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2004 23 LSV Subfloor Ballast Idea?


St. Ellis

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I recently picked up a 2004 23 LSV and as I put together a ballast plan I'm curious about adding subfloor ballast. I'm, of course, going to pull the rear above floor hard tanks and replace those with bags but I'd like to add some additional weight without losing underseat storage. I need all the storage I can get and I really don't want to use lead because, again, I don't want to lose storage and don't want to deal with 20 bags of lead permanently in the boat that I also get to tow around. 

I haven't looked in great detail yet but I imagine the floor is glassed to the sides of the hull and some adhesive used to attach to FibECS. I'm curious if anyone has ever pulled the floor and what is underneath? I imagine some foam fills the cavity which can probably be removed. Not sure the space available, but I can fab up either an aluminum or plastic tank and would like to try to add another 1,000lbs subfloor. Has anyone attempted this on a boat with no subfloor previously? What are the challenges in pulling the floor up? Any idea how much of the floor can be removed and replaced with HDPE before the structural integrity of the boat is compromised? Has anyone looked at putting the new L-shaped tank in the rear of an early LSV? Thanks for any input.

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What sized bags are you looking to put in the rear lockers? The nice thing about lead is it is easily moved and stored. Thought about putting lead under the bags in the rear? Will take up minimal space.  You can also stuff it behind side panels and under seats out of the way. I have an 05 21lsv. I do like to list the boat with a suck gate. I use my 400# of lead surf side under a back seat. Also have 850s (they never get completely full) rear and 300 lead in the bow. 

700782BC-00D4-42F1-8EC7-C9D5DBB6DAEB.jpeg

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you aren't going to get 500 lbs per side under the floor with water.  The factory under-floor tanks in the 05 and up boats are only 250 lbs per side.

A few folks did this to their axis boats and it's one of the few threads over on the axis boat forums that ever got a lot of traffic.  You can probably learn some stuff from their experience: http://www.axiswakeboardboats.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3082

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Thanks for that link Shawn. That might be the way to go and have a custom bag built to fill the extra space. Not sure how big that space is compared to the A22, but that owner said a custom bag would hold 1400 lbs, which would be pretty amazing. Might be the way to go.

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How much weight do you need?  

I am running the Sumo 900 bags in the rear of my 2004.  Depending on Crew and where they are sitting depends on how much I fill them up.  Generally for surfing with a DIY suck gate, we will not fill them all the way up.  You will need weight in the front (lead can stash in the gunnels front and rear of the cup holders) if you plan to run more rear weight.  Downside to these older boats is the freeboard.  More weight in the rear and bow makes it easier to dip the bow.    

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Good question. Right now it's factory weight and that's it. But I'm planning to run a tab system which needs more weight and I'm trying to figure out where I can put the weight while keeping as much storage as possible. Original plan was to run Fatsac 1100's figuring they wouldn't be completely full. Running tabs will help with the bow somewhat, just not sure how much it'll help, yet.

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3 hours ago, 06malibu said:

I saw your post over on wakegarage. Depending on measurements and what you're wanting, the axis pizza tray should fit in the engine compartment. I had to trim for the shock mounts on my 05 21lsv.

 

https://www.greatlakesskipper.com/axis-boat-engine-drainage-tray-5441129-1-pizza-pan-2015-t22

Thanks for that. Certainly a nicer piece than the vdrive tray I built. We’ll see how the pizza pan turns out now that I have a plastic bender fabbed up. Hopefully I won’t need to go the Great Lakes skipper route. 

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