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1980 Viper Rebirth

Restoring your Hydrostream or just giving it a small makeover? What better place than to show off your project. Big or small.
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Hippie459MN
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebuild

Post: # 22225Post Hippie459MN »

Right on. I sure would like to have them if you had the pair. ;)

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-Kevin
Project Vulture | Project Vector | Project Vamp | Project Vixen
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1977 HydroStream Vulture - Worlds longest ongoing project. :eek:
1982 Hydrostream Vector
1982 Hydrostream Vamp
1973 Hydrostream Vixen
1976 CobraJet Jet Boat - Outboard conversion project
1976 Pontoon - aka The Family Truckster
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22375Post AdamDK »

The weather has been absolute crap the past few weeks. Rain, rain, and more rain. It FINALLY let up yesterday evening, so all I could do was deliver the 40 8ft 2x4's I purchased to build my rotisserie and jig and then come back home.

Saturday:

The wood.

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Sunday:

Since the weather forecast showed a 10% chance of rain, I went back up to the farm to start building the rotisserie. Since the hull is upside down, and having my cousins come up to help me every time I'll need to turn the boat over is impractical, I'm constructing a frame around the Viper so that I can hook up my chain hoist to the transom to raise and lower it.

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I still need to build the supporting frame for the bow...I won't need to go 6 feet high like over the stern, so it shouldn't be much work. I'll have to figure how I'm going to allow the bow end to rotate using the bow eye.

I have to build wedges that will mount on the transom, similar to how this guy did his:
(original pictures/post here: http://lumberjocks.com/gdcarpenter/blog/81274 )
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and then lag bolt 2 4x4 posts on top of each other across the transom wedges with pre-drilled holes for steel pipe. When I raise the azz end with the hoist, I'll then be able to remove the 2 side pipes allowing the hull to rotate on the centre pipe.

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Then lower the hull down in to the support jig (when its built).

I may alter this in some way. The guy on the lumberjocks site used just a single pipe....so I may do this differently than how i sketched it up.


Until my next available weekend......
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Hippie459MN
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22376Post Hippie459MN »

Looking awesome man! Very nice. :up:
-Kevin
Project Vulture | Project Vector | Project Vamp | Project Vixen
The Vulture Wish List | Project CobraJet

1977 HydroStream Vulture - Worlds longest ongoing project. :eek:
1982 Hydrostream Vector
1982 Hydrostream Vamp
1973 Hydrostream Vixen
1976 CobraJet Jet Boat - Outboard conversion project
1976 Pontoon - aka The Family Truckster
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22377Post YDOC462 »

this looks like its gonna be a good build.....lots of planning and artwork!! dig it
81 vector....complete restore....1991 7 pedal 200 slightly modded
ALWAYS under construction

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HYDROSTREAM HELLIONS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHE8wWZsFpw
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22396Post AdamDK »

Saturday May 20th, 2017:

Today was just a (not so) quick visit to the farm. I brought up all my tools and supplies and left them there since I rarely use them at home, and lugging them up and down apartment elevators and through hallways and garage doors to load up my car every time is just a pain in the azz.

I went to Home Depot to purchase a single 6x6 post to use to create the 2 transom wedges. They only come in minimum 8 ft length. 8 foot lumber doesn't fit in my Hyundai Tucson. Sure, I'll just have em cut it in half.

Their shop saw for lumber doesn't take 6 inch posts. 4x4 posts or smaller. Orange-aproned dude points at the hand saw. "You could try that...might take a while."

I ask "well this store has tool rentals...can you grab a sawzall or a chainsaw and have this cut in 5 seconds?"
"I'll be back."
Comes back with a circular saw, cuts all 4 sides (at 2.5 inch depth), and tells me to just cut the centre out.

Got the post cut and off to the farm.
I didn't plan on doing any work to the wood frame. Just a visit to drop off the tools and test the chain hoist. More specifically, test the overhead frame's ability to handle the weight.

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Works good. The frame didn't snap; it didn't even bend.

..........................................

