Help: 1969 18' Tournament skier twin Mercury 1350s restoration

One more issue and this has been covered many times here, but you are new and don't know where to find it.

When you remove the core the boat loses it's strength. If this were done at a factory, they would put the hull back into the mold to retain it's shape. They best you can do is to have the deck on the boat, and the hull supported as well as possible making sure that the straight lines of the bottom are retained during core replacement.

jim

 

Dave - I havent been up to the lake cabin/shop for awhile but the next time I go I will drop you a line. My daughter and son in law are up there now and since my son in law has been helping me he could answer any questions in my absence. This weekend would not be a good time though.

 

One more point. Restoring a vintage Dyne will cost you close to the cost of a new boat + the labor. If you have a pair of 135 Mercs that run they would be gold on this site. You must love the classic Dyne look and in your case twins to go forward with your project. Driving a twin Dyne is a religious experience. If you go forward you would not need to change the splashwell or rear deck like I am. The 70's Mercs straight 6's towers of power could be tucked in quite close to fit on a hull such as yours.

As far as the fiberglassing and core replacement go you have found the correct site for advice.

 

TJ,
What motors are you putting on your 18 that you had to modify the splash well for ?

My 18 has twin 175 Black Max's on it with the stock splash well and it cleared fine.

 

Merc 150 4 strokers.

 

Are they any wider than the Black Max's ?

 

I dont know but I plan on mounting them the standard 26 inches (center-to-center) apart. The transom and wider splashwell have already been built so there is no going back. I did something engineeringly elegant - the sides of the new splaswell double as structural knees to tie the transom to the floor. The 3 stringers also have knees to tie into the transom so I have a total of 5 points to tie into the transom to the floor plus the 2 inside parts of the rear side hull to the transom. I want this to be bullet proof because firewalling the throttles on a twin rig is the closest I can get to doing the same thing with a jet on a runway.

 

Dave - I did not mean to hi-jack your thread but Dynabob asked me a question. This is a small forum and probably only 25 of us are doing serious work on Hydrodynes. We tend to jump on new stuff like yours because restoring boats is a slow process and we like to talk about it when we are not actively working on our boats.

You can get your boat done for far less than a new boat. It just depends on what materials you use and how much labor you are willing to expend and what you want as an end product. Working with fiberglass is not difficult - just dirty. I hope you have a good sander or 2 and a device to keep from inhaling dust such as a mask. As I said before - you have come to the right place. I can hook you up with the right materials at the best price thus saving you hours of research and save you lots of money.

 

Hey everyone,

Sorry for going incommunicado for so long. Other priorities plus indecision is a bad combination. Anyway work is underway on my boat. It appears someone had redone the floor before. The wood in the the top layer is not continuous, and appears to be akin to treated pine fence boards. They are not really bonded to the fiberglass. There are areas with no wood but there are 1/16th" standing ribs of resin, that were apparently between the original balsa strips. I'm looking for the photos I have; if I don't find them soon, I'll take some more and post (it's half an hour away.)

Thanks for all the info so far,

Dave

 

Jim,

Photos would be helpful, especially where the front edge is in regard to the instrument panel, and the size and shape of the well in the back. A question about the back. I've always used side terminal auto batteries to fit them under the splash well, and the barely fit. If the floor is raised at all in the stern, how do you deal with the batteries?

Thanks,
Dave