Hull Repair on my 96XP

[jammin777]

I just arranged a paint booth and equipment to re gelcoat the bottom of the hull.

The teardown will start tonight.

You guys are always a bad influence on me!

you're welcome.:thumbsup:

 

[Krispy]

Well I have put a bit of work into the XP tonight and yesterday.

Yesterday I pulled everything surrounding the engine leaving the engine itself in the hull.

Drained nearly a full tank of good oil into my pan! Anyone want to buy it? Includes trace amounts of diff and trans oil.

Siphoned out the old gas into the pressure washer and mower.

Cleaned the inside of the hull, might give it one more round tomorrow, then off with some more bits, including the pump and bars, possibly the hood.

All this just to fix some scratches...

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[Krispy]

Do it once do it right he said...it will only take an hour to pull the engine he said.

This rabbit hole is getting deeper and deeper.

I am realizing that since I am changing the entire lower hull color to black I need to remove all the fittings and items that pass through the hull.

Last night I pulled the pump and vts off, and the sponsons. In rider to remove the sponsons I had to remove the rear e box, that means the tiny tach had to be removed. Etc etc.

Anyway more pics...

Pulled parts, bag n tag

Pump area.


I figure tonight will be the bars and hood, followed the rub rail/ bumpers.

Anyone know how to remove that stuff?
[MENTION=57920]racerxxx[/MENTION] ?




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[Jetskigoodies]

The rubrails you will need to take off the corners and nose first. Remove the round inserts and drill out the rivets, the nose has 4 and each corner has 3. After those are removed you will have to slide the inner part off the rubrail out. Sometimes they pull out easy and some times you need to beat them out. I take a small block of wood and place the outer corner in the groove butted up against the inner rubrail and then use a hammer and hit the block sliding the rail out. After you have the inner rail out you will need to drill out the rest of the rivets out. Take about a hour for the whole process

 

[Krispy]

The rubrails you will need to take off the corners and nose first. Remove the round inserts and drill out the rivets, the nose has 4 and each corner has 3. After those are removed you will have to slide the inner part off the rubrail out. Sometimes they pull out easy and some times you need to beat them out. I take a small block of wood and place the outer corner in the groove butted up against the inner rubrail and then use a hammer and hit the block sliding the rail out. After you have the inner rail out you will need to drill out the rest of the rivets out. Take about a hour for the whole process

Thanks, so basically the nose and corners are capturing the rail sections. Where do the rivets go once drilled out? Do that fall inside the hull like the OEM turf?

I have a rivet gun, is that all I need for reassembly?


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[racerxxx]

I really don't want to pull the engine until I have to for a rebuild. I think I am going to try and roll it over on its side on some old used tires and moving blanket. I may build a |_| type channel to support the bonded surface between the hull upper and lower so it doesn't just rest on my garage floor. then figure some way to hold it in place while I fill/ patch these areas.

Then, assuming I need a rebuild after this season, when the engine is out perform a full flip on some stands and re-gelcoat the whole bottom (hold your breath 96 purists) black ala 99 spx....

That is how I am feeling at the moment. Subject to change...

Opinions welcome!

I just arranged a paint booth and equipment to re gelcoat the bottom of the hull.

The teardown will start tonight.

You guys are always a bad influence on me!

Well I have put a bit of work into the XP tonight and yesterday.

Yesterday I pulled everything surrounding the engine leaving the engine itself in the hull.

Drained nearly a full tank of good oil into my pan! Anyone want to buy it? Includes trace amounts of diff and trans oil.

Siphoned out the old gas into the pressure washer and mower.

Cleaned the inside of the hull, might give it one more round tomorrow, then off with some more bits, including the pump and bars, possibly the hood.



All this just to fix some scratches...




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Preface---The following is meant to be funny and taken lightly.


LOL, let's hit the brakes a few seconds.

I see no confirmation of color change, perhaps this was to be a surprise to the forum? As I read this "All this just to fix some scratches..." was just that--fix scratches, not color change.


In the words of Granny from Ice Age Continental drift "Suck it up, Buttercup" (sorry great movie saying--meant to be funny)

 

[racerxxx]

You can knock the towards the hull and pull them out from the back side with pliers. Rivet gun is fine, I'll get you the part number for the rivets from McMaster, box of 100 is like 16 bucks shipped I think.



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[Jetskigoodies]

Take racers advise on buying the right rivets. The ones at home depot are not long enough for the nose or corners

 

[Krispy]

I really don't want to pull the engine until I have to for a rebuild. I think I am going to try and roll it over on its side on some old used tires and moving blanket. I may build a |_| type channel to support the bonded surface between the hull upper and lower so it doesn't just rest on my garage floor. then figure some way to hold it in place while I fill/ patch these areas.

Then, assuming I need a rebuild after this season, when the engine is out perform a full flip on some stands and re-gelcoat the whole bottom (hold your breath 96 purists) black ala 99 spx....

