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RESTO 97 Challenger 1800 Resto

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nickj718

nickj718

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Ok I know that is a pwc spot but I thought since it has the same components it fits. Mods feel free to move

I traded a 96 xp for this boat and am pretty happy with the decision so far.

Ok so getting the boat home I noticed a couple things engine wise. The white motor had a bore over and the silver motor is obviously a sbt. The previous owner said he had the motor put in about 2 years ago and it never ran right so he put it up and never got around to diagnosing it. So I'm gonna pull the carbs on both check timing on both and inspect the base gaskets for any push.

Interior wise the boat is a wreck but should be pretty easy to repair.

Here are some photos of the boat.






 
this should get moved to 2 stroke boat section, although they do share powerplants with the ski's.

Should be a fun project, I have done a couple boat part outs but only one restore, the single engine challenger, it was quite time consuming to make it look fresh, but well worth the effort IMO, boat really shined up nice for me.

1) the hulls seem to clean up just as nice as the ski's do, just more surface area = more time involved. for the white and inside, a big scrub brush and a half a bottle of soft scrub + a hose worked wonders, made the white on the inside look near new, the rest of the white smooth parts will scrub/wetsand/buff just like a ski and generally will come back near new as well.

2) you have some bad foam there on the seats, have fun with that, but when your ready for new seat covers, there is no better place than seadooupholstery. com IMO, keith the owner is a member and a great guy to work with and he might be able to get you a price break on the mat's as well, they can be quite pricey retail. Keith did my covers on my challenger and it looked fantastic when done.

3) as long as them mpem/gauges work your well ahead of the game, they can be quite expensive to replace, I hope your good there.
 
Shoot i meant to put it in the resto thread

Move me sorry guys!


I did a single engine challenger resto last year turned out amazing

Everything electric wise is in great shape
 
Moved it to the 2 stroke boat section. We will get it mirrored to the resto section and get it resto tagged. Now, if I only knew how to do that, lol. [MENTION=2]hfgreg[/MENTION] will need to work his magic or let me know how to do it.

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Ok i haven't had time to work on this thing until this weekend and here is what I got done.

Both motors removed - I compression tested both motors and they were a solid 165 on one motor and 152 on the SBT. So being I don't want a SBT motor in it I said goodbye to the SBT and refreshed a motor I had as a back up from my gsx. I also found both oil pumps were removed and its premix. Who in the world wants a premix boat! Also after inspecting OEM motor I found the base gaskets were badly dried out so I decided to do a light hone,rings and gaskets on both motors. So I removed, cleaned and replaced with oem, checked rotary timing , cleaned up pistons and painted the engine silver and exhaust black. Also blew out the oil injection fittings and installed new 3/32" tygon lines. After the paint was dry I set them both on my engine stands I made, lubricated them and jumped the starter. Woo 167 on one and 165 on the other and both cylinders equal on the engines. Perfect! This coming weekend ill install and get running. Also cleaned the carbs and inspected all the fuel lines. Everything was good so ill be replacing the fuel and oil filters upon motor install.





Next I cleaned that nasty engine bay. I was sick of the purple cleaner so I tried zep orange degreaser man does it work good! Dosnt kill your hands and lungs and you get the same if not better results.


Also removed all the interior and bought a new interior from a member on here seadooupolstry.com also ordered full blacktip wishbone. I hate the white and teal so ill be going with silver and grey for my color option. Silver where the white once was and grey where the teal was. Also all teal plastic will be sprayed with ppt automotive paint either silver or grey haven't decided yet.I have some foam repair to do but it will be easy and they should turn out like new.


New interior combo:
 
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Ok installed both motors today. Replaced the fuel filters along with the oil filters filled it up with brp synthetic, bled the oil pumps and boom fired right up run perfect!After getting fuel in the system of course. Held the oil pumps open and everything is working as it should. Next weekend ill start the interior which is going to be a job and a half. I did receive my interior from seadooupholstery,com though and wow amazing quality and you cant beat the price super nice guy to.

