1987 Hydrostream Valero YT Project

[skialot2]

Picked up a 1987 Hydrostream Valero YT project boat. It's a Hydrostream that has never been redone so It's probably going to need a full re core. Need a full interior. The Gelcoat is in really rough shape. It's not full of chips and scratches. But it is very sunburnt and faded. Looks good when it's wet. Not when it's dry. I am hoping I can sand off the sunburnt gelcoat without sanding all the way through like I did on my Checkmate.
544161 544162544159 544163 544164 544160

[Dain]

Man I hope you can get by with some wetsanding, looks really nice when you had it wet.

[skialot2]

Unfortunately just sanding and polishing is not gonna happen. I tried sanding in a couple spots. Went right through the gelcoat really quick. Looks like the gelcoat is less than half as thick as it was on the Checkmate. Especially on the graphics. Either Hydrostream makes the gelcoat very thin on purpose to save weight. Or someone has already sanded down the gelcoat on this 38 year old boat.

544179544180

[skialot2]

While I was cleaning this thin out I noticed someone cut 4 triangles in the top of the sponsons. I took my Soil Master Moisture Meter, which works great. Very sensitive but the needle starts up slightly. I pushed it all the way down thru the foam to the bottom of the sponsons in all 4 spots. They are bone dry. Foam feels perfect. I can seal up the holes and not touch the sponsons.

544183 544184 544185 544186

[skialot2]

I am going to have to investigate further, but so far, the transom looks good. It's got a nice heavy duty aluminum plate on it. It's either factory or custom made specifically for this boat. It will never come off without taking the skin of the boat with it. Poking through the bolt holes with a spike, the wood in the transom feels solid. The wood is not wet or soft at all. I think I might not have to replace it. I am going to take the inner reinforcing plate off if I can. Then put a bolt in with just a washer and torque it down tight. If it torques down quick and maintains that torque I will know the transom is not compressing. Sure looks pretty good on the inside. I am surprised it has no knees. It will when I am done. Anybody have any ideas on how to test it a better way?

544192 544193

[LakeFever]

The hammer test is pretty good. Use a ball pean and whack the transom and it should bounce handily if its solid. If it thuds dead with little to no bounce then its mush. easy comparison is whack the side of the hull below the rub rail where there is no core and its dead. When things are solid the bounce is similar to an anvil test you get a lot of brrrrrrts out of the hammer. Hyrostream transoms are the one thing that isnt prone to rot as much as the core though. Soft core is more dangerous than soft transom imo although both dangerous, just ranking the risk factor is all. One good hard wave hit at high speed and man oh man will that test the integrity of things in a hurry

[skialot2]

Transom is definitely solid. That lower inner plate came right off. Some moron left the stock square washers under that plate. There was a gap between the plate and the transom. Adhesive was never squished. I put a bolt back in with just the washer. After the bolt got tight it took about 3/4 of a turn too achieve 75 ft lbs. torque with a fine thread bolt. When you strike the transom with a hammer, you get a nice solid rebound. (Thanks LakeFever). I have not pulled the rest of the floor yet. But I can see there are no real stringers in this boat. Just a piece of fiberglass about as thick as the skin of the hull to support the floor. I can see my fingers through it. They go all the way to the notch. But don't actually connect to the transom. I cant believe this boat is rated for 175 Horsepower with no transom support.


544198544199 544200

[skialot2]

After crawling around underneath I found the worst part. There is some delamination on the side of the pad. And it looks like he hit something in the center. It's not that big of an area. Shouldn't be too hard to fix. But do I fix the core first or the outside first?

