01 XStar Project
 

Well, I kind of hoped this one wouldn't be a project, but never underestimate a sellers ability to paint a rosy picture when you're buying the boat sight unseen.

My initial reaction is anger that the boat was mis-described, secondly a sense of bewilderment that someone could do such stupid things to a boat. Third is a little dispair -If anyone wants this boat and can pay $21,500 (what I'm into it) to take it off my hand now, I'll walk away. Fourth, since thats probably not going to happen, I've moved onto resolve. Time to face the music and make this the best boat it can be.

The good:
It looks good from far away.
It runs great, its propped right and has awesome power.
The ballast system, while slow, and much less efficient than the ones I build works.
Upholstery is fairly new and doesn't need replacing.
Its still an x-star and puts out a great wake.
It has some nice features

The bad:
It has more extensive spider cracks in the gelcoat than any other boat I've seen, you can feel them with your hand. This is probably the biggest issue I'll have when it comes time to sell the boat, (And make a profit)
The previous owner replaced the aluminum back decks with plywood! WTF
List of needed repairs is at least a page long, mostly small stuff that I can knock out in a couple days, but its late enough in the year that its annoying.

So a couple of questions:
Are there any replacements available for the fiberglass fenders?
The lower tower bolts are stuck and the knobs both broke off. Any great extraction techniques?
Any suggestions on a replacement of the plywood engine hatch? How about a thick plastic (cutting board type material) or something similar?

For the gelcoat, planning to wet sand, buff and wax, any other helpful techniques?
Trailer, going to paint this, yes its galvanized, but its weathered enough that the paint will stick. Black or white?
Lastly, it shows better in the pictures than in person, the closer I look, the more my list grows.

Are you going to repair the spider cracks yourself? Seemed like the way they were clustered together right around the rub rail it would be pretty difficult

We redid our engine cover with a piece of marine 3/4 ply, with 2-3 layers of fiberglass, then sanded smooth and painted on the underside. Works thus far. Good luck with the restoration and keep us posted!

I had a stuck tower bolt myself - time to fire up the drill! I'll be interested to see what you do with the engine hatch. I've considered replacing mine (it's in really bad shape) but I was never able to find a plastic-type material that I was comfortable with. You may want to consider making it two or even three pieces. I think the standard one piece is a little clunky - it seems like I'm always telling people to stand up whenever I'm messing around with the rear bags. Good luck!

Sorry I'm new to wakworld but I wanted to share some insight I have a 2002 xstar and I had to replace the back compartments it , the original ones were made out of honeycomb material and is known to break. I replaced them with 3/4 inch plastic about 4 years ago. Paid about a 100 bucks. I forgot the name of it but they should tell you. The melting temp on this stuff is like over 200 degrees so you won't have to worry about that.hope this helps

P.s what is the shipping on that to California I own my own gel coat restoration business so this sounds like a cool project

Sorry to hear that you ran into a less than honest seller, Rob.....

I look forward to watching your project again, I enjoy them a ton.

I'd use King Starboard for your engine hatch. Its all composite, cuts like wood, and is very strong. I've used it on my boat and it worked awesome. I've ordered it from these guys and had great service. Plus the shipping was fast and they cut it to whatever size you want. Good luck.

http://www.boatoutfitters.com/king-starboard.html

Thanks for the tips guys. That material for the engine hatch looks great. I've made some progress so its time for an update.
The first thing I had to do was get the tower down so I could put it in the garage and start working on it. The lower bolts had completely welded themselves to the aluminum. The knobs just broke off leaving two big stainless steel bolts sticking through. I tried everything I could think of to get them out, including two pairs of brand new vice grips, welding a bolt to it, heating it with a heat gun, the bolts broke leaving little stubs but refused to give an inch. I tried to drill out the bolts but my brand new bits wouldn't even bite at the stainless. Finally I decided to drill out around the bolt and use a clevis pin instead.

I started by drilling 6 holes around the outside through the aluminum (if this failed my backup plan was to contact new dimension and get some stubs then have them welded on) then I had to open up the holes till practically nothing was touching the bolt. At last I could get the bolt out. Then I used incrementally larger bits to open up and smooth the hold, finishing with a 3/4" drill bit ($20 from home depot) and a couple of 3/4" pins.

The pins work great and are a ton faster than unscrewing the hand screws every time. I also drilled out the hand screw set above and used self locking pins.
As I store the boat in the garage and always put the tower down this is a HUGE time saver.

Trailer
 

This was one of the biggest projects on this boat. The port fender was all smashed up and replacements are impossible to find.

I bought some new ones ($70 each) and ad a muffler shop help me install them. Then I borrowed my dads Harbor freight welder, and bought some angle and sheet metal then went to town on building a new platform to complete the install.



I also tried to cut my finger off. (Wear gloves!)

Here are the pics.

Next Lesson: How to fix your perfect pass motor.
 

While I was at it, I painted the galvanized trailer white, painted the wheels black, and took a ding out of the prop.

Next Lesson: How to fix your perfect pass motor.

So this is a common problem on most used boats. Your perfectpass servo motor seizes up and stops working. You can get them from bakesonline for about $120 or you can almost always take them apart and clean them.

Start by removing the motor, loosen the hose clamps, un-plug it, and use a small allen wrench to remove the knob.

Next remove the motor from the plate. (4 small bolts)

Then just unscrew the 4 screws on the face. Also use a box cutter to trace around the body at the joint to loosen the cap.

Remove the cap by pulling, or in my case banging the shaft against the work bench a few times and it comes right out. The nice part is that this is a brushless motor so its super easy to put back together.

Once its apart you can usually see some rust on the shaft. I use a little electric parts cleaner (available at any auto parts store) and some very fine grade sand paper, like 4-800 and wet sand the rust away. Do this for the inside as well.

Put it back together and slather the body with some silicone for water protection. Test it out by seeing if you can move the shaft with some pliers. It should move easily.

drop it back in and you're good to go.

A couple more side projects
 

A couple more issues.

The shifter is really hard to put into reverse. It goes to the first click easily, but after that its a bear to push down. I took it apart and lubed it up but its still doing it. Something between the shift lever and the internal gears is causing it. Anyone else had this issue? Haven't solved it yet.

While I was at it I took the seat off, it was loose and look what I found:

A little time with the angle grinder and some paint and it looks much better.

The swim deck is fiberglass and was slick as snot so I added some truck bed liner for grip and color. It turned out well.

Lastly, a skull shifter knob, classic.

I had the same seat sliders on my prostar 190 and they were worse than yours. I bought a new set at summit racing but I can't find them anymore. Quick search on google shows these http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Univer...ders,7103.html

Might be worth it to get it sliding smoothly again!

Boat looks like a copy cat! cograts on the do it yourself project...the gel coat was an issue with these years, i heard they were trying to gp with a more "eco" friendly gel but who knows, yours looks by far worse than ive seen though. Good luck with your project, put some love in at 800 hours a year ago, came out lookin good i think