Bought my first boat - '94 Echelon LX

[nosnarb]

@woodski:  Im really starting to lean towards the woven vinyl.  Its less expensive than even the fauxseadek, its tough as nails (I have a dining room rug made of the stuff and its taken a beating over the last 6-7 years, I don't have to worry about punctures and its very easy to clean.  I don't think I will have to mess with the templates and that kind of thing either since it installs like carpet.  

Re: the gunwales do have the only good carpet in the boat but it was really cheap, thin stuff and the install doesn't look that great.  It won't break my heart to pull it out too.  

The trim around the rear floor compartment had a few screws into the fiberglass where the rivets were.  There may be a leftover rivet or screw that I have missed that is preventing me from pulling that out.

Thanks on the steering wheel!  My local oreillys had that wood grant wheel mis-shelved so they sold it to me for the $36.00 that it was marked   I'd like to at least replace the knob with a matching wood.  I don't know if I will do the dash in wood also or not.  Flooring is likely to be gray so I don't want the dash to clash with the rest of the color scheme.  I will replace the vinyl above the dash, gauges and dash panel in the near future though.

The engine box is all white vinyl except for the red stripe up the middle of it.  No carpet to match there.

[Michigan boarder]

I think grey #10 would look good.

[Woodski]

@nosnarb:  The foam (there are several suppliers) is a bit on the costly side, carpet is relatively cheap (~ $200 IIRC) if you shop around the internet.  No templates will make the install easier or at least quicker via fewer steps.  Be super careful on the dash, it is really a moulded plastic part that is very fragile, the dash panel attachments are very brittle and break easily.   I bet if you recover it with fresh vinyl it will look much better.  I would have no idea on finding a replacement if needed.  FYI - The original engine box would have been carpeted 1/2 way up the sides and almost up to the flat spot for the drink cup holders.  On the rear trim, I assume you mean the rudder access panel, that is screwed in (I thought you meant around the fiberglass on the upper deck accessing the fuel tank area).  There are screws close to the transom / under the fuel tank and mine took some judicious prying to remove it after all the screws were out.

[nosnarb]

Bit the bullet and ordered the chinese seadek with the faux teak pattern in a dark gray.  Cleaned up as much of the adhesive as possible in the hull using an orbital sander, oscillating tool (great for cutting through the blobs of construction adhesive) and a wire brush on a high speed drill.  Then powerwashed out the hull using some degreaser.  Next is thoroughly wiping down everything with MEK and then masking off.  Ive got some Kiwi grip coming tomorrow.  Going to apply that to the hull, let it cure and then install the seadek over the top of that.  Aluminum trim around the ski locker and the rudder compartment got sent out to be powdercoated.  Got those back today.  No turning back now!

 

Edited October 12, 2017 by nosnarb

[Woodski]

@nosnarb:  Should look awesome.  Just a quick note, check your floor for flatness or a depression along the side at the leading portion of the engine, both sides.  That is an area where some of the floatation foam may not have filled completely.  It is not common, but some hulls have it.

[nosnarb]

@Woodski

yup....noticed it in the circled area.  Didn't find much of it on the starboard side.  There wasnt much deviation so Im hoping that between the build of the kiwigrip and the foam it won't be detectable.  Unless there is a bigger issue there that needs to be addressed?

 

 

 

Edited April 21, 2018 by nosnarb
derp.

[nosnarb]

and after 2 coats of kiwigrip

We went with the gray color of the kiwigrip but it looks a little blue.  If I had to do it over again I would just go with black.

Not sure why but the host for my pictures keeps auto rotating the pics to landscape.  Sorry for the neck strain.

Edited April 21, 2018 by nosnarb

[Woodski]

On ‎8‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 5:26 PM, nosnarb said:

@Woodski

yup....noticed it in the circled area.  Didn't find much of it on the starboard side.  There wasnt much deviation so Im hoping that between the build of the kiwigrip and the foam it won't be detectable.  Unless there is a bigger issue there that needs to be addressed?