544281 544282

[LakeFever]

start on the inside and leave the outside for the end. This way when your skills are all practiced up and primed you can work on the running surface. Where inside your primary concern is an air pocket free good bond. I’d be checking the pad and hull for flatness and true before laminating though so you don’t stick it back together twisted or hooked. Once I was satisfied there move onto lamination

[skialot2]

Yeah. That's what I am thinking too. I am going too fix the structure first. That way when I flip it over I don't have to worry about it twisting. It seems to sit nice and straight on what appears to be it's original factory custom trailer. (Too bad the crossbars are rotten)
544329

Preliminary checks for any twist with my level all come out the same. Of course I will do more accurate checks before I start glassing. I will not be pulling the cap so I will only be able to adjust so much. I use the 3 point approach. 2 level stands at the transom. 1 at the bow. If the boat was built straight it should still be. If not, even with the structure out, I wont be able to straighten it much without loosening the cap.


This will be my 4th boat restoration. My fiberglass skills are pretty good. At least I like to think so. My dad taught me when I was about 12 years old. We fixed a crack from a log strike in his 14' Fabuglas. A couple years later, I was 14, his friend gave me a 17' Slickcraft fishing boat with a blown outboard. I found a old burnt up cabin boat floating around the bay with a complete Volvo Penta I/O in it. My dad and I cut the engine out of the transom with a chain saw. Brought it home. One day when he was at work I cut the hole in the transom and installed the gimbal bracket by myself. He was a little mad but I said it was my boat and I wanted to do it myself. Then he looked and said it came out perfect. I built up the transom with wood. Made a little deck area and the inside gunwale. Covered everything with fiberglass. Then painted the entire boat with Varithane Colors in Plastic with a 3" roller. It came out great. Looked like it was factory. Nobody believed I converted it from an outboard. I used it for 2 years then sold it to my dads boss.

Because this is a YT hull it does not have a true flat pad. It has a concave V pad. That should make it fun to repair it. A nice flat pad is relatively easy to make by hand compared to a twin concave pad. I might use plaster or Bondo to make a mold of an undamaged area of the pad to use as a sanding block. Sort of like you would do to duplicate plaster moldings. Try and get the pad as equal as possible. Although it is probably not quite as important as it is on a true V hull. The sponsons on this YT seem to be about 1/4" deeper then the pad. So not much balancing required.

544330 544331 544332

[skialot2]

I am not quite ready to give up on saving the gelcoat. So I tried sanding the front deck some more in a really bad spot. I taped off the graphics with painters tape. I used 220 on my DA sander. Changed the paper 3 times just doing outside the starboard most graphics. Then 1500 wet by hand. Then a quick hand compound and wax. Big difference. I might be able to save it. Still a little cloudy but I really did not polish it.

544344 544345
544340 544341 544342 544343

[Dain]

Darn good effort, I bet with some polishing and a coating of wax or ceramic it'll be pretty decent.

[skialot2]

Darn good effort, I bet with some polishing and a coating of wax or ceramic it'll be pretty decent.

Thanks. Considering it felt as rough as it looked when I started. And It took me around 45 minutes with 220 dry on a DA sander to sand around 6 square feet. Then only wet sanded for around 2 minutes. It looks decent already. Hope I can get the rest to look like that.

544358

[skialot2]

I really want to know If I am going to be able to save the gelcoat or not so I did some more sanding on some of the really bad spots. I taped off the graphics to try not to kill them. They are thin but in surprisingly good shape. Not damaged at all like the blue. It takes a lot of sanding to get the speckles out. They are not really speckles. They are craters in the surface. It's like running your hand over a nonskid surface. You have to keep sanding until they disappear before the surface is smooth. Then a little more to get the good color back. By that time the gelcoat is very thin. And you really cant see your starting to sand through until you wipe it off with a wet rag. I sanded thru in 3 more spot on the center stripe. I am going to keep going because no matter what it's gonna need to be sanded. But if I sand through in too many more spots, I probably going to have to re gelcoat the whole boat.

