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

[GringoJohn]

I’m finally recovering a little bit from a mean case of Strep. Everybody in the shop got it, but since I’m not from here I guess my body wasn’t ready and it really wiped me out. But now finishing up my second round of Antibiotics, I think I’m ready to start work again Today we prepped all the hatch lids for the floor, and the door to the bathroom, and the modified motor box and sprayed them with GelCoat. I think this is our last spray on the build, but we’ll see if I missed something.





This is the door to the bathroom:



And then I went by the tower shop and they have the top welded and one of the legs welded, and the other side almost built. They are really making progress. The top is going to be the most expensive part of the boat I think, we’ll have about 6K tied up in it when we’re done, and that doesn’t include the outriggers.







Tomorrow I have to go pick up a crate of corecell PVC foam for my ocean master, but Saturday I’m hoping to really hit the boat hard and start installing easy things, like hoses, steering wheels etc, so I should have a good progress pic on Saturday!

[swamp snorkler]

Originally Posted by GringoJohn

I should have a good progress pic on Saturday!

My body is ready!

[Matt G]

You may have stated it in earlier post, but how big is the top?

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by Matt G

You may have stated it in earlier post, but how big is the top?

I don't remember exactly, but it's like 9ish feet long and is about 6 inches narrower than the boat.

[GringoJohn]

Well, we moved the boat over to the welding shop to finish up the tower. I like how everything turned out except the motor box, but the funds are done and it’s gonna have to do the season like this. We finished up tons of little details though. .





And I think the tower guys are doing a cool job with the tower. It’s almost ready to weld on.



Getting a keyway put in the rudder and that should be on tomorrow, It’s getting really close! Almost there…

[meaux fishing]

that tower is gonna be nice

[GringoJohn]

It's just sitting on there right now, they are building the feet, but I thought I'd post a picture!

[alphaman]

Originally Posted by GringoJohn

It's just sitting on there right now, they are building the feet, but I thought I'd post a picture!

so the motor cover is what you will be leaning on while driving?

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by alphaman

so the motor cover is what you will be leaning on while driving?

Yeah, it's actually pretty good just sitting on it on the side by the front, gives you a good visual and the wheel is going to be right there. I'll probably put a pad up the whole top, I think that the back is perfect to wear a fighting belt and reel in 500 pound Marlin as well.

[swamp snorkler]

Nice lines. You and your crew did a real nice job.

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

Nice lines. You and your crew did a real nice job.

[GringoJohn]

Been a while since the last post, been lots of smaller things that aren't picture worthy, but we overall there has been lots of progress made. We got the electronics box on and we have the tower on, and all the electronics are wired up. That's a new Furuno 1870 GPS/Sonar and then a bluetooth Sony radio, some Fusion 6.5's and then the new VHF. I am still waiting for the gauges, I have a tach and a temp that I'm going to just put in tomorrow while I wait on the cummins panel. We still have a little to do, the sunbrella top is due to be finished on Monday, and then we can put on the Taco Outriggers and the antenna. We got all the bilge pumps hooked up, battery installed, perko switch, shifter and gas hooked up, steering is all hooked up and rudder is in.

















Here's a couple of outside shots, we're in a new boat yard that's a bit more secure as we have all the high dollar stuff on the boat now.








Still have to get the name on the side, paint the bottom and polish the sides out, not in that order. The boat also needs a good cleaning, it's super dirty. And then lastly we'll paint the floor and see if it floats. Almost there...

[swamp snorkler]

Thanks for the updates. Looking great.

[GringoJohn]

Well, we sanded off the flotation line, so I had to stick it back in the water to get the float line again. It floats about half an inch below the corners (chimes?). This was full fuel and motor and everything except ice. The ice chests will go in the back. It was very level, the front of the boat is a little closer to the water than I would like, but the boat floats really high and I think it’ll fly.









We had to redo a couple of hatches in the floor, after we painted them they were a little tight, so we’ve been opening those back up and going to repaint those. You can see in the pictures the pink around the hatch openings. Then on the outside of the boat, we went around the outside with 600 grit, we still need the 1000 and then the buffer.







We also found a surprise! I was checking all the fluids on the motor and the tranny, and the tranny was full of milk! We had to take that apart today, all the bearings are good though, it looks like on one of the last two trips this motor did on my 32 footer, the tranny cooler ruptured. So that has us stopped until I get a new one in, I have the tranny all cleaned up on the inside with fresh oil and installed again. I also noticed quite a bit of play in the turbine on the turbo, so I have that off as well and I’m going to get a new center put in it while the cooler is on the way here.

Tomorrow we are going to do the bottom paint. After I shot these pictures, we got the bottom all masked off for where the bottom paint goes, and we got under there with some 80 grit and orbital sanders and got it all sanded down and ready to paint. I’ll post some more pictures when the bottom is blue!

[jl8200]

Where do you sit to drive? It looks like the motor box is right up against the console unless you didn't have it where it actually goes in the pics.

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by jl8200

Where do you sit to drive? It looks like the motor box is right up against the console unless you didn't have it where it actually goes in the pics.

Yeah, that part is tough. It's actually not bad just sitting on the motor box and putting your legs over to the side. We originally had a step there, but the motor was a little taller than we originally planned and we had to take it out. I'm going to leave it like this until May as the boat is very booked up, and then in May we are going to figure out how to make it more comfortable for the captain

[swamp snorkler]

From this.....






To this......






Yall have done an excellent job!!! Here's to tight lines and smooth seas.

[GringoJohn]

I was a bit worried about some of my tipsy customers falling off the front of the boat into the water, so we put a pretty cool rail up front to keep everybody safe!



And then since I haven’t gotten my new cummins gauge panel in and apparently it’s lost in the mail, I built a quick gauge cluster with just the tach and the temp so I can run the boat and see what it does! For those of you who don't recognize that tach, that is one of those Aetna digital tachs! I love Aetna tachs because they give you your trolling rpm within 5 rpm, so when you find the sound the fish are looking for you can reproduce it over and over easily after hookups.



We faired out the floor today, and then put down two coats of gelcoat on the floor. All it needs now is the non slip coat which we will probably do either monday later in the day or tuesday. Monday morning we are going to building the exhaust riser, and then there isn’t much left. I”m waiting on a tranny cooler but I will borrow one if it doesn’t get here this week and we are going to see how this boat does in the water. We got the bottom painted as well, but I forgot to take pictures and we covered it with plastic so we didn’t get any compound on it while we were buffing the sides. More pics soon, hopefully in the ocean and then hopefully soon with fish in the boat!

[swamp snorkler]

Almost done

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

Almost done

Soo close. I'm waiting on a transmission cooler that I sent "fast" shipping here, and then I have to pick up the turbo from the turbo shop, I had them put in a new center, and then I'll get to test it out!