Turning the ugliest boat in Costa Rica into a respectable 28' Center Console Diesel

[GringoJohn]

Put in a couple of hours on Sunday, just wanted to see how the boxes would turn out and Harold called me in the morning saying he was bored, so we put the faces on the boxes and tried them out on the tower.

This was just putting the face on where the GPS and stuff goes. We left that on the table last night with carbon fiber on the back of it drying, so the inside is 100 "fibered" (I would say glassed but it's not glass?)





But when I put it where it went, it just didn't have the right form. There wasn't much shade at all for the electronics/gauges, and the rim was just ugly.





So we went back over to the table and added a hood on the front and cut a little foam off of the bottom of the box and came up with this, I like this one and tomorrow we'll go ahead and fiber these things:

This is what it looks like straight on while you're driving the boat, angle is perfect. And even with the sun low in the sky and behind me, the electronics still got some cover. Noon time and the GPS will have full shade, and if we're moving they won't get too wet either. Even with three hours difference between this picture and the one above (the one above was like 1pm sun), the new box had more shade. If I had taken the pictures at the same time, the new box would have 100 percent shade on the electronics.













And then I put a couple of holes in the transom where the live well will drain. The top edge is cored with core cell, but where we put the holes is just all glass. We sealed it anyways with the same black tinted Gelcoat we used inside the live well.





And then in order to get access to the rudder and piston, we had to make an access hole in right below the live well. When I'm done with that, we'll figure something out to close it, like a hatch or maybe we can silicone on a thin sheet of glass or something.









And then we thought it looked a little better and we painted the inside with the rest of the black GelCoat we made. Why not?

[swamp snorkler]

Are you doing any fishing whie you building this boat?
Do you have someone else running your boats?

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

Are you doing any fishing whie you building this boat?
Do you have someone else running your boats?

I started the company 7-8 years back and I used to do all the fishing, but there was another American named John as well out here, and we used to compete a lot. About 3 years back, we decided that I enjoyed the building aspect of the business and he was a better fisherman, so now we work together and he does the captaining and I work full time on making the boats catch more fish.

[GringoJohn]

We took a couple of days off the new boat to paint the bottom on another one of my boats. Three coats of interlude Ultra 66 should keep the bottom shell and slime free this year!



But I did get a little done. We got the inside of the bathroom Gelcoated. You can see in the picture we also stuck a couple of PVC tubes on the wall before we painted. Those are all stuck on there with carbon fiber, just because I had a little extra left over from the boxes.



And then We also painted the inside of the motor box. The motor air intake on the left is also carbon fiber. Just because we had it laying around



In between coats of both paint on my other boat, there has been a guy sanding with 600 grit as well, but that doesn’t show up in the pictures.

And then I also took the 330 cummins that we are going to use at first and painted it up. It runs great, but this is going in my bigger boat when I get it finished and we are going to put in a rebuilt 210 in this boat.

[GringoJohn]

Got the electronic boxes for my 30 footers all wrapped up today. I think they look better in black! We are going to paint them though, but they sure are neat looking. We are right at the three pound per box right now, so the gelcoat and fairing will put us over our 3 pound goal. So now they will probably end up four pounds







That's what real carbon fiber looks like, messy! Not like that silly tape people stick on their cars...

[swamp snorkler]

4 pounds for a box that size is still very very light.

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

4 pounds for a box that size is still very very light.

Yeah, they are pretty neat. If Carbon was such a health hazard (it's worse than asbestos), I'd build the whole boat out of it!

[GringoJohn]

Really not too much to show, here is a picture of the boat with everything gel coated.



We Gel Coated the electronics box as well. The two smaller holes are for the speakers and the bigger hole in the middle is a screw in white plastic access plate. I hate plastic deck plates, but I’m hoping since this one won’t see sun and nobody will step on it, it might survive.





And this is really where I have been spending all my time. We aren’t really to a picture worth place, but this is some heavy metal and it kind of shows the ugly middle part of the process. This will look much better when everything is grinded down and painted.

[GringoJohn]

This was a better spot to get to the pictures. We got all the boxes made, and then welded on the two 1/2 inch bolts that stick up to grab the supports. These are the bigger barry supports for the C series engine, I use them because they have shore 45 rubber which is softer than the shore 65 rubber that is used on the smaller B series barry mounts. Tomorrow we are going to use the giant hoist at the shop to lower the engine in to where it needs to go, and then we through bolt these onto the stringers with everything in place. After we get the holes done, and everything bolted up and it looks good, we’ll pull these back off and put them down a second time with a good mix of resin and cabosil. here’s the almost finished bases:





And then some of you are going to notice that the bases are wider than the wood stringers that are in the boat. That is intentional, because the front supports on the cummins work better if they aren’t as far apart as the rear supports (we are mounting on the bell housing on the back so we can pull the transmission without re aligning the motor, it makes damper and tranny problems less of a problem )

So what we do is place another piece of the cool purple heart iron wood on either side of the original stringers to make them wider. This will make more sense when we do it, all the wood gets glassed in before we finish and everything metal gets painted and I’m thinking about hooking up the main bases to the rear zinc, but haven’t decided on that yet. Here’s the wood that we use to make the stringers wider where we are putting these bases



And here is a quick shot of the stringers to see where these go.



