1988 Malibu Skier...not every boat should be saved.

[chasetepher]

...yet here I am working on it anyway.

Long story short, buddy gave up on his 1988 Malibu Skier that he bought for, ahem very cheap, and then he just stared at it for six months realizing he made a mistake. So I took it into my shop well intentioned and good lord, it's a disaster.

Here's a few pics, this will likely span multiple posts. 

So far so good right?

also, dunno if those images are working.

Edited January 2, 2022 by chasetepher
pictures are difficult ok?

[chasetepher]

So let's see what's inside.

Ah.

Ohkaaaaaaaay.

I don't know much about boats but I don't think it's normal to need these tools.

Foam is absolutely trash, needs yeeted.

I think (hope(pray?)) this is the worst stringer on the boat.

Hint of progress after significantly reducing my life expectancy with day 1.

[chasetepher]

Day 2 ish:

Well there's your problem. Water's supposed to be on the outside of the boat you moron.

Little bit more progress on port and starboard sides. (I'd say passenger and driver sides but boats are weird apparently? I legit have barely ever touched a boat in my life.)

I guess we'll learn how this stuff works. 

Other than the crack in the fiberglass, this stringer seemed most intact so I drilled 25 5/16" holes in it and mixed up a batch of rot prevent and sent it. It's curing pretty slowly since it's like, winter, but it's hardening up and I think this will be a good way to reinforce and prevent issues on the stringers that don't need replaced.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah.

[chasetepher]

So after two days and 3 55 gal bags of gross foam removal, I figured I might want to check on the motor and decide if this vessel is even worth my effort. We were told the carb was new and that the motor was good. It had spun over but never tried to make it fire.

Time to change that! Step 1, cut the old rock hard fuel line and insert into plastic water bottle full of gasoline so I can see if the pump moves anything or not. Yeah, safety third for sure. Step 2 was learning that the starter or the flywheel has some dickered up teeth so the engagement isn't 100%. Every few cranks, it will become misaligned so you have to use a pry bar on the crank pulley to advance it past the yucky area on the flywheel/starter. This operation leads to some sketchy "turning over the motor by hand while the ignition is on" situations that I will never do again. Remember, safety third. Obviously we're out of the water so I only wanted to run it for a few seconds. Here's the quick clip if you want the exciting part: 

And here's the whole 6 minute vid of me fanagling everything and grunting a lot: 

So yeah, it idles and makes good oil pressure, so I feel slightly less bad about continuing on.

[chasetepher]

After that, I wanted to really focus on finishing the major demo work. That included getting out just about all the foam that I can, knocking out the rotted driver seat support, and getting the biggest pieces of the floor out. 

This was under the driver seat. That's a solid 3" of water, and the boat was even tilted back a little bit. About 5 minutes after I took this picture, I splashed that water with a hammer while trying to remove more foam and it got on my face and my mouth so I've likely not got long to live now.

You really gotta tear some stuff up before you can make it better.

I put a hi lift jack under the tongue of the trailer and did a trailer wheelie to try to get as much water out as possible. Sorry slab.

Almost hard to believe, but that is so much better than a week ago. 

[chasetepher]

Alright that's as far as I got yesterday while on holiday break. School starts up again tomorrow, so I will likely have no time to work on this thing until April at the earliest.

What's the goal? Considering I'm not a composites expert (literally never worked with them until now), and I think wood is an exotic and confusing material, I really just want to do my best to graft in a non rotten stringer over on the starboard side, reglass just about everything to make sure we have sooooooome hull rigidity, pour some new foam so it doesn't sink, and then do some real basic plywood and fiberglass floors to tie everything together and I guess give the dog somewhere to stand.

I'm operating on the assumption that this boat was falling apart for a long time before it was taken out of the water, and if we can improve it just a little bit it will be safe for my wife and kid and dog to go tubing and just sit on the lake and drink a beer.

Worse comes to worse it cracks in half on the first test run and we leave it at the bottom of the lake and chalk it up to "experience" right?

[tvano]

great first post as the most important piece of any first post is pix.  

you did that in spades.

looks like a fun project (to watch from far away).

welcome to the crew.

[Ronnie]

Fun but big time project. Keep it coming when you get the chance to work on it. 

[chasetepher]

1 hour ago, tvano said:

great first post as the most important piece of any first post is pix.  

you did that in spades.

looks like a fun project (to watch from far away).

welcome to the crew.

Yeah I really wanted people to feel like they were there. Smell the smells and all that. Thanks mate.

 

1 hour ago, Ronnie said:

Fun but big time project. Keep it coming when you get the chance to work on it. 

Yep, already running into Hofstadter's Law here. Why would I do this to myself?

[MWJ68]

If you haven't seen this video series. I highly recommend it. Hopefully it will give you some realistic vision of what you have undertaken.

Cheers!

 

[chasetepher]

36 minutes ago, MWJ68 said:

If you haven't seen this video series. I highly recommend it. Hopefully it will give you some realistic vision of what you have undertaken.

Cheers!

So far the only difference I can tell is that that fellow knows what he's doing.

[justgary]

23 minutes ago, chasetepher said:

So far the only difference I can tell is that that fellow knows what he's doing.

