dirty vinyl pusher....

Danmaso · #1 26-05-2009, 04:27 AM

Me and cam have recently been putting a bit of time into our rig, we bought the boat last year at the melbourne boat show, it is a savage jabiru 385 maxed out with a 25hp mercury sea pro...

The boat is not as beamy as the explorer wich was out of our price range however is extremly stable when 2 up and hooks along nicely, couldnt tell you how quick haven got a speed sensor or had a gps in it yet...

Firstly we decked the rear and covered the thwarts with carpet to match, this gave us the ability to hide the fuel tank under the floor and gave us rear casting deck we also have a bait tank and fishwell underneath, will hopefuly convert into a livewell...

The boat remained like this for a while until we got sore backs and were sick of sitting one at the front and one at the back, with one of us not being able to look forward, so we trie both sitting at the back however the boat took ages to get on plane, so we had an idea

, why not move the seating position further forward and thus bringing the weight further towards the front enabling the craft to jump on plane in an instant! from a standing start the boat gets on plane fully loaded with 2 blokes in about 3 secs,

After installing the seats we realised that they were rather flimsy and if you lent back on them with any force the they would bend right back, we fixed this buy using a bit of ali angle and cutting it to size and fixing it to the back of the seats, by doin this it extended the metal brackets the seats came with and thus making them a lot more rigid and unbreakable!

However when putting in the seats we ran into a problem, luckily we picked up on this before the boat hit the water, with the seats further forward the tiller couldnt be reached from the new seating position, nor could the gear shifter, we rectified this by extending the tiller and fabricating a bracket that would extend the shifter, problem sovled...

We bought a lowrance x52 as reccomended by a lot of breammers out there and with a bit of fine tuning the unit has been great, we made up a small bracket to fix it to the boat and position the unit directly in front of the driver, after a few nights out on the bay in the hunt for big red we were in need of a light, we found a 12v fluro and installed it in the top tube off the hull and wired it to the battery as it has a switch on the light, we ran the wires also through this top tube as to keep them away from water, they were all heat shrunk and then concealed with black piping with a slit down the center fits perfectly and looks neat...

After all this work it still looked like a tinny, so we thought we will pimp up our ride mofos... a mate who is a signwriter suggested that we use vinyl rather than paint, great how much will this cost we asked ourselves as painting can be quite expensive... well for $90 all up we couldnt go wrong, so we had a few drinks and slapped the vinyl on one friday night, quite a teadious job really but with a pro helping us out it was a fair bit easier...

We then thought about what graphics we wanted and then the following week we apllied them....

As for the electric was due this month however due to battery problems...

and a certain leaking mercedes it will have to be put off for another month cant wait till then!!

Minn Kota 6amp on board battery charger is installed ready for a deep cycle thanks to trout_bum for that freebie!!!

cheers mate

here are some pics

Danmaso · #2 26-05-2009, 04:59 AM

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Danmaso · #3 26-05-2009, 07:59 AM

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Danmaso · #4 26-05-2009, 08:01 AM

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Ben · #5 26-05-2009, 08:04 AM

Nice work
That has come up a treat
The new vinyls are a great touch too

Danmaso · #6 26-05-2009, 08:08 AM

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breambasher · #7 26-05-2009, 08:23 AM

Nice looking rig!!! Very tidy indeed. Bet your hanging for the leccy now!

Danmaso · #8 26-05-2009, 08:46 PM

cheers mate, yeah very happy with the way it all worked out...

Piscateur · #9 26-05-2009, 10:27 PM

$90 for the vinyl sure brings it up a treat, great looking Jabber.

#10 27-05-2009, 02:27 AM

nice looking tub. Whos the chick in the frist pic, dose she wanna go for a fish ?

splashy · #11 27-05-2009, 03:57 AM

Niiiiiiiiiiiice!!!!!

Danmaso · #12 27-05-2009, 10:51 PM

piscatuer- yeah 90 for vinyl at that price i couldnt justify painting it and to get it done and finished in one night without having to wait for primers and paint drying was great..

Ando_04- its my brothers missus lol not reall keen on fishing, more into dying her hair wierd colors lol

Piscateur · #13 28-05-2009, 11:11 PM

Mpney well spent looks way better than just painted.
There may be a gap there ando

Justin Boyle · #14 28-05-2009, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CARRAGANT

piscatuer- yeah 90 for vinyl at that price i couldnt justify painting it and to get it done and finished in one night without having to wait for primers and paint drying was great..

Ando_04- its my brothers missus lol not reall keen on fishing, more into dying her hair wierd colors lol

and a shedload easier to remove than paint later if needed

Danmaso · #15 29-05-2009, 12:14 AM

And to patch scratches and also change designs if wanted!!

If anyone is interested i can help them out with info on doin their own boat and can probably help source materials...