The advantage of this is I can put the motor exactly where I want without too much drawing and paperwork. I just put the motor where it goes and through bolt the boxes and that’s where the motor stays. Might put the motor in tomorrow, and if not it’ll be in by the end of the week. After everything is mounted, I’m still going to wait on the final install of the engine until the tower is built, so I’m just going to be leaving the bases.

[GringoJohn]

Well, I didn't get much finished, but I did get the motor "in" the boat. Not installed, but at least it's in the spot that it goes. My poor tacoma thinks it's an F350, but it really does get the job done. Before you go loading big diesels in the back of your tacomas, you should know we added 4 overload springs onto the original spring, that was just a single. I am currently waiting to bust an axle, but it didn't happen today!






So after the crazy drive over there with my overweight tacoma, we proceeded to pick the motor up really really high.





And then Harold pulled the boat forward while I shot pictures. Again I don't know if it's a light boat or a strong guy, but he didn't even strain, you'd think he was pulling one of those red kid's wagons





And here's some shots where if a rope came loose we would have seriously jackup up the boat









And then we finally got the motor set in where it goes.





We had quite a few little issues today, a couple of broken bolts in the motor, so tomorrow we are going to pick it back up and see if we can get this thing bolted down. I have just lined up the t top welder for Monday, so we have to get this thing bolted in before monday!

[swamp snorkler]

Looking good Cap

[GringoJohn]

Thanks! Headed back over there now, hopefully we can make some progress!

[AcadianaProp]

Boat build is on our wish list too. One day man, one day.

[swamp snorkler]

Originally Posted by GringoJohn

Thanks! Headed back over there now, hopefully we can make some progress!

Its time for a progress report!

Please

[GringoJohn]

Ok, I'm headed out the shop and I'll take some pictures!

[GringoJohn]

Ok, not much progress this week, I’ve got strep so I’m taking it easy and the guys are just finishing up details we missed or put off. I went over to the tower shop today though to see how the top was going. They have a form drawn up on the floor, and have started bending tubes and have the outside of the Ttop welded up. I am excited, they gave it a little bit of crown, and I really like how it looks so far.



Here are two different angles, I couldn’t decide which one was better so I’ll post both. This is their plywood they screwed to the floor and drew out the legs. The red part is where the base that will hold the top up. The top is going to be pretty big, I think it’s like 9.5 feet long and I made it a bit wide as well. We are going to have multiple anchor points on the floor around the console, and then on the console itself.





I need a day or so more to finish up not being sick, and then we are going to hit the boat hard and finish it up. I’ll keep going by the aluminum guy in the meantime to show his progress, he’s done a couple of other tops and towers here, and the guy is really creative and I have high hopes for a nice finished product.

[GringoJohn]

A couple more tubes got welded in. I really like the thick tubes, the smallest tubes we are using in the top is 1 1/4, and the legs we are going with 2 inch, I’m excited to see the progress! It was about double the price to use the thick and larger tubes, but I really like shiny poles in boats, and I thought it was worth it. These larger sch 40 tubes should give me years and years of good looks, and great shade! I always thought the skinny tubes just look cheap, and had an old boat that every wave we hit we were always welding on the tower. I think these will hold up nicely!



And it’s dirty, but it’s finally where it goes. We got all the new motor supports built, welded painted and installed, and the engine lines up great.



But then we also had our first big problem. And it looks like something I’m just going to have to live with. Here’s our new motor box. Looks like the captain is just going to have to swing his legs over to the side while driving as the old box with the foot rest didn’t have the clearance. Not the way I would have wanted it, but it doesn't affect the fishing or boat performance, so it's not a big deal...something to improve on the next one!

[swamp snorkler]

That top is going to be slick.

[GringoJohn]

Not much to show on the boat, we are making the door for the bathroom right now, just sealed the foam edges with resin and we are just about to spray them with GelCoat.





And then we have some T Top pictures. They have the top almost done and are starting on the bottom now. I always like to offset the rod holders because it hurts like crazy if you get hit in the head with them, so that's why we made them a hair higher. It would be hard to hit the tube, but the perfect wave could happen, and the tube isn't as bad as the tip of the rod holder.









And then here's an action shot of the guy starting to prep one of the legs!

[swamp snorkler]

Looking good.