86 Skier ready for new floor

[Planefreak]

I am planning on reflooring my Malibu this winter. I've put it off for three years now and its about time that I do it. There are several spots that dry rot has made the floor weak and soft. The two front bolts holding the drivers seat have ripped through the floor now and I need to get it taken care of. My boat doesn't get as much use as it used to but it is still used a lot. When on land it is inside a shop that is dry for the most part.

I've never really worked inside of a boat. I've worked on cars, houses... but never boats and I understand there are several differences to be considered. I am in need of a good guide on how to go about my project. Since it is so old, I'm probably going to replace the floor that is exposed to the open air and heavy traffic so just about everything but the wood under the bow.

Any suggestions, comments, guides.. please post.

Thanks, Travis

[Malibusteve]

Planefreak,

I'm pretty sure that Malibu's of that vintage used a wood stringer system with glass over foam for the flooring similar to what would be found in a correct craft. There is much information on handling these kinds of repairs on the CorrectCraftFan.com website. Specifically, there was a thread started by Skibum over there that is very detailed.

In fact, see if this link will work:

http://www.correctcraftfan.com/forum/forum...ger+replacement

It's not a Malibu he's working on, but at the very least it should give you a place to get started. The build process for all of these boats was probably similar back then. This type of work is very tedious and time consuming especially if you have stringer rot and need to fabricate a stringer from nothing. Hopefully, yours is not that extensive.

Good luck

malibusteve

[68Slalom]

Your in for a pretty big job, do you have anyone with fiberglass experience that can help you?

[NAM75]

Try and lay your new stringers against the old ones before you tear them out. If they're rotten, they come out in chunks, and you don't have

anything to copy on.

[Planefreak]

Sorry, it has taken me so long to reply. I am aware that this job is going to take some time and lots of elbow grease. I'm a little confused about the whole flooring situation. You mentioned glass over foam. I'm assuming the foam is for extra flotation should something bad ever occur. Is there any reason for the glass? By glass you mean fiberglass right?

What are my replacement options? This floor lasted 22 years. What can I use that will have a long life.

[68Slalom]

Sorry, it has taken me so long to reply. I am aware that this job is going to take some time and lots of elbow grease. I'm a little confused about the whole flooring situation. You mentioned glass over foam. I'm assuming the foam is for extra flotation should something bad ever occur. Is there any reason for the glass? By glass you mean fiberglass right?

What are my replacement options? This floor lasted 22 years. What can I use that will have a long life.

I did a project like this on an old sanger bubble deck jet boat that I really liked. The first thing you have to do is make sure that the hull is solid and if there is any moisture damage that you remove the it before trying to work the glass in, if you've never done this type of work my suggestion would be to go talk to several people that can guide you. There are lots of books and articles on stringer and floor repairs, but there is nothing like the experience you'll get from this. Me personally, I would never do it again. Way too much work unless it's on a boat that is irreplaceable, don't get discouraged but that's just me

[Planefreak]

I'm looking forward to learning something and new and for all the stories that will come out of this... I got a chance to take some pics. Let me know if you see any warning signs that lead to trouble!!! I think the stringers look fine but this is just one side of it.

[termite]

Do a search as there was a member that posted good photos and info on a late 80's sunsetter. I would also inspect the pylon base. Water can get traped in front of base and eat away at it over the years.

[MalibuTime]

Do a search as there was a member that posted good photos and info on a late 80's sunsetter. I would also inspect the pylon base. Water can get traped in front of base and eat away at it over the years.

Yes, I was just thinking the same thing. He had a very extensive set of photos and tore the whole thing down, stripped the hull completely, and I believe did stringer and transom repairs before putting a floor back on made of a newer composite type floor.

Edit - curiosity got the best of me, so I went and searched it out and found two. Both have links to some good pics on a photo sharing site.

Here is the one I was thinking of...

http://www.themalibucrew.com/forums/index....amp;hl=stringer

And another one...

http://www.themalibucrew.com/forums/index....=rebui&st=0

Edited January 14, 2009 by TheBlackPearl

[BlastRlxi]

You may want to drill into the wood stringers in some spots and check what comes out. If the wood coming out on the drill bit is wet, you have much bigger problems. If it is dry, your stringers should be in good shape. Just make sure to glass over the holes to seal them back up.

[martinarcher]

You may want to drill into the wood stringers in some spots and check what comes out. If the wood coming out on the drill bit is wet, you have much bigger problems. If it is dry, your stringers should be in good shape. Just make sure to glass over the holes to seal them back up.

Right on. The guy I bought my boat off of had the floor replaced professionally. I checked out the stringers in case they were overlooked. Luckily they were solid and the deal went through. No sense in laying new floor down on rotten stringers. Hopefully yours are still solid. Certainly look through rugger's pics of his Sunsetter project (link above). He did a great job and lucky for others took pics and shared his project to help other out.

