26' Seawolf repower/refinish

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hamachitoro
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26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#1

Post by hamachitoro »

nHello alloy dudes. My name is gabe, was born n raised in the last frontier, and I f!@#((% love alloy boats. I have a problem really, it's shiny, malleable, goes ting when you flick it…..well you get the point. My first alloys were older boice jets we used to run very heavy whitewater (over class III). There was only a few of us doing that up here in AK, then the trend moved to very skinny water. At some point, I moved over from plastic to alloy for saltwater craft as well mostly because of alloys safety margin over plastic in an impact with an object. Like kmorin I live (and grew up in rural south-central), in waters sometimes littered with logs and the like and had some close calls in plastic. I picked up a 26' seawolf in thornebay on prince of wales or as we say up here POW. Boat was very, very neglected, having nasty barnacle growth and oxidation, but the metal was sound and in good shape. So I haggled with this guy for 18 months, yes thats right a year and a half, until I got him down to 35,000. The boat included, radar (which I kept), GPS (which i removed), Wallace (which works perfect-kept), fresh cold/hot water-35 gal, a 9.9 merc. kicker (runs good), 2 scotty's electric downriggers, nice new icom marine radio, blue seas panels and switches, a very nice roof rack, marine head w/sit shower-allthe normal seawoff stuff you guys know about. What sold me on this boat was jrodger build thread, so thx to jrodgers (who I recently meet, and one of your employees "johnny" is a good friend of mine by the way). I really liked the way stennar bent his transverse frames on a brake, and how the transom is broke over to the side and welded on the side. Full schedule 80 all the way around the perimeter of the gunnel like edwings. Also I wanted a shallower dead rise astern, for efficiency, and I like to run slow in nasty wx, with shallower angles you can run slower on step, i.e. c-dory. This seawolf has no lifting strakes and a small reverse chine-old school, relies on a different feature to help with lift. Although the hull is a V hull it is also has a slight radius-more so than any other small boat of this type I have seen. The transverse frames have slight reverse camber on their bottom sides generating a "roundish" bottom moving from the keel to the chine. Having experience with radius bottom jet boats (superior handling in situations you WANT the the hull to break lose easily, i.e. non-broachy), I knew of their handling characteristics and low speed planning ability. So I made up my mind, waited the guy out, the boat looked not so good, I think people were discouraged. We made a deal, I put the boat on the ferry to haines and drove down to haul her up the AK highway.
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happy camper gets metal floaty thingy
happy camper gets metal floaty thingy
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#2

Post by hamachitoro »

griz on the haines rd.
griz on the haines rd.
griz on the haines rd.
griz on the haines rd.
I don't know how I posted this twice, maybe the admin can delete the repost above…please. The boat also came with a decent trailer rated to 7,800lbs capacity, the tow was nice, lots o critters on that section of the road. First I commenced to scraping the bottom, took a day. next I took off the mill scale with 80g on an orbital, then 120, then 330, done. Then of course comparing the nice bottom to the sides, oh sh*&, The ol can o worms was open. Acid wasn't going to cut it here, this thing needed elbow grease, took the sides down (very gently) with 120 then 330. I left the pilothouse untouched as it had good normal oxidation. I may acid wash it here this spring-we'll see how it blends. The boat had a volvo AD41p which we had removed in POW as agreed in the deal, but the transom shield and lots o outdrive trimmings were still hanging- off they came as this thing was going to be outboard powered for beach landing. next the transom, lots of growth here another day of hull cleaning.
All in all it was a week long task to bring the hull back to smooth, but the surfaces looked pretty good. Next the fuel tank had to come out, but that was easy as stennar has a large soft patch over the tank, had to drill out most of the fasteners, but no big deal. Out the tank came, the boat is a 2000 and diesel had generated lots o growth, but the tank looked good and past pressure test. hit it with a hotsie and simlpe green for 2 days vigorously agitating, after the final rinse-looked good.
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#3

Post by hamachitoro »