 

 

@nosnarb:  That is the common area for the depression to occur.  It is a void in the floatation foam, shouldn't change much if any going forward.  I suspect it will be as noticeable as before but no worse.  The typical 'fix' is a swath of bondo in that area and that was some dealer feedback.  Personally, if not bad, adding a material that may subsequently fail is not a great correction to a minor issue & your boat becomes another data point.

In the Malibu Crew tradition of offering extra work to our esteemed Crew peers, wouldn't your bilge look awesome if you painted that too, LOL!  

Edited August 10, 2017 by Woodski

[nosnarb]

@Woodski:  Painting the bilge would certainly make it easier to find misc. parts, nuts, bolts, washers etc. when I drop them

[Woodski]

Very true and in the bilge much better than down the intake... (especially if it is not magnetic).

[nosnarb]

@Woodski : I've gotten to the point to where if I am doing anything with the mouth of the carb is exposed or any openings in the motor either a rag gets stuffed in or I cover the opening with painters tape.

[nosnarb]

The chinese seadek has arrived and smells....chemical-y.  Wife is going to love me laying these out to flatten in the middle of the living room.  So while Im waiting for the August thunderstorms to pass through (weird weather) I have planned out the gauges that I am going to put in the dash and started contemplating ways to make more power.  I haven't checked yet but its possible that the motor in my echelon is a vortec...I doubt it but I need to check.  If its not, I'm seriously thinking about finding some vortec heads and intake manifold for it.  Has anyone done this swap to a pre-vortec 350?  I searched this site but didn't find much on it.  I did a general internet search and found a ton of stuff but nothing really concise.  I'm curious as to what all is required to do the swap.  Obviously the heads, intake manifold and all the gaskets involved but what about the exhaust manifolds?  Will pre vortec exhaust manifolds bolt up to the vortec heads?   Sorry, Im not a GM guy.

For the gauges, I'm thinking Faria Euro black gauges:

32816 GPS Speedometer

32832 6,000 RPM Tach w/ Hour Meter

32851 4 in 1 gauge

and an in hull depth gauge like a hawkeye Depthtrax 1b or the equivalent Faria Euro unit.  

I think the 3 larger in dash gauges will really clean the dash panel up a bit. 

 

Edited August 16, 2017 by nosnarb

[footndale]

@Michigan boarder and @Woodski are your guys for the engine.

[Woodski]

@nosnarb:  Reminds me of when I put race car parts in the living room, heated parts in the oven and threw some bearings in the freezer, gotta love those accommodating better halves... 

Nice choice on gauges, the 4-1 does clean up the dash, I did the same thing - 4-1 on left, the Airguides on left/right of center, tach in middle and PP speed control opposite the 4-1.  Clock and hourmeter under the speedo/tach.  Computron not used as speed control really offers more, although the Computron did have some cool features.  Just a note on the speedo choice, note the Airguides expand the scale at the key ski / boarding / trick speeds and are not linear, done to offer more accuracy when hand throttle driving (pre speed control days).

As for engine upgrade, yes and both Michigan Boarder and I have documented our upgrades so you might refine your site search.  Unless swapped, your heads are not the improved Vortec's, those came out in '96.  Vortec heads will give you the 265 > 310 hp bump of the post '96 powertrains delivered simply due to airflow improvement.  I highly recommend that swap.  You might have to grind a bit on the exhaust manifolds but there is enough material for a larger port either square or D style.

I did a bit extra over that, I installed GM 'Fast Burn 385' heads, Performer RPM intake manifold (which is the same pattern as the existing GM Marine intake), ZZ4 camshaft, Stainless Marine exhaust manifolds, a 4" exhaust system along with a blueprint / tune / calibration on the Weber carb.  My mill pumps out right at 400 hp and has ample torque to pull up 3 barefooters long line.  I had to redo the prop as the original CVP cavitated, and I incorporated cold air intake system.  Runs fine, no idle concerns and even with 10:1 compression ratio can run on 87 octane fuel.  A lot of what I did was also geared to reduce weight along with a power increase.

