1978 Viper

[svmark]

I have just started poking around the Viper hull I picked up a few weeks ago.
To start off its got a pretty soggy botttom and will need a complete recore and a lot of patch work done. It looks like the front of the bow had some poorly fixed damage as well as in a few other spots. I can't really complain for what I got it for so but its a decent start.

The floor was already cut out by the previous owner and has an awesome primer job over the overly sanded gelcoat that is through the gel in a few areas and down to bare glass in a few areas that I did some test sanding on to see what whas underneath.

[JSU101]

Is it done yet?

[svmark]

And for the pictures


This is how it was delivered to my driveway I was suprised it made it the 3 miles to my house without bouncing out.


After Getting it home.. A transmission jack holding up the bow to get some of the water to drain the core was fairly full of water.











After building a stand to support the hull I made some core test cuts to see how bad it really is.. It was like walking on potato chips in there.

the glass and what little of the core that was left came up fairly easy


Be carefully where you lean haha.. this is a bad patch job that was patched from the bottom side only



Did they just pour resin on top of the core and roll it out? It seems like it is heavy and soaked in certain areas of the core like the area pictured above where the core is amazingly hard and not as rotten.


At least most of this stuff is rotten and will hopefully come up fairly easy.

[svmark]

Is it done yet?

Nope is yours?

[YDOC462]

nice and rotten. it's good to see another rebuild begin.

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[svmark]

I will be working on removing the deck this weekend and from what I can tell it looks like it is glassed on is this the way they came from the factory or did they use some other way attaching them like an adhesive or something?

Also if I am looking at this correctly the rub rail is attached as pictured what is the best way of getting it off?

I was planning on drilling the rivets from the long exposed side.. This rail probably will not go back on since i am missing the very front part of it near the bow.
I plan on replacing it with something different like some extruded aluminum U channel or some of that heavy vinyl U shaped edge molding.

[varmint1]

Drill the rivets out, gently remove the rub rail, after its removed I use a sawzall and cut in between the upper and lower hull. It's glassed on the inside

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[JSU101]

Mine wasn't even glassed. It had some type of putty holding top deck to hull

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[svmark]

This weekends progress....
Drilled a ton of rivets and got the rub rail removed and got the top hull split from the bottom.

The transom is actually more solid than I had thought and had to cut the splash well. I plan on filling it anyway for more room for a bigger fuel tank and batteries.





I am pretty sure that is extra foam that was added later since I had found carpet underneath while I was chipping it out. It also made for a glued on deck that was really hard to remove. I resorted to the bottle jack and some 2x4s to pop the foam holding the deck on.




some of the bow damage along with a improperly patched puncture hole with the flap of glass sticking up.

[varmint1]

That foam is from the factory, mine, my brothers, and dads has the same foam in our boats

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