Restoring a Vintage Fibreglass Boat with a bent Hull and Rusty Trailer

g'day guys i picked up this old six metre fiberglass boat a few years ago uh it had been sitting out in the weather for a decade and it was in quite a bad state um it was half full of rain water and the stringers and floor had gone rotten the bottom of the hull actually had a curve in it because all the structural timbers were soft i could see it was going to be a big job and it was really more trouble than it was worth to fix but it belonged to my uncle who had passed away and had sentimental value so i decided to fix it up on the upside it does have a fairly solid transom and a decent four-stroke outboard on the back so i figured that made it worthwhile um once once i sort of had it all fixed up it should be a decent boat so i pulled the floor up and gave it a good water blast i straightened the hull by screwing beams to the underside and propped up the rear end on blocks i ripped out all the stringers which were not very well made in the first place you can see here they were joined in the center and i had voids ear voids under the stringers so i guess that contributed to the rot so i made new stringers from full lengths of dry heart elm encapsulated with epoxy and fiberglass them in place ground out and re-glassed any weakened areas strengthened the parts of the hull above the trailer rollers filled all the voids with polystyrene for flirtation installed new encapsulated plywood floor covered it all with glass and laid down some marine carpet so i spent a good couple of hundred hours working on it it is still pretty ugly and could do with a lot of cosmetic work and uh painting but it is very strong and seaworthy now so i turned my attention to the trailer and noticed it has some badly rusted sections really needs stripping down and rust proofing so i lost interest in it for a while i sort of got sick of the sight of it but i'm back into it now and i'm going to restore that trailer and get the boat back on the water so the first job is to get the hull off the trailer i'll just chain up the hull to the tree and pull the trailer out from under it and rest the hull on tyres so a lot of people ask me why i keep so many old tyres lying around it's for this very reason just in case i have to pull a boat off a trailer so let's get started all right now i don't want the chain scratching the hull so i'll just put some rags under it and that should stop any damage [Music] one that's pretty stable on those tyres and it's at a nice height so i can just winch it back on again when i'm ready so uh that's how you get a boat off a trailer let's stick it on tyres now i can assess that trailer and see if it's worth saving see when i jump on it that whole corner lifts up so that wouldn't have held on for too much longer i don't think it's just totally rusted out there in that corner so i'd have to replace that whole section there replace that plate being in salt water all its life it's quite hard on even galvanized steel so i'll get another piece of that and um replace that [Music] it's supposed to be a tilt trailer but it's been welded there too so i will reinstate the tipping part of it oh see that that's not good the first thing to do is cut this section of rust out and i'll use this piece of angle iron to fill the gap cut like a v out of there so i can bend it to the right shape and then just weld that straight in there so [Music] all right so i'll just put some pressure on that and bend it to close up that v let's do it so that's a nice snug fit in there so i'll just give that a good clean up grind it back grind all the paint off it and weld it in place i have to drill a hole and knock a bolt in there as well so i'll take everything off this old rusty drawbar i'll have to cut a few worlds there it's welded down there and there and i'll have to take this jockey wheel mount off which is welded there and i'll just unbolt this uh this winch frame mount it all on the new drawbar [Music] [Applause] so so those front rollers um i had to cut because uh just too far gone they hadn't used stainless rods so the inside of them had rusted and bound up on the roller and it's been rolling on the frame so i sort of worn that in out so those front ones i'll have to replace but the rear ones they came off okay because they had stainless shafts so they feared a bit better so i'll go through now i can get all this rust off and paint it i'll go right around get what i can with the trailer up this way and then i'll flip it over take the wheels off and do the underside [Music] so [Music] that's still pretty solid in there so i won't worry about replacing that side um you can still see there's a plenty of thickness in that steel so i'll just paint some rust converter on there and re-brace it and that should be good for another 20 years i think so i've just used the flapper disk with the angle grinder and got rid of the worst of the rust there's a little bit of pitting as you can see but i'll use a rust converter on there and um and that'll neutralize it and then i can paint over it but first of all i'll just give it a water blast to get rid of any lingering salt residue and dust [Music] so use a rust converter now and that'll neutralize any rust and it works as a primer as well so we can paint over top of it okay [Music] all right that's the top side done and that's hardened off nicely and so i'll just flip it over now and do the bottom side and look at the side of that that's what salt water does to steel so oh well that's the frame coated no more rust now i've just got to do the axle sit [Music] that wouldn't have lasted too much longer i've never seen a nut that bad um [Music] so i've got that all stripped down now it looks like it's all salvageable there's a bit of scale but that'll come off all right and um once it gets some rust killer on there it'll be fine [Music] [Music] those mud guards were actually quite rusty i ended up having to get the big angle grinder out with the grinding disc on it that was the quickest way to do it check this out this is why you always should wear a decent filter when doing this sort of thing look at the state of these pre-filters they were white when they went in so you don't want that stuff in your lungs it's always a good idea to wear a decent mask doing this sort of thing all right that's all bolted together use stainless steel bolts all round so i'll just go around now and um give them a coat of zinc rich paint and that will make them last a bit longer seal everything up in there because it will be used in salt water so everything is prone to rust so if i can seal them up with them with paint that should last a lot longer i think and also having a bit of paint on the threads it sort of locks the nuts on there they're less likely to um loosen off by themselves so i'll just go around and paint all the nuts and bolts and um that's pretty much ready to flip over [Applause] um [Applause] [Music] what do you reckon mate that was easy eh it's like a brand new trailer now should we take it out on the water yeah yep go catch some fish yeah good idea buddy you [Music] [Music] oh it's so smooth and quiet going well steering wheel's a bit rickety i'm gonna have to pull that apart and epoxy it all together i think everything's working okay big one muscle harvester full of muscles pretty good buddy good fun alright let's catch a fish yeah oh we've got one it's a snapper usually bring it in nice one mom all right oh look oh oh real adam what is it oh okay you'll have to grab them good work buddy your first fish do you want to kiss it no okay well let him go i'm just a baby good work man high five first fish ever yeah we'll get a bigger one next time yeah let's get a bigger one what is that oh there's two oh nice look at that oh but that's oh yay remember yes that'll be 33. [Music] yep awesome nice one oh well we've caught our bag limit they're all well over the minimum size so it's a few good feeds there it's um pumping today there's we've seen a few good kingfish running around but um get a feed of muscles and we'll head on welcome [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Marty T

Views: 387,141

Keywords: old boat, abandoned boat, neglected, hull, fibreglass, replacing stringers, outboard, 4 stroke, restoration, boat, NZ, Marty T, kenepuru, marlborough sounds, fishing, snapper, kingfish

Id: 2wExivYEQok

Length: 25min 50sec (1550 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 24 2022