1977 Hourston 18.2
- Thread starter Oncor
- Start date
kingblazer84
Crew Member
water ski towing poles?
Fritz
Active Member
Hey man, that looks way better,
If you’re starting to dig in, I can’t stress how much easier my life was after I bought an oscillating tool. I had a dremel one first that was pos and I dragged it smoking to the driveway. The Fein ones are awesome put pricy. The ultra thin kerf strategic cuts, the lack of dust and less potential of destroying things make them worth it. The blades are way better to.
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I bought a Craftsman one from Rona today on sale for $80. It was ok but not great. I think I already killed a blade cutting out the top of the seat base that was stapled in with about 1000 staples. The “cabinet” is very high quality though. Something from yesteryear.
Next is to remove those and get back to the floor to see more stringer.
You guys keep me motivated. Reading about the best fishing in 50 years down in Bamfield the past few weeks doesn’t hurt either.
Next is to remove those and get back to the floor to see more stringer.
You guys keep me motivated. Reading about the best fishing in 50 years down in Bamfield the past few weeks doesn’t hurt either.
Fritz
Active Member
I must have pulled a million of those staples, they are from hell!
And whoever put them in was related to the owner of a major staple manufacturing plant, probably an a$$hole too!
Corey_lax
Crew Member
There’s a “professional” 50 pack of blades on Amazon that I have bought and they work good. You will cook blades no matter what, but might as well get a good deal on them. I have the Milwaukee 18v oscillator at home and it’s night and day difference compared to the dremel version that lit on fire like someone else said haha. It’s all about the strokes per minute. Or I mean oscillates per minute
scott craven
Well-Known Member
Could you cut the heads off with a zip disc and then use a punch to drive them through?
Yeah I don’t know. I got the nut off that top left one and I’m hammering on it with a heavy hammer and it won’t move back one bit. I’m wondering if I have to cut layers off the mounting bracket downwards with a saw to release the pressure on the bolts? That doesn’t sound very elegant but I don’t know.
Well, I’ve got all the answers I was looking for finally. Lots of people will say ‘…i told ya’ and yup, they sure did….
Gonna be a rebuild.
The last question is:
to get to the transom so I can rebuild, do I cut out the splash well or undo the entire top one fastener at a time?
Gonna be a rebuild.
The last question is:
to get to the transom so I can rebuild, do I cut out the splash well or undo the entire top one fastener at a time?
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Corey_lax
Crew Member
If you got the space, I’d pull the top off. Should be screwed through the rub rail. Not too many screws.
Fritz
Active Member
Taking the top off the boat is wayyyy more work than you probably think but, it’s what I would do if it was my boat.
I believe when the factory did them they had the roof and the windshield installed top sides before it was dropped on. There was some assembly clues with my rig that point to this fact.
However I can’t tell if you have access to a gantry in your shop? If not, I would remove the roof and windscreen before peeling it off. In the window tracks there is a tubular plastic packer that will peel out with a pick. Once those are out the side windows will come out——very carefully.
The black vinyl strip in the rub rail extrusions peals out (don’t throw it away) underneath you will find 400 brass screws with galvanized steel nuts that sandwich a 1x7/8” doug fir strap. A lot of the time the nuts are so rotten they aren’t nuts anymore. I removed my entire rub rail. It was horrible. The easiest way forward sometimes was to over tighten the screws until they snapped off. They’re only 8/32 brass screws if I remember correctly. I put the fir straps right back on afterwards and re-bedded everything in boat life polysulfides so I could take it apart again if I ever had to.
Another thing you should be very aware of is you can wrack the hull form of a boat accidentally with too many things torn apart at the same time. The hulls on these boats are thick but you’d be surprised how floppy things can get.
Books are your friend. I’ve mentioned a couple. The Allen Vaitses stuff is exceptional. There is some decent youtube stuff and a lot of really bad youtube stuff to.
I was very lucky to have had access to some real boat mechanics and a Shipwright for advice before I planted the axe in mine.
I truly hope you have fun and are including family or a friend in the tear down to make it more bearable.
Oh!
And wear a respirator when playing in the glass!
Thanks Fritz and Corey. This is really helpful.
I wouldn’t have thought it but the nuts on that strap look pretty good on mine.
I definitely have no gantry and would have to first remove the roof and windscreen first to get the main part of the top off. It looks like some long screws/nuts just medial to the rub rail strap hold it all down. I’ll have to get out those two gunnels first obviously.
I hear you on distorting the hull and will have to read up and take all the necessary precautions so I don’t end messing the whole thing up.
How much would the blue top (without the windshield and rooftop) weigh?
I wouldn’t have thought it but the nuts on that strap look pretty good on mine.
I definitely have no gantry and would have to first remove the roof and windscreen first to get the main part of the top off. It looks like some long screws/nuts just medial to the rub rail strap hold it all down. I’ll have to get out those two gunnels first obviously.
I hear you on distorting the hull and will have to read up and take all the necessary precautions so I don’t end messing the whole thing up.
How much would the blue top (without the windshield and rooftop) weigh?
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Fritz
Active Member
My roof and glass on the 20’ was approximately 200lbs with headliner, glass, wiring and the top racks etc. also if you look at the weights on that Hourston brochure the weight between a soft top boat and hard top boat is 100lbs.
I never removed my topsides because I did not have a motorwell to fight with.
My semi educated guess would be 3-400lbs maybe even more. There is also a surprising amount of wood and structure in the forward deck but maybe an 18’ aficionado has a better number?