Next was wiring, previous owner was a jury rigger (OH God), so all the normal cursing commenced followed by barley pop, more wire pulling, barley pop,…. repeat as necessary. Their was over a hundred foot of wire with no purpose! DC main (only has DC, for now) was good, lots of the blue sea switches were bad, buss bars need replacing, wiring was high grade but neglected, pulled a lot of it and started anew. Pulled all fuel/water hoses, lifted cabin sole, pulled water tanks. Relaced all fittings and caps on water tanks, secure w/5200. Clean bilge w simple green, rewire auto rule (200gph), new switch. Rewire auto rule (engine compartment), new switch. Replace port side trim ram, replace hydraulic trim tab motor housing. Rewire battires, down riggers, pot puller, deck light, navlights. Install lewmar 7000 stainless windlass (sweet). Drop headliner, most wiring there looks good, install garmin 4210 unit new antennae/wire, new radio antennae, remove sirius (doesn't work up here). Run 2 spare 14/2 cable to roof for future aux. lighting. Rewire wipers, new arms n blades. Install blower (did not have one and no switch=never did strange), I found it odd that no blower was factory installed even though it was diesel prior. New wash down pump and hose, boat has salt and fresh water wash down.
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IMG_0255.JPG
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#4

Post by hamachitoro »

Here's a few photos
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during sanding, fuel tank cleaning, rewiring
during sanding, fuel tank cleaning, rewiring
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#5

Post by hamachitoro »

tank was very very dirty
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liftin tank with davit
liftin tank with davit
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#6

Post by hamachitoro »

davit on the seawolf made easy work of the tank
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cool davit
cool davit
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#7

Post by hamachitoro »

one more sand/tank pic
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IMG_0253.JPG
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spoiled one
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#8

Post by spoiled one »

Looking great! I would like to stop by and take a peek sometime. Shoot me a PM with your contact info.
Spending my kids inheritance with them, one adventure at a time.

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bigdogeh
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#9

Post by bigdogeh »

nice boat. looks like your well on your way with your project. and a good price to start off with sure helps! pays to shop around and be patient. took me a year and a half to pull the trigger on the one I got. waited till the price was what I was willing to pay. but it got there... thankfully!
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Gypseas
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#10

Post by Gypseas »

Heck of boat and a heck of a price can't really go wrong. Love to tinker with my boats as well, lots of work but lots of satisfaction once done, if there is such thing as done...LOL

Thanks for sharing and Welcome to AAB

:beer:
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#11

Post by hamachitoro »

Back to the story, now time for the metal work. I had a few ideas about how to go about flush decking, and adding a fish hold, but I wanted it to look factory more or less. The lip on the plate decking which keeps water from flowing into the engine compartment was formed with a brake, not welded at a 90*. So in running a skill saw inboard of the curvature I would have been left with a 2" piece of 3/16" plate to attach a drain channel to. I didn't like it so we took it back to the longitudanls (full height stringers outboard of the engine compartment. These are actually more like bulkheads as they are actually air tight chambers running from the transom to the aft pilothouse bulkhead. Then from the aft pilothouse bulkhead forward to the forward pilothouse bulked there are two more water tight compartments occupying the same outboard spaces as the aft one. then in the bow there is another large water tight compartment forward of the crash bulkhead, so the crash bullhead is actually a "crash bulkhead" and on a 26ft'er, neat. These watertight compartments have no deck lids or hatches (although small freeman's would be awesome), simply pressure tight drain plugs. Anywho, we went all the way to the water tight compartments on the port and starboard sides of the engine compartment to hang the channel which would have drain holes in it to channel water via hose to a shower sump box with a macerator on a float, which the fish box would also be connected to via hose. This was the best way to flush the deck and make it drain and evacuate water automatically from the bilge. Since we cut the lip out of the deck for the I/O engine box, water would have invariably found its way unregulated into the bilge even with good gasketing material in the channel and a 90* angle facing down of the new lid. We did these things anyway (gasketing, lip on the lid, perk cam latches go get good bite) so what little water does get down there and what fish blood get down there is pumped out automatically. Here are some photos of the process.
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cutting out the engine box area to accommodate 38 gal aux fuel tank and small fish hold
cutting out the engine box area to accommodate 38 gal aux fuel tank and small fish hold
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#12

Post by hamachitoro »

Chipping out the welds on the remaining small 2" lip of deck plate extending toward motor box.
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IMG_0257.jpg
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#13

Post by hamachitoro »

