RESTO Project Dog House: 1996 Challenger

[racerxxx]

Unfortunately RJ but the only way to guarantee a boat safe for winter is with antifreeze. That's why I made the the winterization thread of my Speedster (most 787 boats are very similar), it's a 1/2 hour for peace of mind. I saw all the light bulb trickery and all that floating around the forums, but I'm not putting my engines life on a silly $1.00 light bulb. Any who, I'd do JB marine or some type of metal like epxoy. Clean the paint off really good and lay it up. Or----:reddevil: --- I would be beating that thing like a read headed stepchild without fixing it, that 787 would be bouncing off the limiter until it chucked a rod, then drill multiple 3" holes in the hull and jump ship and swim home. Laughing the entire time like a mad man and regain my sanity later--without a boat in my lifetime.

But for now, lets step back into the real world and fix that crack and see if you can get the season out of it.:Angel:

 

[Guest_User]

I knew better....
winterized the big boat
winterized the GTX
but somehow convinced myself that the Challenger would be "safe" in the garage.
:facepalm:

how are you certain it`s your fault?
since living in NC, even tho we had a few cold days, I didn`t use antifreeze last winter. The 787 is self draining with all hoses and fittings free from debris.
I always run the engines as I exit the boat park/ramp, and then hours later after she`s been washed down. a few blips of the throttle pushes a little bit of water out the exhaust. I always see water in the clear or blue poly lines that I have, but there is plenty of room for expansion should it get a bit frosty.

unless you had multiple days or below freezing temps in the garage I`m not convinced it was your doing...

 

[rjcress]

how are you certain it`s your fault?...

While I appreciate the sentiment, this issue is pretty straight forward. Water in the cylinder jackets froze, cracking the base of each cylinder's jacket (not just the PTO one, as I had thought), and swelling the PTO cylinder jacket all the way to the head.
That would not have happened if I had used one of the spare gallons of pink antifreeze that I still have sitting in my garage to winterized the Challenger.
I can reason through the "freak" cold snap we had this winter, and how I was duped by the lightbulb in the bilge or the water heater in the garage that radiates just enough heat that it keeps the ambient temp above freezing in the garage. Heck, I just replaced the garage door opener because the drive sprocket broke. Rather than replace the shaft and sprocket, I went for a new one because the old one was prone to randomly opening and/or closing. So maybe the demon possessed garage door opener opened the garage door on one of the extra cold days and that was enough to freeze the block. (It really was freaky how it would just open or open/close on it's own sometimes)

However, none of that matters. At the end of the day, if I had done what I knew I should, then the block wouldn't have frozen. I was tired, frustrated, and lazy... so I talked myself into NOT winterizing. Obviously, that was my decision, and it was the wrong decision. I can't see how I could honestly place the blame anywhere other than on myself.
But hey, what is done, is done.
I can't go back and change it, so I'll move on and learn from it.

I put a layer of sealant on the cracks at lunch, and another, wider layer probably 10 hours later. Fingers crossed that this holds through the season.

Also, I acid washed the starboard hull tonight, buffed it, wiped down with lacquer thinner, sprayed with a bit of water with a little soap in it, and applied the remaining hull side "SEA DOO" sticker. It went on MUCH smoother wet than the other one did dry.

And I painted the little bump on the green hatch cover over the helm with some gloss black paint. I have a silver SEA DOO sticker ready to put on in a day or so when it has cured. I put the silver SEA DOO bullet stickers on the trailer last night... so no more pastel pink SEA DOO decals! Tomorrow I'll reinstall the exhaust and prep the boat for the ride to the lake later this week..

With all of the buffing and wiping down with lacquer thinner, I have to remember to put a layer or 3 of wax on the boat soon to protect the freshly polished and unprotected gel.

Oh, and I just ordered a pair of Delco EST distributor replacement kits... so the Mother Ship's twin 454s should be purring nicely again soon. I'm pretty sure that the stumbling in the port engine is from a failing condenser, but I've been looking for an excuse to upgrade and pitch the old points ignition on those motors for several years.

AND if that isn't enough, I'm off to Boy Scout camp with my mini-me soon.
No rest for the weary.

 

[rjcress]

... bouncing off the limiter until it chucked a rod, then drill multiple 3" holes in the hull and jump ship and swim home. Laughing the entire time like a mad man and regain my sanity later--without a boat in my lifetime...

Drill? That seems like a lot of work.
This is why god gave boat owners firearms.

 

[rjcress]

How 'bout some more pictures, since pictures of superficial crap are far less depressing than leaky cylinder jackets...
I hated the mix of faded plastic and darker spot where the stupid pastel challenger sticker used to be, so I wet sanded to get the area smooth, wiped it with lacquer thinner to get any wax residue off...

