87Ski Nautique 2001 projects..errr..restoration
 

I know a lot of you guys love these boats so I figured I'd post up some pics of this off season undertaking. The floor developed a small soft spot right by the pylon and I've always hated the red carpet PLUS my interior was pretty much shot so I figured what better time to replace all these things and in all honesty, so far it's going smoothly. All I know is when it's time to upgrade to a super air...someone is going to get a damn nice 2001 to start their addiction out on.

The vinyl is currently being redone by an amish guy that everyone swears is the best place around to get the work done (we shall see) got the perfect pass gauge put in, removed the god awful looking dash mirror to free up that prime real estate (every inch counts in this tiny boat) and I'm currently in the market for gunmetal carpet if anyone knows a good place. Removing this old remnant glue is a pretty time consuming pain in the a##. Most implortanatly cut the old glass and floor out and cut the new piece of floor to go in. Stringers are in great shape as was the floor minus that one soft spot apparently it was at least taken decent care of before I got it. I'm going to epoxy resin the stringers before I reinstall the floor and they should last a long long time before that job ever needs done. Also pulled out the amps sub and radio to clean up the wiring.

Also verified the sending unit is the reason my fuel gauge acts like it's possesed so I have another one of those on the way. It's a good thing I enjoy working on this thing, so far this season I replaced the driver side exhaust manifold, bought a larger deep cycle battery, new belts, new thermostat, new plugs and wires, upgraded to pertronix electronic ignition, put on the tower at the beginning of the season, tower speakers with amp, sub under the bow with amp, had to cut a hole in the dash to get the radio in, repacked the stuffing boxes with the goretex dripless stuff, new tournament pitots and that's on top of the normal maintenance stuff. Thinking about making some boxes to put beside the motor box to put the ballast bags in and possibly directly plumbing them in. I feel like they would double as almost mini sun decks and be a hell of alot easier to walk over than the bags themselves. Plus in theory it would give you another couple seats to overload it a little more. haha

Look forward to seeing the results. Make sure you epoxy coat all sides of that new plywood and seal any attachment hole.

I love the 87 steering wheels. Hahaha.

Looks cool! I had an 88 2001 for years and loved it. Now my friend has it and loves it. I'm surprised all the stringers are good as mine rotted and I live in AZ.

Such a fantastic wake.

Keep the photos coming!

Looking good. Any thoughts of trying to add some in floor ballast while you're in there?

Looks fun. I redid an 82 and planned on doing infloor ballast. I framed them up and then realized they would be too small to eliminate using bags so I scrapped the idea.

For glue removal use a wire cup wheel on an angle grinder. I use that combo with great success. It turns it into 1000 dust bunnies which were easily vacuumed up. Wear long sleeves and eye protection.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

Jed that's exactly how I'm doing it just a drill not an angle grinder. As for in floor ballast Jon nailed it there really isnt enough room under there for it to even be worth the hassle. I'm going to fab up some boxes to cover my fatsacs so you can at least walk on them. The stringers aren't 100% but they're pretty damn solid I'm guessing another to 10 years of life left. They sound solid when you tap on them with the end of a screwdriver and I can only drive the tip in like an 1/8 of an inch. I'm going to douse them in cpes and they should last a very long time. I'll get some pics of them on here. I took video to show the next owner as the upgrade to a super air is inevitable.

any update on the project

Nice boat, I've got the same year in a barefooter with 454, same color scheme, reupholstered to match the original 2 years ago. Never got around to replacing carpet cause I've never had any soft spots in the floor. I did pull down what carpet I could on the port side just ahead of the cooler seat to epoxy up a plywood mount for my 2 bank charger. My deep cycle battery is in a box right there so my wires are mostly tucked away saving some storage, plus your power plug is readily available right behind the seat and you can see the indicators when its on a trailer from the driver's seat. Also tucked my sub up in the bow on the non foam side... would rebuild the box to get some storage back but also looking to upgrade to a SANTE in the next 2-3 years.

Why did you go with the second speedo for the perfect pass? I know most everyone likes to rely on the tach for driving the older boats but is the tach on the perfect pass not 100% reliable? Perfect pass is the last upgrade I'm doing on the boat this year and was gonna replace the tach with the unit to keep some symmetry on the dash.

Maybe you already have, but you should look around correctcraftfan.com. Lots of great info on the older Nautiques and tons of people that have done exactly what you are doing. I think you will find on that site that 95% of the people would suggest you replace the stringers while you are in there. Even if they look good on the outside, there is probably some rot inside. When you do upgrade to the Super Air, a boat with replaced stringers will be much more valuable.