That is how I am feeling at the moment. Subject to change...

Opinions welcome!

[MENTION=57920]racerxxx[/MENTION] I took it the right way. My Dad used to tell me the same thing when I would complain about hard labor...

I mentioned the full color change earlier (see above) actually I quite enjoy projects. I just hope the juice is worth the squeeze.

I am just realizing that was I was taking as easy work is turning out to be a whole ordeal.

Nevermind all the wet sanding of the gelcoat after I get it sprayed...

At any rate I think I will enjoy the final project. As long as it stays cool and rainy down here I won't feel too bad for multiple days of tear-down, followed by more sanding then I know what to do with. And hey, before I spray the new gelcoat I figure I might as well true the hull.

Once the pretty riding days are here I may end up regretting these decisions...

 

[Krispy]

You can knock the towards the hull and pull them out from the back side with pliers. Rivet gun is fine, I'll get you the part number for the rivets from McMaster, box of 100 is like 16 bucks shipped I think.



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That would be helpful, the pic you are showing me in post #32 shows rivets all the way down the side. Do those need to be drilled as well? The way I was reading it before is that the nose and rear corners capture the rail sections? Is that correct or are the rail sections riveted on as well?

 

[jammin777]

dang this went from gel coat repair to practically a full resto! we are sooo bad!:reddevil:

 

[Jetskigoodies]

The corners and nose just hold the inner part of the rub rail. When you slide the inner out. The frame that it slides into has about 40 rivets that need to be drilled out as well.

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[racerxxx]

Just fill the head of the rivet out. I think I use 3/16 drill bit (body diameter of the rivet) so I don't hit the glass. Then just use a ball peen hammer to knock them inward, it takes no effort as the rivets are no longer squeezing the layers of materials together. Then I use pliers to wiggle them out. Very easy to do, and there it's JUST enough room to get them out.



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[Krispy]

Thanks fellas. Y'all figure it is the right call to remove for a hull bottom re gel coat?

I almost wonder if I could get away with taping it up when the top surface is masked....I just don't want this to turn out like a maco paint job where the door jambs are a different color than the outside!


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[racerxxx]

 

[Krispy]

Well I worked on the ski for a couple of hours tonight. I was able to pull the bars, battery vent , cooling outlet, steering cable, speedo and rub rails off.

After pulling there nose piece off the ski I noticed that the previous owner didn't know there wasn't a brake pedal. Here is what I found:

My ski looks pretty homely without the rib rails:

The last thing on the list is the through hull exhaust. Once that is removed it will be time to flip it and start working on filling and prepping for gel coat.

Oh, there was one casualty today, I broke the steering cable right at the handle bar end. Have a look:

Anyone have one they want to sell me?


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[Krispy]

Today was a pretty big day. I offered to drive my coworkers to lunch and made an unexpected stop by the house to flip the ski. My stand ended up being just the right height to clear the hood I didn't install.

Tonight the priority was to remove the ride plate/ pump shoe and Seadoo stickers.

First off the man that designed the pump shoe and decided it should be glued in can eat a ????....

I was able to use my bottle jack to separate the parts that were glued together

After that was separated I had a TON of RTV esque sealer to remove. I started off with the putty knife and got most of the big areas of adhesive.

The final adhesive removal was done with a wire wheel on my drill. I scratched the gelcoat in a few places but that is OK, I plan on covering it all up anyway.

The final items for tonight were to remove the hull decals and HIN plate.


All that is done.

Hopefully tomorrow I will start on picking out the damage on the hull and determining how much I need to fix via resin and glass and how much I can leave to the new gelcoat

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[CReynoldsMIZ]

Today was a pretty big day. I offered to drive my coworkers to lunch and made an unexpected stop by the house to flip the ski. My stand ended up being just the right height to clear the hood I didn't install.

Tonight the priority was to remove the ride plate/ pump shoe and Seadoo stickers.

First off the man that designed the pump shoe and decided it should be glued in can eat a dick.

haha you suckered your co workers into this? They mustve thought you were crazy!

And remember this is a family friendly forum even tho it seems to just be a bunch of crazy ol coots! Im not gunna lie I laughed pretty hard reading that

 

[Krispy]

haha you suckered your co workers into this? They mustve thought you were crazy!

And remember this is a family friendly forum even tho it seems to just be a bunch of crazy ol coots! Im not gunna lie I laughed pretty hard reading that

My coworkers understand, we are a bunch of engineers that talk projects around the water cooler all day.

This weekend was productive, I was able to fill in all the major low spots and broken gelcoat with a polyester resin and short strand fiberglass mix.

Right now the hull is 90% prepped for gelcoat. And I have some important decisions to make regarding the gelcoat mix and application process.

The first decision is do I mount up the beach house sponsons I picked up off a buddy?

