1981 V20 Restoration

Dana A

Member
Newbie here, Been waiting at the door to get in!
Had my son come home and tell me his friends father had a boat in his back yard that he'll give me. Asked whit it was and he said a 20 ft wellcraft, I told him I would have to take a look at it as I had one a year ago (70's ctr console) that sunk to recover the 150 suzuki 4 stroke on it, that boat and decks transom were a sponge and told them I dont want that boat.
I went and looked at the cuddy my son was offered and decks were solid, transom, questionable. Hull and liner are almost flawless just highly oxidized
Cleaned it out, brought it to the shop and dug deeper and deeper and deeper.
Great winter project for my son and his three pals (all 22 yo) during these trying times, they said were game.

they've been to the shop 5 out of 7 days a week after work doing the work (ok about 2/3 of the work)


Plan is Seacast Stringers and Transom (and every other piece of wood in the hull
Were planning on a 25' transom or option of full transom and bracket
Pics I've seen with brackets they seem to squat with the engine weight further back. would love to hear from someone who has driven both variants
(planning on a 200 yami 2 smoke)

Larger fuel Tank planned, I will say they slapped these boats together.
Fuel tank was foamed in (factory) almost 4 inches off center at an angle where I was able to suck 6 gal of unusable fuel from the tank with the boat level

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xCBOzW9EZ8&feature=youtu.be
 

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Nice hull, looks like u have a great project ahead. Your labor situation sound ideal for all parties involved.

are you going to recore the deck with ply or use a composite?
keep the pics coming
 
Have not got into the deck yet, The original gelcoat on the decks is in excellent condition with no cracks or soft spots. looks like they sealed the decks fairly well.
Am thinking putting it back in as is leaving us the option of using the hull to build it as a center condole down the road. If I were to do the decks I'd probably go with coosa
focusing on the hull for now.
Boat was trailered most of its life and given to the neighbor who just let it sit at the woods line for who knows how many years
My thought was to use this as a mooring holder and something the boys could use as their beater. The boys got all the wood removed from the hull yesterday and we started to align the transom cutout. original plan was to pour the transom without removing the liner, (the reason for the cut out from the rear)that changed when I saw the rot going into the stringers. most dont realize that the rot in the transom is a fungus and will migrate thru any wood connected to it, not to mention the bugs
Hull has only one coat of bottom paint on it, will be redone in shark white
 
What s the status of the merc 150? Just wondering, few guys on here still running that vintage motor always looking for parts.
 
I was going to use it but the power trim is shot, ram, motors, etc
The rest of the motor looks good, turns over, was fogged before it was put away. Has 1100 orig hours on it. part it out I guess
Had to cut it off the boat was going to bolt the powerhead to my bench and see if it fires up lol I know a lot of guys on the lakes love the old mercs too
Havent got to it yet, sitting on a pallet since I took it off dec 7th lol
 
Looks like you're well on your way to bringing her back to life. :clap: Only comment I will make is about the transom. Most people do not realize that it's curved, not straight across, so they cut away the back glass and leave the interior part of the transom sandwich like you did. (Which is exactly backwards from the way it should be done which is to leave the outside and just cut the inside glass). Damage is done, so no way to change it. Just be careful when building the new transom, try and get it back as close to original as possible.
 
Transom alignment

Funny you say its backwards, get into 30-40 footers and trying to do it from the inside is backwards. Not a problem at this end on alignment.
Got 4 skill saw blades same as the one used to cut it, tabbed in with 8 blocks.
Dead balls on! will remove, fasten form for building up transom, glass it then reinstall tabbing it back in place between the blocks then removing the blocks and tabbing the rest.
Making some headway as we pulled it from the woods 30 days ago today, into the shop 12/6 and the hull is now wood free

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1981 merc 150

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It’s available. Power trim is junk and mounts were cut to get it of the boatD4A6665E-7B72-44F4-99F8-387EF0BAD35B.jpg
 
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Still at it

Got started on the stringer pour this week, went well but a messy job. putting continuing on hold due to the cold temps not going to try to keep the shop 80 degrees when its going to be 9 out
added a pvc wire chase, moving the batteries forward of the fuel tank


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On a Cold Hold for glasswork, so it's prep,prep & prep

To cold to pour or glass so it been triple check the leveling of the hull, stringer alignments/heights etc
Happy with the transom height, 24 5/8 right where we wanted it to be.
Have to say these kids are rocking it!




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Stringers poured

Got back into the hull over the weekend now that the temps have come out of the teens at night.
How much seacast does it take to do a transom raise to 25" and stringers on a V20 ?
10 5gal pails,
Figured it to be approx 10,000 cubic inches (little under, 9700 ish)
However we came up about a gallon short due to me not informing the mathematician to figure the spine of the hull into the equation.
The block of wood in the stern for the bilge pump was torn out and the area was built up with seacast and glassed in.

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