Hey Guys – long time lurker, first time poster. I've been restoring watercraft for a while, but never shared on the forums. Starting a new project I thought you guys might find interesting: two 1995 XP 800s. I have a lead on a third 95 XP 800, but it’s 400 miles from my house, so I’ll be taking a road trip this weekend to grab it if it doesn't sell before then. If I get lucky, post name will change to “Triple Threat!”
I picked up the first one a little over a year ago. The guy I bought it from was a dealer and the original owner. He had more brand-spanking NOS parts than I've ever seen. He *thinks* he has an original set of unused factory XP 800 decals and is digging through his parts supply to find them. They are likely the last OEM set in existence, so if he finds them, they won’t be going on the ski… straight to high-resolution scanning for color matching and duplication. The adhesive on an almost 20 year old set of decals would be unusable anyway. Here’s to hoping!
As you can see, this ski has the wrong hood on it, and it has a jet-trim seat. Looking for a hood and a hump seat if anyone has one. He told me the motor started making some noise, so he tore it down (still in running condition) and it sat for 10 years. When I started going through it, I noticed that one of the rod bearings had failed, but not catastrophically. The jugs are on the original bore, pistons in good shape, and the bottom end looks to be in good condition. I got an extra crank with the deal as well.
I picked the second one up two weeks ago, and the awesome news is that it’s 100% complete and original. 250 bucks! The motor is stuck, so we’ll see what I’m up against once it’s out and on the workbench.
Overall concept for the build is "resto/light-mod." Here's what I mean: material quality has advanced significantly over the past 20 years, so I'm not going to be one of those “my 57 Corvette has the original air in the original spare tire” guys. Things like finishes, hoses, sealants, and drive-line seals (to name a few,) will be replaced with modern/superior equivalents.
That said, I’m going to go a bit nuts with the gel coat. The PPG color codes are still available, so I plan to have some samples sprayed, wet-sand/compound a small section of both colors on the hull, and spectrophotometer match to check for variation. Like all 20-year old boats, both hulls have some imperfections—crazing, dings, etc that will still be noticeable after compounding. I’m shooting for factory-fresh quality on these, so if I can't get the repair areas to match perfectly, new gel coat is in store.
More Photos Here: http://s145.photobucket.com/user/bgmeredith/library/95 XP 800 Resto?sort=3&page=1
More to come.
Cheers!
Ben
I picked up the first one a little over a year ago. The guy I bought it from was a dealer and the original owner. He had more brand-spanking NOS parts than I've ever seen. He *thinks* he has an original set of unused factory XP 800 decals and is digging through his parts supply to find them. They are likely the last OEM set in existence, so if he finds them, they won’t be going on the ski… straight to high-resolution scanning for color matching and duplication. The adhesive on an almost 20 year old set of decals would be unusable anyway. Here’s to hoping!
As you can see, this ski has the wrong hood on it, and it has a jet-trim seat. Looking for a hood and a hump seat if anyone has one. He told me the motor started making some noise, so he tore it down (still in running condition) and it sat for 10 years. When I started going through it, I noticed that one of the rod bearings had failed, but not catastrophically. The jugs are on the original bore, pistons in good shape, and the bottom end looks to be in good condition. I got an extra crank with the deal as well.
I picked the second one up two weeks ago, and the awesome news is that it’s 100% complete and original. 250 bucks! The motor is stuck, so we’ll see what I’m up against once it’s out and on the workbench.
Overall concept for the build is "resto/light-mod." Here's what I mean: material quality has advanced significantly over the past 20 years, so I'm not going to be one of those “my 57 Corvette has the original air in the original spare tire” guys. Things like finishes, hoses, sealants, and drive-line seals (to name a few,) will be replaced with modern/superior equivalents.
That said, I’m going to go a bit nuts with the gel coat. The PPG color codes are still available, so I plan to have some samples sprayed, wet-sand/compound a small section of both colors on the hull, and spectrophotometer match to check for variation. Like all 20-year old boats, both hulls have some imperfections—crazing, dings, etc that will still be noticeable after compounding. I’m shooting for factory-fresh quality on these, so if I can't get the repair areas to match perfectly, new gel coat is in store.
More Photos Here: http://s145.photobucket.com/user/bgmeredith/library/95 XP 800 Resto?sort=3&page=1
More to come.
Cheers!
Ben