He did go into detail on the replacement. They layed a new wood floor down and fiberglassed it to the hull along the perimeter as you would expect. The technology has come a long way since my boat was new, so they added some things to the floor that weren't there originally. One is a filler material that is put between the wood the place the wood meets the hull. It is flexible and allows the hull/floor to flex and the joint to stay tight. It looks pretty nice and turned out well. Since I wasn't the one who had the floor replaced I missed out on the details, and only got them second hand through the previous owner. Hopefully there is someone on the board who can elaborate on the materials they use. I know I would like to know a little more about it.

[68Slalom]

I'm looking forward to learning something and new and for all the stories that will come out of this... I got a chance to take some pics. Let me know if you see any warning signs that lead to trouble!!! I think the stringers look fine but this is just one side of it.

Looks like your starting off on a good note, try and take more pictures along the way

[Lee52]

I'm looking forward to learning something and new and for all the stories that will come out of this... I got a chance to take some pics. Let me know if you see any warning signs that lead to trouble!!! I think the stringers look fine but this is just one side of it.

Looks like your starting off on a good note, try and take more pictures along the way

It's well worth the time to use an angle grinder to grind through the fiberglass and get to bare wood at several points along the bottom edge of each stringer. I'm in the middle of essentially the same project on my '88 Skier, only I'm planning to tear it down to the bare hull and replace all the wood. The flooring in mine has delaminated and rotted in several places and looks almost exactly the same as yours. Not to be the bearer of bad news, but my stringers are shot. If you do any grinding, start right where the stringers meet the transom. For mine, I got through the fiberglass and then was able to remove the back six inches of each stringer with a screwdriver and a chisel. And since they butt into the transom core, the bottom half of that was rotten as well.

I only have a few pictures so far, but I can post them if it would help at all.

[88Skier]

Lee52, Could you post some pictures? The floor is getting shot in my 88 Skier and I will be tackling it at some point. The section of floor under the rear seat has been rotted for 10 years, but I noticed this past fall when I was getting it ready for storage that the whole area around the driver's seat is mush. I'm just finishing up a floor job in an old CC Mustang. Fotunately the main stringers were ok in that and I just had to do the secondaries and the floor. I hope that's the case with my Skier as the mains are a bg job. I know on the CC 2001s they say to support the hull really well before removing the stringers so the hull will keep the correct shape. I imagine that needs to be done on the Malibus as well?

[Woodski]

I would look in to replacing the wood floor with the new flooring material used. A friend had his newer Response done becuause the floor got soft. Then you would not have to worry about rot again. The newer floor material is very light and stiff.

[Lee52]

Here are a few pictures of where I'm at right now with my '88 Skier. Unfortunately, the project is on hold until I move to Las Vegas in March, but having a garage will be a lot easier than overstaying my welcome in somebody else's driveway.

The rotten floors seem pretty typical of these boats, and I can't say I was surprised by the stringers and the transom. Everything chiseled out of the transom was rotten; a lot of what's left still seems solid, but partially replacing rotten wood is a pretty hopeless venture.

The eventual goal is to replace the stringers with mahogany, then do the floors and transom with something like Nida-Core or Plascore.

[Lee52]

Two more pictures:

Hopefully I'm not hijacking the thread, but 88Skier, to answer your question, once I park the boat in the garage I'm going to put the trailer on jackstands and add extra bracing along the keel and chines, plus anywhere that looks like it might be unsupported. Then it's not going to move until all the structural work is done. I can't imagine a much worse situation than the hull sagging, then building that into the repair job. Having driven and worked on hulls before that are slightly off, I would prefer to spend the time up front preparing it rather than trying to grind the bottom when it doesn't run right.

[Planefreak]

I'm just curious about the amount of time your boat was in the water and how it was stored each year. My boat used to get a lot more use in the summertime but not so much anymore. During the off season it is stored in a large dry barn. There is rarely any water or even moisture that gets to it. I'm just trying to get an idea if yours spent lots of time in the water and didn't fully dry very often. I"m trying to figure out if the stringers are likely bad.

[Lee52]

I'm just curious about the amount of time your boat was in the water and how it was stored each year. My boat used to get a lot more use in the summertime but not so much anymore. During the off season it is stored in a large dry barn. There is rarely any water or even moisture that gets to it. I'm just trying to get an idea if yours spent lots of time in the water and didn't fully dry very often. I"m trying to figure out if the stringers are likely bad.

Mine was run heavily through the '90s, moderately from about 2000 to 2005, and hardly any since then. It only spent one summer actually in the water parked at a dock all season; otherwise it has been trailered everywhere. Eight years of dry storage in a garage, with the rest of it being covered outside. Not really ideal, but I've always done what I can to at least keep it dry and to prevent water from pooling up in the bilge. If yours has been stored in a dry barn, then overall it probably fared better than mine.

