RESTO 1996 Challenger 800 Resto-Refresh

[CLAYMORE]

I started removing all the Cleats, Handles and seats. The seats can be a pain in the arse, as someone mentioned, you do have to be a double jointed midget in order to get to all of the fasteners...

The front sun seat you have to pull away from the boat, push down a bit then pry up. Kind of difficult. Found a build sticker with initials stuck to the hull, behind the seat back.


Removal of all the Blackish - Purple handles. I may paint these dark blue.


All the cleats were taken off.


Your toilet is ready sir...Ew, nasty. The drain holes were clogged not allowing proper drainage and venting.


Starting to clean up a bit...

 

[CLAYMORE]

So, if you don't have access to a "little person", call the wife (only if her arms will fit) and ask politely to remove the damn 10mm fastener that you could not possibly reach as your guns are "Way to Big" for the hole....LOL. She was a good help on this one....



Here is the "bunk"...A board cut at an angle so it facilitates the removal of the bottom seat bolts. This was the 4 hardest fasteners to remove. I cursed and groaned the most on the forward two bolts. GEEZ! If it were not for the bunk board, I would have never contorted myself enough to reach these.



Another nasty discovery...



The seat is setting in the sun, draining out all the soaked up water...Yet Another Nasty funk to deal with....


At least I know what I am up against when we install the seats next season. I should be easier, I hope...

 

[Guest_User]

hey Claymore, here is a little trick/tip that I did:
I also had a funk soaked seat that had also been repaired from a threaded insert coming out previously in its life.

a replacement bottom portion came with the sale of the boat soooo...

Instead of trying to start the bolts from the bottom, I installed "studs" 6mm x1.0 about 1 1/2 - 2" long. (use what works vest for you).
Then dropped the seat right into place, and installed washers and nuts, done...
My fuel tank is directly under the seat area, so if anything fell it would not wind up in the abyss...lol...:thumbsup:

 

[CLAYMORE]

Clean it up man...

Interesting thought Pale Rider, I will consider that method during the install.

Now, On to the clean up phase... Now, if you remember, I have washed this thing a few times already but the removal of the seats have shown that there is more to do.

The yuck under the front seats. The drain holes were clogged with trash and leaves so it retained all this crap...


The "Magic Brush" working its...Er, Magic.


Ta-Da!


Even the deck is looking pretty clean after all the scrubbing.


All clean, after a day of scrubbing.


So, after a real good scrubbing and cleaning its starting to look like my boat. I cleaned the ski locker and inside the helm pretty well but will have to revisit both next spring. The engine compartment will be cleaned using "super clean" in the spring as I do not want to clean it now and have to do it again due to mold or mildew that may form over the winter. I will be covered with a boat cover and tarp all winter so I can't be sure until next spring.

 

[CLAYMORE]

Shine that Boat...

On to the Polishing, I bought the Meguires 3 step boat polishing system along with a HF polisher. The day after the thorough cleaning I started in with the First step.

The items used...


As you can see this first step cleaned the hull real good like. You can still see where the stickers were but you have to look close.


Goo Gone Pro Power and a Scotch Brite pad along with A LOT of elbow grease took care of the OEM traction mat adhesive. This method works pretty well.


Ta-Da!


Now the boat is starting to shine, this is after the first step and I imagine it will shine more after the next two steps.



Next step is to use the Meguires boat polish and see just how mirror like I can get the hull before applying the wax...I figgure I will have about 3 more days (12-15 hrs) just polishing and waxing the boat, inside and out.

 

[CLAYMORE]

Winter time blues

Time to winterize. This boat will be outside this winter, covered with a fitted boat cover. Oklahoma can see below freezing temps for up to 30 days in a row during the winter months so winterizing it properly will be a good thing. Also, It seems that there are umpteen different ways to winterize per the forum, manual and experiences. I did it verbatim per the shop manual supplement.

I added a bottle of Sta-Bil and ran the engine while fogging. I removed the R&D Filter to be able to spray directly into the carbs. I gave it a good hozing down because I did not know if the PO did this at all. I wanted to ensure proper coating of all the innards...

Here are the items purchased plus my clipboard with a print of the manual describing the proper procedure.


Funnel attached to the upper flush port.


All of the proper lines (per the supplement manual) pinched off. The strap is my battery strap, a reminder that I have hose pinchers on...


I removed the battery and will place it on a tender (in my basement on a board) during the winter. Should be fresh and ready to rock when spring comes.