They would require me to drill one more mounting hole forward of the factory holes, ideally this will be done before I lay down the gelcoat.

What does everyone think about that idea?

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[Krispy]

Most of the important decisions have been made:

I have ordered the spray gun, I was going to cheap out and get a harbor freight purple gun but I ponied up the extra $ for a gun designed to spray high build primers and thick gelcoat.

I purchased this HVLP gun with a 2.5 mm tip.

It should be arriving today.

I decided the gelcoat path I am going to take:

I will be applying 2 heavy coats of un waxed neutral gelcoat, tinted with 5 oz of carbon black pigment per gallon (blacker than black, don't want to end up with a light spot in the gelcoat like [MENTION=51350]Jetskigoodies[/MENTION] on his sweet 99spx resto). Targeting 15-20 mil thickness on each coat, waiting about 2 hours between coats.

The final coat will be a 50:50 mix of duratec clear and the gelcoat. Sprayed on a bit thinner than the first 2 coats. The clear will aid in having the gelcoat lay down smooth with minimal orange peel, it will act as it's own vapor seal for curing.

Duratec clear is also supposed to aid in making a more abrasion resistant and impact resistant surface than gelcoat, it is also supposed to enhance the gloss of the final coat (makes sense, less pigment per volume means more resin appearance) The makers of the product promise the moon with this stuff, they should because a quart of the stuff cost as much as the gallon of gelcoat I ordered!

All of the materials should be shipping today or tomorrow from UScomposites and with any luck I should get them by the weekend.

Now the race to finish hull prep is on!






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[suke]

Yikes! I had a similar issue on my hull. I just patched it then covered the keel with a keelguard.

 

[jammin777]

that duratec is great stuff!

 

[Krispy]

that duratec is great stuff!

I forgot, did you use it on your hull?

Any tips on it?


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[jammin777]

yes i did first several coats mixed 20% duratec and last 50/50. got it all spayed using 1.7mm tip withing 45 min and was sanding with 180 grit within 4 hours, not sure of how many mils but was pretty thick. waited a few days and finish sanded with 400,600,800 and finally 1000 grit the buffed. as a surprise to me the gel goat came with wax which is best for under the waterline if it going to be in the water for long periods. of time like days on in.
the duratec definitely helps flow through the gun with less orange peel for less sanding and dries very nice. i did a ton of reading before i did my gel coat. and was nervous but it,s easy if you know how to spray paint. i just kept layering the coats on to desired thickness. sands sort of like bondo.
just remember that you have 20 min of pot life or you risk throwing away your new spray gun. acetone works very well to clean the gun. between batches.

 

[Krispy]

yes i did first several coats mixed 20% duratec and last 50/50. got it all spayed using 1.7mm tip withing 45 min and was sanding with 180 grit within 4 hours, not sure of how many mils but was pretty thick. waited a few days and finish sanded with 400,600,800 and finally 1000 grit the buffed. as a surprise to me the gel goat came with wax which is best for under the waterline if it going to be in the water for long periods. of time like days on in.
the duratec definitely helps flow through the gun with less orange peel for less sanding and dries very nice. i did a ton of reading before i did my gel coat. and was nervous but it,s easy if you know how to spray paint. i just kept layering the coats on to desired thickness. sands sort of like bondo.
just remember that you have 20 min of pot life or you risk throwing away your new spray gun. acetone works very well to clean the gun. between batches.

Thanks for the tips. I have done (a week of) reading between projects at work. Here is what I have gleaned:

The less "stuff" in your gelcoat the better, that is to say if you can get it to lay down with minimum thinning it is better. More gelcoat/ less other stuff means stronger finish (UV protection etc)

The only function wax serves is to rise to the surface on a newly sprayed gelcoat and allow a cure to occur (blocking the gelcoat from oxygen to allow a cure) this is done automatically on new boat production as the gelcoat is the first layer put into the mold and is blocked by the mold on the "A" surface and the fiberglass on the backside. PVA can also be used as a barrier against air to allow curing, as well as a good ole plastic bag or sheet, as some people use for small repairs. Since I am doing a whole hull I plan on using the duratec as my sealing layer.

I have purchased wax to mix in if I feel it will work better, that is to say if I think I will require sanding between coats. But from what I have read, if a waxed gelcoat is to be used it should be applied as one thick coat to desired thickness (not allowed to cure) that way once the curing process begins the wax can rise to the surface to form that oxygen barrier. If the coats are applied too far apart and curing has began to take place, the surface wax from the previous layer can cause adhesion problems with the layer sprayed on top. By using non waxed (most likely) gelcoat I should be able to dodge this problem.

Also using the 2.5 tip I should get a pretty darn thick coat without having to layer too much.

Who knows, all this is just a plan at this point as I haven't even laid my hands on the gun.

This is only my data point at this moment in time. You have actually DONE the work so I am very open to your opinions on my method ...