Taped it off, and painted it. Base coat is the very end of the krylon fusion used to pain the rub rail channel. Wasn't enough, so I finished with several coats of black spray paint.

Looked really orange peely at first, but smoothed out as it dried.

I think it is a definite improvement over the old faded look, and the black ties in visually with the rub rail. I needed a dark background for the silver sticker. And the overspray has already been wiped off.

 

[rjcress]

Reinstalled the exhaust this morning and picked up a new group 24 battery. Hopefully that will remedy the "intermittent turn-over when the start button is pressed" issue.
Might put the Challenger in the water tonight, might wait until tomorrow morning.

Really wish I had time to finish the main bench seat, as that is the last "big" thing on my list of cosmetic make-over tasks.
I know I won't get to it for at least a couple of weeks.

 

[rjcress]

Reinstalled the exhaust this morning and picked up a new group 24 battery. Hopefully that will remedy the "intermittent turn-over when the start button is pressed" issue.
Might put the Challenger in the water tonight, might wait until tomorrow morning.

Really wish I had time to finish the main bench seat, as that is the last "big" thing on my list of cosmetic make-over tasks.
I know I won't get to it for at least a couple of weeks.

 

[rjcress]

Fired up almost instantly tonight.looks like it did need the new battery. No leaks, but i barely got above idle moving it from the trailer yo my dock. Will give it a workout tomorrow.

 

[changchangway]

Cung c?p b?ng di d?ng vi?t bút van phòng giá r?, Hotline 0982 690 611

 

[rjcress]

More later, but wanted to report that I put probably 6 hours on the Challenger this weekend and it ran nearly flawlessly.
The butt-ugly cylinder jacket patch of permatex ultra silver held up... so far.
Only issues this weekend:
-the stock fuel filter did it's job and caught enough stuff that fuel flow was reduced. Symptoms were just the engine losing power when at full throttle if I turned the steering to the left, and a bit of surging at high throttle settings. Pulled the filter, cleaned the clear-ish gelled stuff off of it (was covering maybe 50% of the surface area), reinstalled, and no more of that issue. Pulled the filter 3 more times over the past day and never saw any more of the gelled stuff.

-the new battery starts the Challenger on the first push of the button every time when the voltage is high enough. I must have an electrical drain somewhere, as the battery loses voltage pretty quickly when it sits. When it starts the battery shows about 12.5 V at first, then after running for maybe 5 minutes it is back up over 14 V. Will have to look into this.

Otherwise, this is the weekend of using the boat and NOT being towed back in or having any other stressful discoveries that I have been waiting for.
I know Murphy is watching, so it is probably slowly sinking at the dock while I type this... but at least it worked awesome this weekend.

 

[rjcress]

Some pics from last weekend...

The ugly, but functional permatex ultra gray cylinder jacket crack patch

My daughter wanted me to pick her up between the mother ship and the neighbor at the dock.

 

[Brian J]

Looks good, glad to see it's up and running

 

[Bonmotwang]

My fish finder is in the same cup holder.
I was busying looking for a new spot for it, because I want a spot for my drink LoL.

 

[rjcress]

My fish finder is in the same cup holder.
I was busying looking for a new spot for it, because I want a spot for my drink LoL.

I wedge my water bottle between my right hip and the side wall. MUCH more secure there. I've had bottles bounce out of the cup holders.

 

[rjcress]

Flat out awesome weekend.
Burned another tank of gas with no issues.
The 2 tanks of gas I put in the boat this season I premixed at 40:1 since I honestly couldn't remember if I had taken out the little plastic drive shaft in the oil injector pump. I mean, I know I took it out on one of the more recent installations, but wasn't sure if I left it out on the LAST engine installation. So I ran it long enough to confirm that sufficient oil was being burned from the oil injection tank. Now that I see that it is consuming the right amount of injection oil, I'll stop pre-mixing... which should make my plugs last longer and have it smoking less.
Changed the plugs, cleaned the stock fuel filter and then drove it like I stole it.

Well, there was an incident where I uncovered the boat and realized that the fish finder had been left on for the past 2 weeks while I was at Boy Scout camp with my son. So, the battery only had 11.5V... and I grabbed the wrong key, which obviously wouldn't start the boat. But those were both easy to remedy (swapped in the spare battery while I charged the new one) and eventually realized I was using the wrong key (only one beep instead of 2) and went searching for the correct one, which luckily was in the van.

And, because I was a dumb-a$$ and left the fish finder on, I took the battery to the boat rental dock to put it on one of their chargers overnight. When I went to pick up the battery Friday morning they had an Airhead Super Slice 2-3 person towable tube for sale for $25 since one of the grab handles was frayed and they couldn't rent it out any more. I have wanted one of these for years, but didn't want to pay $125 for one. I was THRILLED to be able to pull 2 kids at once which meant less complaining from the kids over who's turn it was. It is also big enough to make a nice little island to play on when we park the big boat. Huge score!