Um, yea.... Is this the right boat cover? No, I had to send it back and get the proper one. Due to this company being hit hard by Sandy, I patiently waited an extra few weeks...Its all good, they were a good guys to work with.


For you eagle eyed readers, yes.... this is a bit out of sequence. I actually had to winterize before I finished removing all of the seats. LOL!

 

[CLAYMORE]

Round 2 - Clean & Polish

After getting bored and sore from buffing the inside of the boat, I broke out the heat gun to give the hood and other parts a good "cleaning". I was amazed at just how different and almost new the heat made it look. I was prepared to prep and paint these teal parts so doing this was just an exercise in itself. Now, after seeing the results, painting may not be in the picture as this will eat up more time and money on this project. It actually looks good enough right now for me, even though its still teal... Oh well, time will tell.


Hood after, there is a small area where I hit it with the buffer. The compound seemed to adhere to the hood more than I wanted or could clean. How can I get the compound off of the hood? You can see part of the hull here, the boat is coming out of its poor oxidized state and starting to look pretty good. This is only after the first step of the 3 step process too.


Before shot of the steering wheel before the heat gun treatment. You can tell that its pretty sun faded almost loosing all its color. You can see the lower portion where I hit it with the gun to so you can see the difference.


After the heat gun treatment, as you can see it looks pretty good. Now, how to get that black stuff out? Anyone got an idea or technique for that?


The new boat cover, fits well and is very water repellent. Also, its blue which is the new base color for this boat. The cover is small when folded and goes on well with just one person. Dunno if i'd tow it with it on but it will do the job keeping it clean and out of the weather this winter. Keeping the leaves out is #1...


The next step will be polishing (yea!). From what I understand this will create the overall shine that the boat can have. I may invest into a smaller polishing pad to get into the concaved areas inside the boat and other small areas the 7" polisher can't get into properly. I still estimate that I have about 6 more hours in polishing and waxing.

Later this winter I will start recovering the seats. I almost have the all the supplies and tools to do this and the wife has offered to help, its a good thing that she has more paitence than me! LOL.

 

[Rhino2013]

Thanks for the update Claymore. I never heard of using a heat gun to unfade plastic parts. How is it done, just run the heat gun over it?

 

[Roller25]

I have the '00 Challenger with twin 85hp (717's) and am planing on doing the same to mine. I'm learning alot from your thread mate. What decals are you considering? I'm thinking of the kit from Jetskidetailing.com.

 

[El Toro 33809]

"After the heat gun treatment, as you can see it looks pretty good. Now, how to get that black stuff out? Anyone got an idea or technique for that?"

If it is the same as the pads on the PWC's, Zippo lighter fluid helps. It won't remove the heavy black deposits, but you should have improvement.

 

[CLAYMORE]

Thanks for the update Claymore. I never heard of using a heat gun to unfade plastic parts. How is it done, just run the heat gun over it?

Yes, use the heat to "paint" the surface, you'll see once it gets going and everything starts heating up.

I found this method here on this forum. Do a YouTube search and you'll find all sorts of videos about the technique, Jeepers, car restoration, PWC-ers and others all know and use this for plastic restoration. Only one type of plastic, seems like ABS, can be restores this way as the rest just melt... REMEMBER, you are essentially melting the plastic SO DON'T hover too long in one area... You'll.see what I mean when you try.

I wish I knew of this very useful trick a few years ago!

 

[CLAYMORE]

I have the '00 Challenger with twin 85hp (717's) and am planing on doing the same to mine. I'm learning alot from your thread mate. What decals are you considering? I'm thinking of the kit from Jetskidetailing.com.

Besides all the dark blue blacktip mat I will be using a collection of stickers purchased from eBay. The sticker theme and placement will come from this design thought; Team SeaDoo Raceboat in the late 90's. Should be interesting.

 

[rjcress]

Awesome thread. I'm thinking about picking up a 96 challenger and will likely be doing the same things you've mentioned. Nice to see what you've done to mentally prepare myself.

 

[A.J.C.]

Claymore, you are in the process bringing back the appearance of your boat which is my next step after I get mine running. Its looking great btw! How dull was the finish on your boat before you started to buff it? Mine is pretty much flat white with the exception of where the stickers were. I have a high speed buffer so I'm hoping to bring back most of the shine it once had.

 

[elliottc]

Claymore great posting ! i am doing about the same thing bought a 97 challenger same color that had a bad mpem, Dominic took care of that and she fired right up, now to get new feul and oil lines installed and jet pump oil changed and maint. will be following your posts
keep up the good work!!!