544412 544413 544414 544415

[LakeFever]

While tedious to do you can touch those thin spots with fresh gel or better yet just gel the areas that are super chalked and buff them back in. Cutting fresh gel back down flush to old gel is tricky not to burn through the old gel trying to buff in the new. One thing for sure that just be done is you have to cut from the new gel out towards the old gel or you’ll never get the lip cut flush. If you cut back into the new gel the lip will recede but stay a lip. There is also the option of fresh gel taped off clean at the graphics and then use a straight razor to pull along the edge of the gel lip which really brings down the sharp edge a lot and with a little finesse you can make this a seamless factory looking repair. You can also just leave the lip and use some pin stripe auto graphic tapes to cover. Lots of options here to work with. I can tell you with certainty after my experience I would try everything to work with non crazed gel before I committed to fully refinishing a hull again. The refinishing was the majority of the work on my build. Brutal work too endless sanding

[skialot2]

I have been sanding like crazy. I have gone through quite a few sanding discs. Another days worth already went with the trash. I only sanded through slightly in a couple more spots. I think it's coming out OK.

544429

[skialot2]

Wet sanded with 600 1000 1500 and then 2000. I have not sanded by the windshield yet. The snaps are in the way. I think I am going to drill the rivets out to get them out of the way. It will be much easier to sand it. Gelcoat is some tough stuff. If this was paint there would be nothing left. Looks pretty good considering what it was and this is dry with no compound or wax yet. Looks like I got back to the original color, You cant really see the outline of the bow light anymore.

544435 544436 544437 544438

[Dain]

Coming along! I think by the time you're done with some polishing/wax/ceramic, it would be sufficient for most people without needing to be repainted or gel coated.

[skialot2]

After a quick compound and wax. Not a professional job by any means. But it's good enough from where I sit. I still have to do the rest of the boat. But the bow was the worst part. I will do the rest after I fix the structure and flip it to fix the pad. That will have to re gelcoated.

544447 544448 544449

[skialot2]

I finished pulling out the floor. That was a pain in the a$$. Especially at the bulkhead where the floor changes height. It was all in very good shape. Not damage at all. The only evidence of water I found was the battery tray mount reinforcements. But nothing in the floor itself. Only under the floor is cored. Except in the front where the floor gets lower. The core sticks out a little there. I cut out one section of fiberglass so I could see what the core looks like. It's mostly rotten. But not completely. I can see the sharp edge where it ends. I cant believe how thin the fiberglass is on top of the core. It looks like one layer of woven roving. Not the real heavy stuff, just one medium weight layer.


544835 544836 544837 544839544840

[skialot2]

I started cutting out the fiberglass covering the core. The core is definitely shot. There is a couple spots where its not rotten. The fiberglass is still stuck pretty good in those spots. Good thing there is not a lot of them. I got about half the core uncovered and my oscillating tool died. Just stopped working mid cut. Lasted 3 uses 6 months apart. Damn Harbor Freight crap. This will be my third Oscillating tool. I will try Home Depot crap this time. Supposedly has a lifetime "Service agreement". Whatever that is. But, surprisingly enough, I am still using the same Carbide tipped blade I used to cut the floor and stringers out of my Checkmate. It still looks relatively new. Fiberglass has no effect on it. My last post does not really show how thin the fiberglass is over the core. My digital caliper says .0685 thin. I am really curious as to how thick the outer hull skin is.

544906544908
544907544909

[LakeFever]

Fiberglass kills electric tools. Dewalt oscillator is a good unit. My outer skin was 1/8” thick. Aint much too these things

[VkingMike]

The Ol' Mulch hauler. A very typical scene once these boats are cut into. They can look ok on the outside, but... Another very useful tool once you get all that core out is one of these. It made getting into corners and tight spots much easier for new glass.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072Q2FTLY?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

[skialot2]

The Ol' Mulch hauler. A very typical scene once these boats are cut into. They can look ok on the outside, but... Another very useful tool once you get all that core out is one of these. It made getting into corners and tight spots much easier for new glass.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072Q2FTLY?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1


Yep. So far the only thing bad is the core. All the rest of the wood is just about perfect. Only the balsa is shot. I have that exact sander. It works great. I used it to hog out the exhaust chest and dump on my FF build.