Here we have boxed in the aft section of the new cutout with 1 1/2", 1/8" channel. The new forward patch covers a 38gal aux. fuel tank. The channel is drained via 1/2" not weld in pipe fittings, the fish box is draind via a 3/4" npt pipe fitting. You can see the three way fuel valve in the new cut out where the old motor box used to sit on the aft wall. the fish box is larger than it looks and has handles to lift it out. Forward of the fish box cut out is a piece of t6 6061 .250 T running from water tight compartment to water tight compartments on either side of the old motor compartment. This piece of T supports the forward lip of the fish box lid and the aft lip of the soft patch over the new tank. Also had to run 3/16" strips to support the side of the fuel tank soft patch and give something to fasten to.
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IMG_0264.jpg
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#14

Post by hamachitoro »

More fish hold
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IMG_0276.jpg
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#15

Post by hamachitoro »

deck
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IMG_0268.jpg
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#16

Post by hamachitoro »

new dance floor
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big new dance floor
big new dance floor
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#17

Post by hamachitoro »

The hole on the starboard side of the new soft patch is access to the raw water thru hull. I had ordered a new yamaha F300 (V-6), about a month earlier and she was ready to go in homer, I had also ordered an outboard bracket from pooderbuilt (stennar had on a couple of accessions ask them to build the same bracket for him). I asked pooderbuilt to leave the forward edge wild as it would need to trimmed to fit the curve of the seawolf transom. The transom from on this boat is far from straight, she has a classy curve which demo states the builders skill. Also under stennars recommendations I had order a 25" shaft, which made me nervous, but at only 12* at the transom the motor didn't have to sit as deep. The lower engine mount height would help keep the c.g. low. I also opted not to due a hull extension as I was pretty sure the extra flotation and very light motor may make the BACK SIDE end so buoyant as to generate a deck angle which would not drain. I had looked at pictures of the boat sitting in the water with ol volvo diesel and it was nearly level soooo………it was a concern. I decided to actually mount the whole bracket 1.5" high as to offset the buoyancy factor of the partial flotation properties of the bracket. I knew per stennar and good ol merc racing standards to raise the anti-vent plate 3/4" above the keel for every foot aft the lower unit ended up in the water. So this bracket is not a 25" bracket it is a 26.5" bracket, That way with a 25' shaft I would get the motor sufficiently out of the water, bring the swim step up closer to the scuppers, not generate to much aft buoyancy. we put the bracket up, leveled everything off, and used a homemade feel gauge to scribe the curve onto the bracket. By finding the largest gap and gauging to that gap, transposing that onto the bracket while measuring to make sure theres adequate room for full motor tilt…….low tech. My buddy was stressed he wanted to make mock ups and pull a thousand measurements, but this easy way to use the existing curvature as a template, just transcribing for the largest was the ticket, a 2x4 and a sharpie was all it took, oh and lots of measuring and leveling and a plum bob.
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IMG_0278.JPG
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#18

Post by hamachitoro »

another shot of the new bracket, all work is TIG of course :thumbsup:
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IMG_0279.JPG
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#19

Post by hamachitoro »

Uno mas
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#20

Post by hamachitoro »

bracket
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IMG_0280.JPG
Chaps
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#21

Post by Chaps »

Wow, that was like speed reading "War and Peace"! Normally these build/major-mod threads stretch out over a few months . . . :beer:
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hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#22

Post by hamachitoro »

So, I had been working on the boat for a few weeks and the shop in homer had gotten the motor in about a month before n was wanting it out of there. It was off to homer to hang the beast. I had no idea just how big this thing was. These are large engines (wide). I had ordered a 15 1/2" x 17" yamaha SS II SDS for the motor but wasn't sure if a 15 3/4" x 15" would be better. Drove down there hunt the motor. I had lucked out as the existing helm was a 1:7 seastar which was the recommend for this system and the existing hose was 1000psi, so all we had to do was bulk head fittings for the hydros, a short run of new steer in line to the ram and a new ram. I was already @ 26.5" above the keel with top mounting lip on the bracket so we went up one hole. LPPS (name of dealer) was great, they let me keep working on the boat while the didi the install, mounted all the new bomar deck lids and new hatch an the aft vertical surface where the old I/O cut out was.
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IMG_0281.JPG
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#23

Post by hamachitoro »

end result
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IMG_0289.JPG
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#24

Post by hamachitoro »

Yeah Chaps, its nov. an alaska, not much going on besides deer hunting. We have horrible wx right now, huge system out in the bering 930mb! Thats the lowest pressure I've ever seen here. Nov. is usually pretty slow here, off to australia in a week. :clap:
hamachitoro
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Re: 26' Seawolf repower/refinish

#25

Post by hamachitoro »

All done for now
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