat. I was gonna try to make it work but I don't know if I want to go through all the trouble. Have you guys seen any of these boats with the exhaust coming out above the rubrail?

Here's one coat of bilge paint. This was a thinned down coat I sprayed out of a gun. I'll go back monday and brush and roll all the imperfections. It's amazing how much this stuff covers. I'm using a sherwin williams water based marine application epoxy. Good stuff.

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wow!
amazing what paint can do!!!

looks new! i remember when i did my many bilges!!! always motivating to see it when its done!!!

Looks awesome man I'm trying to decide what to use in my bilge/engine room if it don't clean up good enough.

Its called the stabbin cabin...keep the CSI black lights away from the area.... :eekdrop::eekdrop:

I got the 2nd coat of bilge paint down tuesday night. We also started taking the engines apart too. We hope to get a fair amount done to the engines tonight as well as the transom cut and some things going back in the engine compartment tonight. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with the paint. I was thinking of leaving the cockpit upholstery like it is to speed up getting this thing together. If I do that, I'll need to stick to some burnt orange/brownish paint scheme. I don't know if I want to do that. If I do, maybe something like this.

Here it is now...

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Maybe something like this....

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The colors look bad in windows paintbrush. The burnt orange color would prolly be code A17 off a nissan 350z. Haven't decided on the other color. The windshield I have now is the low profile job and I plan on painting it an accent color. What do you guys think?

think that would look cool just a good nice color scheme I think.

We got some more done tonight. All the pieces we drilled out of the transom came out stuck together well...

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Got some wiring and trim pumps installed in the engine comartment..

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We took the Instrument panel and cleaned it really good with some degreaser before putting it back in the boat.

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Getting the deck ready to set back in place...

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Finally deck back in place. We still have some glass work left to do. We gotta repair the rot on the back of the rear part of the deck and glass it back to the rest of the deck. Gotta fill the existing thru hull exhaust holes and move them up about 1.5 inches. Also gotta repair some stress cracks in the engine hatches. We've got a lot more to do (paint whole boat and trailer) and warm weathers coming soon...

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Cooking right along