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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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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22690Post AdamDK »

Sunday October 29th 2017:

Apologies for the crappy picture quality. Since I moved, my good camera got packed away and I forgot which box it's in. So cell phone camera was my only option.

Now that my boat is inside a garage, I can tackle this thing with seriousness. At the farm, I had previously gotten the rubrail removed and had sawzalled the seam all the way around to both transom edges. I assumed that when the boat was built, after the deck was slid into place, they would have taped or (most likely) chopper-gunned the seam from the inside underneath and behind the splashwell. I couldn't get this area cut with the sawzall and it was left as is.

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I really really didn't want to cut out the splashwell, but the awkwardness of trying to cut the inside seam without knowing how thick it was in sections, or even being able to see its location (because I'm not a double-jointed contortionist) left me with little choice.

I marked out the splashwell where I was going to cut it. I wanted to save as much as I could. I used my Dremel. Don't knock Dremels. They may be small, but they get in small spaces and do cut through glass like butter. I only needed 2 standard reinforced cutting discs. In some spots that were thicker that the Dremel disc just couldn't reach, I used a drywall saw.

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With a light under the splashwell, you can see I got almost all of it. It's a lot thicker at the corners, so I may just have to punch through with a chisel and hammer.

But she's almost there. Wife's working late Wednesday, so I'll try it then.

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Also, picked up this. Wife saw the box in the garage and said "what the hell is that for?"
So i turned it on and aimed it at her.

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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22691Post Hippie459MN »

AdamDK wrote: Oct 30, 2017 9:21 pmAlso, picked up this. Wife saw the box in the garage and said "what the hell is that for?"
So i turned it on and aimed it at her.

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1977 HydroStream Vulture - Worlds longest ongoing project. :eek:
1982 Hydrostream Vector
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22692Post AdamDK »

Tuesday October 31st, 2017:

I got home from work and went to have a smoke in the garage. As I looked at the boat, I decided I'd take a chisel and hammer and see what I could accomplish.
After a few minutes on each side of the splashwell corners, success! I had broken through!

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I attempted to lift the deck. She budged a tiny bit, but wouldn't come off. What?

Foam. Spray-foam. In the wings. It was like glue.

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I grabbed a typical handsaw and starting sawing through the foam on both sides.

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And done. The deck lifted off.

So now that's out of the way.
Next, bracing the rafters in the garage, creating a lightweight cradle to rest the deck on, and lifting her off and letting her hang above me while I comfortably remove the hull's rotten guts.

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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22698Post AdamDK »

Saturday November 4th, 2017:

Today the plan was to lift the deck off and suspend it from the rafters of the garage. Was a bit of a PITA since I did it myself, and I didn't get it as high as I wanted, but I still have plenty of room to work underneath it.

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With the deck off, I can now work in comfort. I started attacking the sprayed foam on the starboard wing area on top of the float-box with my wrecking bar, rubber mallet, and paint scraper. It was wet, of course.

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After that was all removed, I chiselled a hole in the top of the float-box. Surprise surprise, more water.

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Now, and this is just a rough guess, but I would say each float box is approx 10 cubic feet. That equates to 75 gallons. 75 gallons of water is 625 pounds. Even if the foam has a 25% saturation rate, I'm looking at over 150 pounds of water. In each float-box.

But that's all I got for today. Until next time...
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22702Post AndrewZ »

Keep up the pics!

[ Post made via Android ] Image
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22703Post AdamDK »

@AndrewZ - I will always have tonnes of pics, dont worry. I'm uploading pics and video now to my server for my next post for what I got done today.
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22704Post AdamDK »

Sunday November 5th, 2017:

Today I didn't get as much as done as I wanted. It was a running errands type of day that I can't do during the week, and I didn't want to do on Saturday.

I started removing the sprayed foam on top of the port float-box and got that all off.

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I then decided to cut into the starboard float-box and get most of the shell of fiberglass removed.

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Foam all removed from starboard float-box. It was wet in sections - soggy near the transom and closer to the bottom; dry and crumbly near the front.

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Decided to check to see how rotten the core was underneath here. I know that darker sections are usually rotten. Here's a good spot to check.

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I cut a flap into the glass on top of the balsa core.

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That's all for today.
Next update will most likely be the port float-box removal and core check.
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22705Post AdamDK »

Filmed with a potato camera.

Just crappy light, but really, you'll understand.

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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22717Post AdamDK »

Monday November 13th, 2017:

I slacked on updating earlier, so tonight's post is a culmination of work accomplished over the past week.
Once I had cleaned up inside the boat after removing the foam from the starboard float box, I started on the port side float box.

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Once the foam was out, I just began tearing into the fiberglass to expose the core.

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I took a break from working on the port side and went back to cleaning up the crap on the starboard.

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Tonight after work, I went back to attacking the port side core.

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I started cutting sections to remove that front part. I don't even know what to call it. It's not an air box, since it wasn't sealed. The raised section of floor beyond the footrest that's just a triangular sheet of fiberglass. But there's balsa under it and above it, and it needed to go.

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What I found was this:



More rotten core. MOAR!! Did this boat sink? Nasty.

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That's all for tonight.
Wife's working late tomorrow so I'll be slaving away on this again.
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Re: 1980 Viper Rebirth

Post: # 22724Post AdamDK »

Saturday November 18th, 2017:

Goal for today was to finish removal of core in the bow, the keelbox, and transom.

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It was rotten all the way up to the front. Either the boat was stored nose down, or it was used as a kiddie-pool. I'll never know.
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Not much to actually say here. Pictures speak for themselves.
Let the grinding begin!!
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