Great work so far.

While it would seem prudent to just slap a new stringer and floor in it, perhaps you could consider doing the job with no wood so that the boat will last much longer this time.

At least use a marine grade, closed cell foam so the floor doesn't soak full of water or gasoline if an accident should happen.

Where are you?  Do you know if a fiberglass shop is nearby?  They might use their chop gun to spray a no-wood floor for a fairly cheap price.

[Michigan boarder]

Nice write up and great pics!  I think you've got a great start on it, are you going to pull the engine?  That seems like the only good way for a proper repair of that stringer (might as well do both) and certainly to repair the flywheel.  The flywheel issue would drive me nuts.  I've pulled my engine, it's actually really easy to pull the engine and transmission out as a unit.  I'd be trying to run it just to know if it's good also, but do you know that it has an impeller that pulls water up in addition to the standard engine mounted water pump?  The rubber impeller is likely non-functional and should be replaced, it's pretty cheap and easy.

This got a laugh out of me:

[RyanB]

Good luck.  I'll enjoy watching your progress from behind the keyboard.  I can't imagine how big of a project this is going to be.  There is no such thing as a cheap/free boat.

[chasetepher]

14 hours ago, justgary said:

Great  Some work so far.

While it would seem prudent to just slap a new stringer and floor in it, perhaps you could consider doing the job with no wood so that the boat will last much longer this time.

At least use a marine grade, closed cell foam so the floor doesn't soak full of water or gasoline if an accident should happen.

Where are you?  Do you know if a fiberglass shop is nearby?  They might use their chop gun to spray a no-wood floor for a fairly cheap price.

I fixed your post for you!

We've discussed going the non wood route, it may happen. I'll def use a real foam, as much as I'd love to just fill it with Great Stuff (how is that stuff so great?), I will figure out some real foam to use.

I'm just outside of Dallas. As much as I love the idea of not doing something I don't know all by myself, my wife would kill me if I built a shop and then didn't use it. I'd probably be living out there for a while, which sounds ok until I remember I haven't put doors or insulation up yet.

[chasetepher]

1 hour ago, Michigan boarder said:

Nice write up and great pics!  I think you've got a great start on it, are you going to pull the engine?  That seems like the only good way for a proper repair of that stringer (might as well do both) and certainly to repair the flywheel.  The flywheel issue would drive me nuts.  I've pulled my engine, it's actually really easy to pull the engine and transmission out as a unit.  I'd be trying to run it just to know if it's good also, but do you know that it has an impeller that pulls water up in addition to the standard engine mounted water pump?  The rubber impeller is likely non-functional and should be replaced, it's pretty cheap and easy.

This got a laugh out of me:

Yeah I dunno yet, I'd really love to leave the motor/trans in there as it's been in the same spot for 33 years and I'd hate to upset it. Also, the rotted stringer is actually the most outboard stringer, it's not the motor stringer. I should clarify, I mean that's the most rotted stringer that I've found so far. I'm sure there's more that I don't know about yet. Yeah, we're pretty sure the main pump is pure yonke and have planned to replace it, but haven't put anymore thought into it than that.

Glad you got a chortle out of my misery :bigOof:

[chasetepher]

18 minutes ago, RyanB said:

Good luck.  I'll enjoy watching your progress from behind the keyboard.  I can't imagine how big of a project this is going to be.  There is no such thing as a cheap/free boat.

Wish I could watch from behind the keyboard as well LOL

We're going to do our best to keep a running tally of monetary cost, while doing our best not to keep a tally of the man hours spent. We're well under a grand for now, curious how long that stays like that. If I wait long enough, wood prices have to come down right?

[martinarcher]

Here's a great write up from the previous owner of my boat who did the project you're on now.  It's a pile of work but the pic at the bottom makes it worth it!  It's still in fantastic shape and we use it a lot!  I bought an MEFI 5.7 Merc 350 MAG to repower it with.  I think it's had more mods and projects in it's life than I can count.

https://www.wakegarage.com/projects-archive/stringers-transom-and-hull-repair/stringer-and-transom-rebuild-upgrade-for-80s-ski-boat-r34/

[Michigan boarder]

3 hours ago, chasetepher said:

Yeah I dunno yet, I'd really love to leave the motor/trans in there as it's been in the same spot for 33 years and I'd hate to upset it. Also, the rotted stringer is actually the most outboard stringer, it's not the motor stringer. I should clarify, I mean that's the most rotted stringer that I've found so far. I'm sure there's more that I don't know about yet. Yeah, we're pretty sure the main pump is pure yonke and have planned to replace it, but haven't put anymore thought into it than that.

Glad you got a chortle out of my misery :bigOof:

Have you put a ratchet on the lags that run thru the motor mounts and into the stringers?  If they tighten snugly, you have some time.  If they spin freely, then you know what you need to do......

I'm sharing your pain with an Audi project.  Bought it for $3,500 for my daughter "Dad, we can afford that, it's cheap!" and I'm just shy of sitting at $6,000 all in.  With your project everything you touch is soaked/leaking in water, with my project everything I touch is soaked/leaking in oil.