Edited August 16, 2017 by Woodski

[nosnarb]

So have been chipping away at the flooring project.  Since my carpet was trash and didn't come out in large chunks I ended up having to do a template on clear plastic that I will transfer to 1/8" masonite and then use the masonite to cut the actual fauxseadek.  I used 2mil drop cloth, that was about the heaviest stuff I could get my hands on in short order.  Next I used painters tape to mark the edges of my plastic templates

the tape seems to give the plastic some rigidity so hopefully I won't have to deal with the stretching of the plastic as bad as if I had just traced it out with a sharpie.  Next I pulled the template out of the boat and marked where I wanted my seams and cut the plastic into 5 sections

Heres my plastic laid over the fauxseadek making sure I purchased enough material.  I bought 8 sheets, it looks like 5-6 would do it so I should have some left for doing some misc. areas around the boat and a swim deck....assuming I don't screw something up and end up having to use it.  

So far the only complaints I have about the fauxseadek is that it came rolled up and so even after several days of laying flat with weight on top it is still trying to curl a bit, and secondly, the edges of the sheets of the material are not very square.  So I will have to waste a bit of material to get that cleaned up.  So hopefully I will have the masonite templates done tonight and I can start cutting the flooring tomorrow

Edited April 21, 2018 by nosnarb

[nosnarb]

random side question, I purchased some nets for the gunwales from malibu.  Do those attach to the back side of the upholstered side panels?  Anyone got a pic of that?  It looks like it will conflict with my speakers that are towards the rear of the side panels (not original obviously)

[Andrew999]

Sucks about all the initial bad luck. Seems like you're working out the kinks. I had my share of goofy previous owner hack jobs. I also did the faux sea deck. That crap never flattened out. I left it sandwiched between plywood sheets in the hot Houston garage and it still wanted to curl back after a week.  The stuff sticks pretty good through. Just wipe it all down real good as you apply. 

[nosnarb]

@Andrew999what did you use to wipe the surface down with out of curiosity?  Im thinking just some dawn and water and then dry it real good before installation.

[Woodski]

@nosnarb:  You might try some MEK on a scrap piece to see if that removes any wax/grease & does not damage the material, it is used for car painting prep work.

[nosnarb]

@Woodski I tried the MEK on the kiwi grip and noticed it was coming off on my rag....Im thinking of staying away from the solvents for this part.  On a side note, the kiwigrip has bonded very hard to the fiberglass.  I only managed to scuff it when I was shoving the gas tank back in place and I allowed the metal brackets to drag the surface.  Clean it up a bit and a little touch up with a brush and its good as new

[Andrew999]

Mine was gelcoated so I scrubbed it with dawn then scrubbed it with TSP then misted and quickly wiped with acetone which is what I had and didn't hurt the gelcoat but did kind of dull or etch the gelcoat. I wouldn't do that to the stuff you used. Check out the TSP it's not a solvent but close. Hardware store will have it or google it might work just right and is a step above dawn soap 

[Kmfish87]

Roll the flooring up the opposite direction from the way it was shipped/is curling now for a day and it should lay flat after that. 

[DonT]

On 8/9/2017 at 9:08 PM, nosnarb said:

and after 2 coats of kiwigrip

We went with the gray color of the kiwigrip but it looks a little blue.  If I had to do it over again I would just go with black.

Not sure why but the host for my pictures keeps auto rotating the pics to landscape.  Sorry for the neck strain.

How much KiwiGrip did you used - and did you do a fine or aggressive texture?  I'm planning on tackling the same on my Sunsetter this fall.

[nosnarb]

@DonT I purchased the 4L kit off of amazon and used maybe half of it.  I did a fine texture since I wanted to make sure that there was plenty of surface for the fauxseadek to grab ahold of.  Instead of the open cell roller that comes with the kiwi grip I used a 3/8" nap roller.  That took a fair amount of the texture out.

[Fabricator909]

Watching this thread very closely, just picked up my BU, a '94 response that needs TLC. Going to do the same as you with the motor hopefully, put on the vortec heads for the extra hp. Boats remind me of dirt bikes, some guys will hack the living hell out of them instead of doing it right!