 

[rjcress]

Hey CLAYMORE,
When you took the cleats off, was there any hardware on the underside? I felt around one on the port side at the front of the engine bay, and it felt like there is a backing plate, but I couldn't tell if it would come loose when I take the screws out from the top of the cleat. Don't want to drop anything under there, as I'd likely never see it again unless it eventually sloshed to the back of the bilge.

 

[CLAYMORE]

Claymore, you are in the process bringing back the appearance of your boat which is my next step after I get mine running. Its looking great btw! How dull was the finish on your boat before you started to buff it? Mine is pretty much flat white with the exception of where the stickers were. I have a high speed buffer so I'm hoping to bring back most of the shine it once had.

This boat sat outside for about 3 or more years without a cover. Gel coat was a flat white and the stickers towards the top were almost white, check the earlier pics in this post.

I know it will never be perfect but it is starting to shine up well. In the end, if you know what you are looking for and look closely you might see where a sticker once was as it will be a shade lighter.

Good luck, I've read your Resto post. You to have a project, enjoy...

 

[CLAYMORE]

Hey CLAYMORE,
When you took the cleats off, was there any hardware on the underside? I felt around one on the port side at the front of the engine bay, and it felt like there is a backing plate, but I couldn't tell if it would come loose when I take the screws out from the top of the cleat. Don't want to drop anything under there, as I'd likely never see it again unless it eventually sloshed to the back of the bilge.

I believe there are aluminum backer plates that are epoxied to the inside of the hull. Buffing around them would suck IMO so I just took them off.

In the beginning the hull was a treasure chest of dropped parts, change and old faded coors cans...

 

[rjcress]

CLAYMORE, What do you think of the Blacktip traction mats? I'm debating between ordering them from Keith vs ordering HT mats elsewhere for about $75 more.

 

[Dr Honda]

It's looking good.


The tan sections that are showing up where the stickers use to be, is from using the heat gun to remove them. You "Toasted" the gel coat a little. Unfortunately... that may not be able to be removed. All you can try to do is wet sand it, and polish it out. BUT... most of the time... the color is too deep.

 

[CLAYMORE]

CLAYMORE, What do you think of the Blacktip traction mats? I'm debating between ordering them from Keith vs ordering HT mats elsewhere for about $75 more.

They are better than the stock mats, I can assure you of that. I would highly recommend Keith, he will get you a smokin deal and he's a pleasure to work and communicate with.

I will have an opinion at the end of next season as then I will have used and abused them enough to know.... Although this is my first boat and I have been around boats both fishing and skiing for 35+ years I have never experienced either brand, Blacktip or HT before now. I chose Blacktip cause Keith hooked me up...honestly, that was the deciding factor.

 

[33rain]

Claymore, I am thoroughly enjoying your project. I just so happen to find the exact same boat on CL and bought it two days ago. It too has been left outside uncovered for a few years. It came with a great trailer and two destroyed motors all for $250!! I took the seats out today and I must say it was easier to get in there with the motor out of it. I started removing stickers and if it gets above freezing in the next week I'm going to start the three step cleaning process. I have taken lots of your advice and appreciate it greatly. Hopefully my mechanic can get it running again.

 

[Dennis]

Hey CLAYMORE, I've been reading your great thread here and havent seen where you mention that the engine has a high performance head. You should check engine compression and determine if the use of high octane fuel is necessary. :cheers:

 

[CLAYMORE]

Hey CLAYMORE, I've been reading your great thread here and havent seen where you mention that the engine has a high performance head. You should check engine compression and determine if the use of high octane fuel is necessary. :cheers:

I did notice and have been using high octane pump gas. I'd have to look and see what the compression numbers were but it seemed a bit higher than stock at 145 - 150 ish (can't really remember now).
During my summarization I will check it out. Thanks for the heads up though!

 

[CLAYMORE]

Wow, we'll then... That was a quick winter...!

To catch up; I finished polishing the boat, dual wax, installed the blacktip mat and added the stickers.
The seats are being upholstered by a local shop, I just didn't want to deal with it.
I have to clean the cleats and purpleish-blackened handles and install them along with the seats, goodtogo!
Oh, and the busted bunk, the crappy lights, the leaky rave valve... I'm sure I can find more to add...

The entire family is ready for the lake, in a few weeks we will get our chance, can't wait!