 
I thought it was deja vu until I checked the thread date. Looks great so far!!
 
Thanks guys its coming together nicely. Taking my time to really make it look new but ill proally end up selling it. The more i look at it the more I dont like how big it is.

Anyways I had a little down time today so I decided to install the bow seat covers. Wow amazing quality so glad I ordered from him incredible quality and super easy to install. Im thinking if they are all this easy ill be done by next week! (Dreaming)



Next weekend ill kick it outside wet sand the outside, heavy cut the inside and outside then go over the whole thing with a final polish. After that ill install my turf and get to working on the rest of the seats.
 
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Started to clean out the interior last night to get it ready to degrease and polish here are some photos of what I'm starting with before the seat covers






Also found this lol just keep throwing plugs at it it will clear itself out lol counted 32 used plugs and 8 new in the box still
 
Thanks really appreciate it! Ill defiantly take a video for the form and so I can put it in my for sale ad. I cant wait till this thing is out of my garage!

Heres some motor pics I forgot to post.










Both motors had a light hone and new wsm platinum kits installed both standard bore.I got rid of the bored over cylinders and swapped them out for standard cylinders off a low hour gtx Both motors had the same compression results! Couldnt be happier with the way both motors turned out.
 
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Ok I did some more interior today its coming along beautiful here are some shots of the boat stripped and of the seats done.



I also installed a new battery, and finally got the jet pumps on. Both pumps were rebuilt along with the replacement of shaft o-rings and new carbon seals for each side. Both pumps were also painted with a epoxy bumper paint which turned out incredible. All that left is the shaft covers which I painted black with some bumper paint and Im done drive line wise! Finally!





Before:

After:

 
Subscribed ...looks awesome,I am restoring a 99 my self ...do you have sny other contact info for the seat cover guy you used I am very interested in contacting him
 
Thanks mcycleski here is the person I used for the interior http://www.seadooupholstery.com/ his name is Keith. Super nice guy very helpful and his work and the material he uses is better than oem. Stitching is incredible and he makes it easy to install.

Best part is he is also a Blacktip dealer so he will give you a good price on it since hes doing your interior. For the money why not
 
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Today I buffed the entire inside and outside of the boat. Every inch!

You can tell by the bottom that is was kept in the water when it was warm and the fading was very bad.

I started out with using a cheap oxidation wax and scrubbed the whole boat with it using a finishing scotch bright pad. Then i buffed it out using a high speed buffer, wool hair pad and Marine 31 heavy oxidation wax then I used Marine 31 finishing wax this combination works for me every time takes off and when removing stickers 98% of the time you cant see where they were. Its as good as wet sanding but way less steps and shoulder work.










Next I installed some of the interior to see how it looked. Love the colors and with the stock grey bumpers it really looks nice. I also wiped down the spots for the Blacktip Turf with acetone and installed some of the pieces









And last thing I did for the day was install a new radio and two new 6.5 speakers. Got them as a package deal on ebay and sound super nice for the money.
 
Got to work on the foam repair and covered the upper rear bench seats today.

If you ever come across a boat and has foam damage for the right price don't walk from it because all the foam has a 1/2 top layer that I easy removed without damaging the foam underneath it. After it is removed carefully you can lay it on top of the new 1/2 foam and kind of get an idea of what it should be cut like. Spray glue it down trim the access and you have yourself a undamaged seat. They came out really really nice. Again this is because of Keith at seadooupholstrey.com and the covers so nice.

Heres some foam work

Before:





After:






 
Hi I have got sea-doo challenger 1800 I'm trying to get advice on the best way to paint the bottom


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Well the boat is finally done! I was waiting on some foam which was keeping me from covering the rear bench. I took her in the water and its incredibly fast runs great and the interior form seadooupholstery.com came out amazing.Now she's for sale so if anyone is looking for a mint challenger that pretty much new in and out let me know.










 
That boat looks georgous ....what needle/seat ,popoff,piolet,main jets and mixture settings are you running
 
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