I then tinkered around for a few hours, drinking beers with my cousins and all that crap. It was not a productive day; i didn't expect it to be.
I went over in my head about how I'm going to build the stern end of the rotisserie. I think I've come up with a way that is simpler than how I drew it in my sketch.
Cottage opening has been put off for a few more weeks due to the lake level being very very high, not to mention the bugs are horrible.
Hopefully I'll get up next weekend and finish the rotisserie portion of the job.
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22397Post Hippie459MN »

Looks good! We just used about 6 guys when we flipped mine over. lol
-Kevin
Project Vulture | Project Vector | Project Vamp | Project Vixen
The Vulture Wish List | Project CobraJet

1977 HydroStream Vulture - Worlds longest ongoing project. :eek:
1982 Hydrostream Vector
1982 Hydrostream Vamp
1973 Hydrostream Vixen
1976 CobraJet Jet Boat - Outboard conversion project
1976 Pontoon - aka The Family Truckster
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22441Post AdamDK »

Saturday June 17th, 2017:

The rain just won't piss off!!

The forecast was for rain to start late afternoon. It came with a fury around 2pm.


All i got done today were the transom wedges for the rotisserie.
I had to raise the boat up so I could crawl underneath and secure the bolts under the splashwell.
Thankfully no animals made a home under the boat, especially snakes. I ******* hate snakes!!

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The pipe doesn't quite screw in straight here, but that because the bow is still on the ground. When the bow is up and secured and ready to rotate, hoisting up the transom will make it flush with the cross brace. The 6 inch steel pipe was just to test the fit; I'll use a 12 inch pipe to allow a better grip when it's good to go.

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I was hoping to get the bow end rotisserie support built today, but the rain quashed that.
And the forecast is calling for more rain all day tomorrow so it looks like I wont get back up again until next weekend.
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22443Post Hippie459MN »

That's awesome! Weather has been working against me big time too. I had a good day today for the most part but had to put a new turbo in the semi so no boat time. Hopefully next weekend I will make some headway.

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-Kevin
Project Vulture | Project Vector | Project Vamp | Project Vixen
The Vulture Wish List | Project CobraJet

1977 HydroStream Vulture - Worlds longest ongoing project. :eek:
1982 Hydrostream Vector
1982 Hydrostream Vamp
1973 Hydrostream Vixen
1976 CobraJet Jet Boat - Outboard conversion project
1976 Pontoon - aka The Family Truckster
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22473Post AdamDK »

Saturday July 8th, 2017:

The goal for today was to finish the rotisserie and hull cradle.
I've forgotten how much $$$ I've spent on lumber...it always seemed like I was running out of wood and having to buy more.

I started working on the bow end of the rotisserie...i didn't have an actual plan or vision to go by, i basically just threw it together.
The idea in my head was to build a support frame that would allow me to feed a long section of steel pipe through 2 larger Tees and hook it to the bow eye.

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However, once I had done this and took the bow weight off the chain hoist, the 3/4" pipe began to bend. I was apprehensive about doing it this way, and decided to just leave the bow hanging from the hoist.

I turned my attention back to the transom section. I decided to give the 2x8 board some support since the transom was the heavier end.

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Confident that my rotisserie was now finished for all intents and purposes, the moment had arrived.
I was finally ready to rotate this b*tch.



Well, as you watched, I think it rotated pretty damn well, It was balanced almost perfectly. The bow chain did snag up on the rubrail, but luckily my Uncle had come around to see how my project was going and offered to help. I explained how the chain was jamming up on the rubrail and needed the pressure released so I could move the chain around to the other side.
He grabbed the pipe I ended up not using, and basically leveraged the chain around the bow.. The nose instantly dropped a good 8 inches due to the slack, and the upper support beam almost broke. Almost.

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Now it was time to finish putting together the cradle.
It's a roughed out job, by no means perfect, but at least now I can adjust the supports under the hull to conform better.

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I got inside the boat to bask in my glory. It had been 2 months since I first started building this thing just to get the boat right side up.
Part of the carpet was peeling away on the edges so I grabbed a corner and pulled. One section with a heavy dose of glue actually ripped away the layer of glass and floor underneath it.

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As you can see, there's practically nothing left of the floor, in one section anyways. Hopefully this is gonna be easy to rip out.

___________________

All in all it was a good day.

Next visit will be the really fun shite. Ripping out its rotten guts.
Last edited by AdamDK on Jul 11, 2017 5:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Hippie459MN
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22474Post Hippie459MN »

Looks killer! Cant wait to see how rotten it is. Hopefully its nice and rotten so it cleans up easy. :up:
-Kevin
Project Vulture | Project Vector | Project Vamp | Project Vixen
The Vulture Wish List | Project CobraJet

1977 HydroStream Vulture - Worlds longest ongoing project. :eek:
1982 Hydrostream Vector
1982 Hydrostream Vamp
1973 Hydrostream Vixen
1976 CobraJet Jet Boat - Outboard conversion project
1976 Pontoon - aka The Family Truckster
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