 

[chasetepher]

2 hours ago, martinarcher said:

Here's a great write up from the previous owner of my boat who did the project you're on now.  It's a pile of work but the pic at the bottom makes it worth it!  It's still in fantastic shape and we use it a lot!  I bought an MEFI 5.7 Merc 350 MAG to repower it with.  I think it's had more mods and projects in it's life than I can count.

https://www.wakegarage.com/projects-archive/stringers-transom-and-hull-repair/stringer-and-transom-rebuild-upgrade-for-80s-ski-boat-r34/

That's a solid thread. Will be coming back to that a lot I think. Non wood floors are sounding appealing but I don't know what to use instead that can be sourced locally for decent prices.

[chasetepher]

1 hour ago, Michigan boarder said:

Have you put a ratchet on the lags that run thru the motor mounts and into the stringers?  If they tighten snugly, you have some time.  If they spin freely, then you know what you need to do......

I'm sharing your pain with an Audi project.  Bought it for $3,500 for my daughter "Dad, we can afford that, it's cheap!" and I'm just shy of sitting at $6,000 all in.  With your project everything you touch is soaked/leaking in water, with my project everything I touch is soaked/leaking in oil.

 

I haven't, and now I'm afraid to lol. Wondering how to make my engine hoist work while the boat is on the trailer. Seems like it would need to be really high to get the motor out. Makes me wish I had a gantry instead of a cherry picker. Wonder if I could use my two post lift somehow.

Oof, that's why I have a strict no Euro rule in my shop LOL. I'll do another total boat resto before I take on anything major from VAG.

[chasetepher]

46 minutes ago, chasetepher said:

I haven't, and now I'm afraid to lol. Wondering how to make my engine hoist work while the boat is on the trailer. Seems like it would need to be really high to get the motor out. Makes me wish I had a gantry instead of a cherry picker. Wonder if I could use my two post lift somehow.

Oof, that's why I have a strict no Euro rule in my shop LOL. I'll do another total boat resto before I take on anything major from VAG.

Oh finally, a good surprise! The motor mount lag bolts tighten instead of spinning. Maybe the motor stringers aren't trash. If they turn out to be usable I'll do the rot prevent down the length of them.

[Woodski]

@chasetepher - Keep the thread going, fun reading and embracing your pain tireless labor from a screen:-)  As noted, I also recommend you pop the engine / trans out, its pretty easy and the reinstall is also easy.  The engine alignment process is a piece of cake all you need is a feeler gauge.  On the trailer, simply take off one wheel to drop the trailer down to close to the drum & then the engine / trans assembly will clear over the gunnel with a standard (Harbor Freight) cherry picker.  Engine trans pull is remove the engine mount nuts, remove the 4 coupler bolts and with the accessories removed, lift up and out.  I pull the carb to get the cherry picker hook that much closer.  You'll be amazed how much easier your work will be with the cast iron lump removed.  There will be several things to work on such as tightening the pylon or replacing steering / trans cables.

Be very careful and treat all the dash and plastic Malibu parts with extreme care, they are impossible to find so when you break them, you will be hunting for substitutes.

There are a few threads on this site of similar floor / stringer rehab projects, hopefully the search function will help, if you struggle maybe @ahopkinsVTX can help you out searching for info.  If you have any questions on how to spend money on your new baby, everybody on this site is really happy to help...

[chasetepher]

3 hours ago, Woodski said:

@chasetepher - Keep the thread going, fun reading and embracing your pain tireless labor from a screen:-)  As noted, I also recommend you pop the engine / trans out, its pretty easy and the reinstall is also easy.  The engine alignment process is a piece of cake all you need is a feeler gauge.  On the trailer, simply take off one wheel to drop the trailer down to close to the drum & then the engine / trans assembly will clear over the gunnel with a standard (Harbor Freight) cherry picker.  Engine trans pull is remove the engine mount nuts, remove the 4 coupler bolts and with the accessories removed, lift up and out.  I pull the carb to get the cherry picker hook that much closer.  You'll be amazed how much easier your work will be with the cast iron lump removed.  There will be several things to work on such as tightening the pylon or replacing steering / trans cables.

Be very careful and treat all the dash and plastic Malibu parts with extreme care, they are impossible to find so when you break them, you will be hunting for substitutes.

There are a few threads on this site of similar floor / stringer rehab projects, hopefully the search function will help, if you struggle maybe @ahopkinsVTX can help you out searching for info.  If you have any questions on how to spend money on your new baby, everybody on this site is really happy to help...

That's all really good info dude. I was kinda thinking along the same lines on how to get the trailer and entire assembly lower. It would be great not to bang my shin on the manifolds every time I walk the length of the boat. I'm just waiting to slip on some tool I left in the bottom of the hull and impale myself on the carb center stud. If nothing else it would make the starter and main pump replacement way easier.

Glad some people are interested in following along, I certainly wish I had more time to work on it right now but 12 hours of school 6 days a week plus a kid is about to slow things right down.

[Rack]

Your Are Brave Man. 

I will join the Rest of the crew and wait for next season and new episodes of " Saving the 88 skier"

Keep us posted