And I managed to avoid all of the drunk a$$hats out for their once a year attempt to cut me off so they can toss their kids from a tube in front of me, etc. I'll be happy next weekend while they are still home nursing their 2nd degree sunburns.

I expect the boat to blow up next time I try to start it, but for now, I am HAPPY.:thumbsup:

 

[rjcress]

Oh, and I mixed up some epoxy, poured it inside a ring of permatex ultra gray (what I had on hand) and mounted the fish finder transducer in it. Previously, I had mounted it with silicone caulk, which I later learned blocks the sonar signal. After scraping all of the silicone calk off of it I was getting intermittent depth readings, even when it was sitting loose on the hull floor in the ski locker. I hoped that by epoxy mounting it, it would work reliably. Well, either I don't know how to set up the fishfinder to show depth (a real possibility since I didn't look for the manual), or something is broken. While at the lake I was thinking that the manual for the fish finder is on my workbench at home. But now that I'm home, I'm thinking that the manual is with the boat manual in one of the storage tubes on the boat. Either way, I'd like to figure this out, as a working depth gauge would be nice.

 

[IDoSeaDoo]

I expect the boat to blow up next time I try to start it, but for now, I am HAPPY.:thumbsup:

LOL! That's how I felt EVERY TIME I launched my Challenger, hence the trolling motor in the ski locker and plans in place to stuff a 4tec in there. I think you'll have no problems for a long while though. Two of my failures were cranks going out, and only God knows how many hours were on them. You have a brand new engine, and if your jugs aren't too old, your raves shouldn't give you trouble like mine always did. As one Challenger owner to another, I wish you Luck!

 

[Waterluvr]

My fish finder is in the same cup holder.
I was busying looking for a new spot for it, because I want a spot for my drink LoL.

I wasn't giving up my cup holder for anything, short piece of stainless with rounded corners to keep any sharp edges away and it works well.

 

[Bonmotwang]

Cup holder cannot hold my fish finder. Also jumps out on wavy conditions. But in your design, is it kind if in the way of the one sitting in the middle?


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[Waterluvr]

It doesn't cut into the center bolster seat's leg room at all, basically it's at the same level the entire dash is for the helm seat so there's plenty of room installing it that way.

 

[rjcress]

It doesn't cut into the center bolster seat's leg room at all, basically it's at the same level the entire dash is for the helm seat so there's plenty of room installing it that way.

Between me, the kids and the dog that would last about 2 minutes. Glad it works for you, though.

 

[Bonmotwang]

Between me, the kids and the dog that would last about 2 minutes. Glad it works for you, though.

Same in my case. I have a 4 years old boy and 7 years. Last weekend when the boat was jumping on the wave, they were over reacting to the jumps. The 4 years old bumped into the CD player, triggered the CD player eject button. The 7 years old bumped into the CD player when the CD came out and crashed the CD, then half CD went back in. Lucky I managed to get the half CD out without taking the whole CD player apart LoL



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[rjcress]

Same in my case. I have a 4 years old boy and 7 years. Last weekend when the boat was jumping on the wave, they were over reacting to the jumps. The 4 years old bumped into the CD player, triggered the CD player eject button. The 7 years old bumped into the CD player when the CD came out and crashed the CD, then half CD went back in. Lucky I managed to get the half CD out without taking the whole CD player apart LoL

I had a similar incident on Saturday. My friend's son was sitting in the spotter seat and let go of his OH CRAP handle at the wrong time... just as we hit a big wake at about 45 degree angle. He face planted HARD about 4 inches forward of where waterluvr has his fish finder mounted and slid aft into my knee (just aft of where waterluvr's FF is). We thought for sure he had to have broken his nose. When he had stopped crying enough to speak, his first words were "FASTER! FASTER!".

But my point is that if anything were mounted there, it would have torn up the boy's face as he slid into it.

Do what works for you, waterluvr, but if it were my boat, that would be the first thing removed. I don't think it is safe to have it there. At least not with kids and a dog... which are always on my boat. Maybe if it were just the same 1 or 2 responsible adults on the boat all the time would I consider leaving it... but probably not.

 

[Guest_User]

Glad to got to have some good times on the boat lately!:thumbsup:

are ya ready to step up to the challenger 1800???:lols:

 

[rjcress]

Glad to got to have some good times on the boat lately!:thumbsup:

are ya ready to step up to the challenger 1800???:lols:

Let me know if you get serious about selling. I have someone that wants mine. Maybe we can work something out.