Yours may have done better than mine, but I guess I'm permanently skeptical of any old wood. Even if the boat dries out between uses, any stress cracks in the fiberglass can still let water into the wood over time, and once that happens, the wood never really dries out.

[DWhynot]

Here's some more data points...

My '87 Skier, which I bought new, has sat IN the water (at the dock or on the mooring) from mid-May to late Sept every year up til now.

I did a restoration a couple of years ago (engine, upholstery, etc, etc...) including the floor. It wasn't too bad, cut out the rot, replace with pressure treated plywood (the original didn't look like PT), apply liberal amounts of FG cloth and resin over the original remains, and cover with new carpet... However, being in the water for as many years at it has, it has aquired a "list" to one side (i.e. waterlogged stringer). Yeh I know I shoulda/coulda repaired or replaced the rails...didn't want to go there.

So, my solution moving forward is, try and take it out of the water more often, and to add a battery on the opposite side.

If anyone needs any advice (or a sympathetic ear) on restoring a classic skier, been there, done that.

Doug (somewhere in the lakes region of NH) Whynot

[rugger]

I'd like to put in my 2 cents as well from experience. I rebuilt the 87 sunsetter that was referred to above (http://picasaweb.google.com/myfourday). I learned a couple of valuable things...

1) You probably have a lot more rot than you think. What started as a "spring cleaning" floor patch job for me turned into replacing the stringers, transom, seat backs and floor. Figure out first how much time/money you want to put into an old boat. I love mine, and did most of the labor myself so I saved A LOT, but still question if it was the right move. In this economy, you can pick up a great deal on a newer boat. If you love your boat and like projects, fix it. I know mine is now made better than original and will last a lifetime.

2). The only way to really know how much rot you have is to expose the wood. Bang on it with a hammer, drill out a sample, etc. Get rid of all the rot, or it will spread like cancer.

3). Before you do anything major, take lots of measurements. Remember, if you put the floor in 1/4" off from what it was, then your seats and mounts will now be 1/4" too.

4). If you replace the floor, check the foam for saturation. To me if you go that far, then it'd make sense to replace all the water-logged foam with new so that the boat is balanced, "tight" and back to original shape. Many (or all) of those sunsetters and skiers did not have a bulkhead across the back, which means that the water could get sucked up right into the flotation foam and find the voids. I would suggest adding a bulkead across the back to totally seal it off (look at the pics in mine before and after).

5). If you replace the floor, I would take the extra time to glass both the top and bottom. Otherwise, look into composite material (that's what I went with).

Good luck whatever you decide. Hopefully you can get away with a little fix.

[Planefreak]

I've done just about all of those. I understand how much this project could come to and I know it is very time consuming. I'll probably create a new thread in a few weeks when I get the floor completely out and figure out if there is any extra stuff that needs to comes out.

I see there is a short piece of wood still attached to the sides of your boat. Is that just the floor that hasn't been removed yet?

I think I know what you mean by bulkhead... but to clarify: The glassed in board that is between the stringers?

[88Skier]

Do start a thread when you start your project and take lots of pictures and show your work. That will be a great addition to the site as not many members have rebuilt their boats yet. I've got to do mine and being able to see yours ahead of time will be really helpful.

[rugger]

The wood on the sides are for the shelves (or whatever the boat jargon calls it). I left it because it was in good shape but the side piece came out for better access to the floor and it gets glassed on top of the news floor anyway. Ended up using the composite material for that too.

Yes, that's what I meant about bulkhead. I didn't know anything about boats until I got this one... but it was mind-boggling to think these boats didn't have something there. I guess these were the boats that put Malibu on the map but boy was that a stupid way to save time/money.

BTW, I did a lot of work but I opted to have a glass shop put in the stringers. It's a critical component and you should really know what you're doing first. I was comfortable glassing some things, but not the main stringers. Unless you've been doing this for a while, I'd highly recommend working with a shop for that. (plus they take on the liability of the hull). You can then do all the monkey labor (grinding, preparing) and pay a shop for the critical stuff. I also tapped into their expertise on beefing up the transom for a wedge option. (although I haven't put one on).

Hope that helps. oh, and if you cut out the transom... (or whoever's pic that was in this thread), work slowly, don't pry, or you can crack the gel coat.

[Planefreak]

That does seem like an odd way to save money. So the shelf on the sides is underneath the floor of the boat??? How did you cut out your floor?

I have been worrying about replacing the stringers. It's not something I really want to tackle. I don't mind cutting, grinding, fitting some glassing but replacing stringers is critical. I'll probably take it to a shop if they are rotten.

I've been looking on the net at composite flooring but I'm not sure what to get. I've found some flooring that is basically composite reinforced by fiberglass, but I'm not sure what to buy. Its $280 a sheet which sounds ridiculous. What did you use?