98 GTI summer project

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Wanted to share my summer project that I just finished up with. Planning to ride out to catalina island from dana to camp overnight and then troll towards San Clemente in the morning.

 

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Took a heat gun to all of the decals and punched out the old traction pads. Filled all the chips and holes with epoxy. Sanded the hull and hood using 220 grit with a power sander. Painted the topside with interlux Seattle grey and the bottom along with the bottom plate and front hood with ez poxy black all with a roller but no tipping with a brush. Added blacktip traction pads. Sprayed the trim and sponsons with SEM bumper cover. Added a garmin fish finder to the glove box lid connected to a thru hull transducer that’s secured to the hull with duct putty and a toggle switch between the finder and main battery. Mounted a portable manual bilge pump inside the hull. Installed a flip 4 Bluetooth speaker. Installed a custom cooler rack from plattinum products to hold a yeti 45, 2 angled rod holders for trolling, 2 vertical rod holders for an additional rod and gaff, speargun rack, and two 3.5 gallon rotax jerry cans. Additionally in the process I replaced the reverse rod, fuel gauge, fuel baffle, starter relay, drain plugs, hood deflector, and of course the battery. Very long process of procrastination but pretty happy with the end results overall. Will find out shortly if she’s still sea worthy. Thanks for the read!

 

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Here are a few shots I’ve taken along the way!

 

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Part 2

 

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Part 3

 

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Part 4

 

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As far as safety goes. I wear a dakine bike 2 liter water waist pack which also includes a flare gun and 4 flares, desalinization kit, signal mirror, locating dye, compass, light stick, knife, cliff bars, motion sickness pills, Advil, and electrolyte pills and a cobra 600 vhf handheld attached. Also on my pfd I have a led light, emergency whistle, and plb.