My Rescued Malibu 21 XLV Project

[ahopkins22LSV]

Surprised the carpet came that clean! Good luck with the rest of the rehab!

Me too! OP all you did was pressure wash the carpet?

And nice work, looks like you have made some pretty good, yet timely progress on this. Will be a beautiful boat when you are done.

[DefenderBob]

For the carpet all I did was mix Purple Power 50/50 with water and put in my gallon sprayer to soak it really good. I bought a 1700psi electric pressure washer from Home Depot and sprayed the carpet down. It's almost new looking now

[TNWILSON]

Following this thread. Nice work so far! Really wish I would have documented my rehab project like you have. Mine was about as bad...leaves piled up level with the seats!!

[Rednucleus]

Great save! Saw your impeller pics and wanted to share this - from my Ski Sanger DLX -

[Soon2BV]

Is the bow section all one level? I have never seen that. Tanks?

[DefenderBob]

Is the bow section all one level? I have never seen that. Tanks?

The bow section had a ballast in it. It's all one level and the cushions go on top of it

[Soon2BV]

Very cool. Great project! Good luck and enjoy.

[DUKENO1]

Wow....just wow.....have never seen a boat so poorly cared for. I guess the previous owners are loaded to what the hey?

Definitely subscribed! Good luck...should be awesome when you are finished!

[TXBu]

Any more updates?

[Raimie]

What about the the other vinyl? Will you be replacing that too?

Great job on the progress! Its looking a lot better!

[boardjnky4]

It's amazing how well the boats clean up. Looking good!

[DocPhil]

Seems like this type of boat could be a great money maker too. I'm not saying you should sell it at all but this is a great find. Cosmetic issues mainly but the guts are solid.

Needed a new impeller and fluids (obviously!).

But you could flip it and make 15K!

[REW]

For the carpet all I did was mix Purple Power 50/50 with water and put in my gallon sprayer to soak it really good. I bought a 1700psi electric pressure washer from Home Depot and sprayed the carpet down. It's almost new looking now

I use laundry detergent with the same pressuer washer. not quite as strong though.

[DefenderBob]

I plan on doing the top portion of the seats over the winter. The guy that did my seats asked me just to bring me in the bottoms so he wouldn't be overwhelmed and so I could also enjoy the boat some.

Last night I took a professional polisher to the side of the boat. Its really starting to shine now! Using some super duty 3m compound. I've only gone over the port side of the boat, but its already looking a bunch better.

[DocPhil]

You consider wet sanding

Pm "inlandlaker"

[DefenderBob]

Wetsanding is something I have considered. I jumped to a really abrasive cutting compound to see if I could get a clear gel coat out of it. Here is a piece of how much better it already looks. This is a part of a 3 step process

[Fman]

Holy toledo!, that is impressive, how long does a boat take to get that oxidized in the sun?

DB, I just did my first gel repair from a rock chip under the boat. It was really not bad, I started with 400, then went to 600 and ended with 1500 wet sanding, followed my McGuries Scratch X and it buffed to near perfection. Would be hard for anyone to tell where I did the repair. I see you have some deep grooves that will require gel repair. I ordered the 2 oz jars of Spectrum that are color matched to the year of your malibu, they are cheap and will do a lot of gel repair. You could definitely use those on some of those deeper grooves that wet sanding will not get rid of.

Impressive restoration, I love seeing projects like this and old boats come back to life!

Edited August 4, 2015 by Fman

[mrnate450r]

Any updates?

[DocPhil]

Holy toledo!, that is impressive, how long does a boat take to get that oxidized in the sun?

DB, I just did my first gel repair from a rock chip under the boat. It was really not bad, I started with 400, then went to 600 and ended with 1500 wet sanding, followed my McGuries Scratch X and it buffed to near perfection. Would be hard for anyone to tell where I did the repair. I see you have some deep grooves that will require gel repair. I ordered the 2 oz jars of Spectrum that are color matched to the year of your malibu, they are cheap and will do a lot of gel repair. You could definitely use those on some of those deeper grooves that wet sanding will not get rid of.

Impressive restoration, I love seeing projects like this and old boats come back to life!

Fman, would you mind providing a write up or some info on that gel repair? I have considered this as well if I get some small chips or what not

[wdr]

Doc, just Google Spectrum and it will pop up. They can match any boat with the model and year. I did a screw hole repair with it and like Fman says the repair is nearly invisible. Travis probably did this as well, and it is worth mentioning is I chamfered the hole to avoid potential stress risers coming up after the fix. On previous jobs I did the same thing on both ends of the crack and never saw a reoccurrence in the same spot.

[DocPhil]

Doc, just Google Spectrum and it will pop up. They can match any boat with the model and year. I did a screw hole repair with it and like Fman says the repair is nearly invisible. Travis probably did this as well, and it is worth mentioning is I chamfered the hole to avoid potential stress risers coming up after the fix. On previous jobs I did the same thing on both ends of the crack and never saw a reoccurrence in the same spot.

how did you learn the technique?

[robbennett]

There was a really good write up on wakeworld about gel repair. Guy had a red Nautique and he repaired some good size spots on it.

[DefenderBob]

I finally got most of the stuff wrapped up on the boat this past week. I changed out the impeller and finished installing the sound system. It sounds amazing! Also installed most of the seats. There are a few more that need to be recovered.

We took the boat out this past Friday and Saturday. Put it through every kind of test possible and it worked flawlessly. Ran like a champ. The only issue that came about was the end of the day Saturday...the depth gauge started reading 0.5 feet and was giving an alarm. I need to track down the transducer and see what is going on.

Here are a few pictures of the boat how it currently sits.

Before and after of the seats:

Some pictures of the first day it's been on the water in years:

[DocPhil]

There was a really good write up on wakeworld about gel repair. Guy had a red Nautique and he repaired some good size spots on it.

Link?

[boardjnky4]

Link?

http://www.wakeworld.com/forum/showthread.php?t=674757