Got me a v

[Kevin]

Well I pulled the trigger and got a 1982 v20 for insanely cheap, ive been lurking around here for a while and liked what i saw so decided i would join the club. Holy hell do I have alot of work ahead of me! the boat is in very rough shape and I have alot of mods I want to do. I got it as a bare hull and i figure nows the time to make it even better. I have to rebuild the stringers and seal up the giant outdrive hole in the transom so i can build an aluminum flotation bracket on the back of it to hang an outboard. And crazy as it sounds, i'm going to build a radon style enclosed cabin. I figure yall would want to see it as it goes. Ill post pics along the way and probly pick the hell out of your brains! Im kinda scared and excited at the same time. Photos of this wreck will be up tomorrow

[spareparts]

welcome

[Pipe_Dream]

No wonder you got it "insanely cheap!"

Welcome!

[Destroyer]

Hello Kevin. Welcome to the best damn boating site on the internet. Don't worry about picking our brains, we speak "insane" fluently here. If fact, many of our members are professors with PHD's in it.

Seriously though. Just a friendly tip. If you look at the whole job you will soon loose interest. Don't try and do the whole thing all at once. Think of the upcoming renovations and repairs as a large banquet. Of course you can't eat the entire thing in one sitting. But if you take small bites, and savior each morsel, before you know it the entire meal will be gone. The same thing applies to your project. Make a list of things that need to be done. Tackle each part as it's own project and savior it when that part is finished. Before you know it, the whole job will be done, you'll be on the water and the envy of many a boater. :beer:

[inaforty]

Welcome Kevin,

Sounds like you have quite a project ahead of you.

Take photos and share.

[bradford]

Welcome!

[Kevin]

Thank you everyone for the welcome!! Here are some photos of the boat I might just name "The Ship Wreck". Destroyer you are absolutely right, one bite at a time, and before I know it shes done!! This is my second boat restoration the only difference is this one requires alot more fiberglass work. I work as a county boat mechanic working on lifeguard boats. And if you know anything about lifeguards they can break just about anything. I have my fair share of fiberglass repairs under my belt, just not to this extent. I'm sure with everyones phd's in "insane" I can get this thing done and done right! As if I didnt have enough to do on this girl I just picked up a 92' yammy pro v 200 with a broken crank today. Just another hurdle in the long list of tasks.

On a different note, how many of you live in southern california? From my lurking I've gathered that alot of you guys reside on the east side of this fine country.


Thanks again everyone!!!

[Tunnaman88]

nice looking ride..... baby steps.... it becomes an obsession that takes over.I got a great deal on an 86 last year $600!! 1 year later I am in $4k! lol

its fun though

[bradford]

I remember that one posted for sale a while back. I have a supposedly rebuilt OMC stringer drive that will fill up that hole lol.

Not many with the factory blue gel coat.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but don't forget that boat will need an actual transom put in it. The OMC stringer drives didn't actually mount to the transom, but instead the stringers, so the transom in them is very weak. So plan on stripping the transom down to bare glass, and building it up from scratch.

[Kevin]

I have no idea what a stringer drive is.....time for me to do some research! but i had planned on completely rebuilding the transom and stringers and probably gusseting the stringers about a foot in front of the transom to the stringers at a 45* angle to support the extra leverage and weight of the bracket.

[bradford]

The OMC stringer drive is also known as "The White Anchor". I'm surprised it wasn't made by Chrysler.

One good thing is you can usually get used parts for very cheap to even free.

http://www.glmmarine.com/30yearsomc.html

http://www.boatservicehaarlem.nl/omc_tilt_system_b.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7G7xOG2Ag

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s37/coleaclark/DSC04868.jpg

[THEFERMANATOR]

It atatched completely to the stringers of the boat, and only used a heavy rubber boot to seal it to the transom. It really wasnt a bad idea, but that rubber boot posed a SERIOUS safety hazard. One tear in a rubber, and you lost everything(I'll let others catch onto the "other" meaning).

[Kevin]

Well heres an update on the wreck

I got most everything stripped out of it and the floor cut out. Every bulkhead and stringer is rotted, imagine that look at the 3rd picture and you will see a compartment completely full of water. I was amazed with what I saw when I took the floor out. No drainage at all and where any fuel lines pass thru a stringer the cap was just cut and exposing raw wood. I guess the saying "they don't build em' like they used to" doesn't apply to this thing. Maybe someone can enlighten me as to why the build quality of this boat is so bad? Maybe its a year thing or the fact its a stringer drive? I dont know I thaught these things were pretty sound. But I do know one thing, once I'm done it will be better than factory new! Anyhow my next step is to build some kind of a cradle to support the hull before I cut the stringers out. It's sitting on a roller trailer now. And tomorrow the engine goes back together, because I scored a slightly used crank for it.
One more thing:
What are yalls opinion of building the outboard bracket before I rebuild the transom so I can utilize the mounting holes for thru bolting the laminated ply to get the clamping pressure needed and only have to fill a few bolt clamp holes after everything is cured?

[inaforty]

Kevin,

In my experience the V 20 was a high production boat and the build quality wasn't great. The reason "IMO" that many of us here have or have had a V 20 is Ray Hunt deep V hull. It's one of the better riding 20' hulls. Being that they were a high production boat they are more readily available to the common man.

There are other Ray Hunt 20' boats but most are $$$ and in short supply.
Not to mention that many of the older 20' Bertrams (etc) will need a complete over haul because of age and construction techniques used when they were being built many years ago.

Boat construction is 20/20 with hindsight. Even great boat builds find flaws in their design and construction when put to the test of time. I own a 35' Bertram and can tell you that's it's built like a tank but time has exposed flaws in the design and executions of the construction.

I will leave the question about stringer to transom construction question to someone else with much more knowledge then me to give the correct answer.

[bradford]

Those are the cleanest deck removal pics I've ever seen.

Like Forty said, Wellcraft was great for buying the patents and mass producing a lot of high end hull designs. If they spent an extra 100 bucks per hull towards tightening up some loose ends you wouldn't see some of the stupid shortcuts that cause problems later down the road. Keep in mind though, they weren't thinking about you and your project 30-40 years in the future when they laid her up back in 1982. What were you doing in 1982? I was in Miss Jones 1st grade class, I'm 40 now.

[Kevin]

Thank you!

I guess I can't blame wellcraft for that and besides if they didn't cut corners I wouldn't have this fun project.

I have no idea what I was doing in 1982... I was born in 87!

[inaforty]

Good grief
I'm old!

[Kevin]

You're not old you're vintage. Vintage is hip these days

[Kevin]

Does anyone know if it's worth it to try and sell my old windshield on here? It's in good shape and everything is there I just dont need it anymore.

Thanks