[skialot2]

Got the rest of the core uncovered. There was a couple of difficult spots along the edge of the pad. Especially toward the stern. The last 3 feet or so had a different type of core. It had foam strips instead of balsa. Was just as rotten but had thicker fiberglass that was still doing something. I swept up as much of the mess as I could. Then took the hose and washed it out so I could see what's left. Not much. Almost all the balsa is gone. There are two spots that I went too deep with the oscillating saw. Went through the outer hull. No big deal as they are in the spots that delaminated and need to be repaired anyway. I have been told I am crazy for doing all this in just jeans and a T-shirt. That I should be wearing some kind of hazmat style suit. But the dust does not make me itchy. I only get itchy if I lean against rough fiberglass and force it into my skin. The powdery stuff doesn't really bother me. Of course I don't want to breath it in so I do wear a particle mask when out in the open or a painters mask if I am sticking my head in under the deck. Plus eye protection. I may be crazy, but I'm not dumb.


544960 544961

[VkingMike]

Being this far in, do the transom. On my build I though for sure it would be ok at first, but it was NOT.

[LakeFever]

Yeah I agree. Freshen the hull up. Add some knees. You won’t regret building a better hull but you might regret not doing it. The ol scope creep problem. It’s never easy to draw the line on it but consider resale. A fresh resto with pics and no missing steps will bring more

[skialot2]

I have checked the transom several times and several different ways. Digging in the bolt holes with a scribe, the wood is dry and rock solid. the scribe barely scratches the surface. The hammer test all over the inside fiberglass. Everything is solid. All the fiberglass is bonded solid to the wood. No delamination anywhere. I put a bolt in the lower holes with just a small regular washer and torqued it to 75 ft lbs. It torqued up very quickly, No squish at all. Checked it after a week. Still torqued. I am 100% confident the transom is perfect. If I had any doubt what so ever I would replace it. It is an enormous amount of extra work to change it. I would either have to cut out the splash well, which I do not want to do. Or pull the cap. Which involves building a cradle. That's a lot of work to replace something that does not need to be replaced. I have every intention of adding knees and real stringers. By the time I am done, this boats transom will be strong enough to hold a 500R. Although the boat would probably sink upon launching.

[VkingMike]

The issue is you cannot get into he corners and lower portions to check. I hear you, Mine was solid too until I dug it apart and it was all black an wet. It's a big task, but its even bigger once everything else is built around it.

[LakeFever]

That’s how my last hull was too. Solid around all the bolts but the starboard side was rotten at the top and the bottom. I have no idea how or why moisture got into those two places it was well glassed over because it had already been replaced once but it got in there. That’s the main reason I opted for coosa. Speaking of coosa after I laid mine up there was a thread on here about core materials and apparently many of the big name builders do not use coosa for transoms because it makes too much nvh and vibration being the main complaint. Apparently customers were complaining of the boat shaking them to death at low speeds. So I’m think great, mines already done, my last Vking with the soft starboard transom vibrated like crazy at low speeds so I’m thinking this build while focused on durability and comfort over pure performance is now doomed to be a shaky annoying beast. Well, all I can say to that is I’ve never had a smoother boat. The engine does its typically v6 merc blippity blap idle and the hull does not shake at all. I mean zero. So I’m tossing that up to the vinylester resin as a far superior product to polyester which all boat builders seem to use. Anyways thought it worth the mention. I say again you won’t regret tackling the transom. There are many ways to do this that don’t take tons of work. I wouldn’t split the hull if the deck and hull have no crazing. You can cut the splash well out and reinstall it or do a delete. I promise I will try not to say apparently again in this post either. Ever see that kid at the fair? The one who says apparently he’s never been on live television before? Yeesh

[VkingMike]

Ever see that kid at the fair? The one who says apparently he’s never been on live television before? YeeshClassic lol

[skialot2]

Ok. I will quadruple check. I will take a drill and drill into all four corners of the transom on the inside. I will also drill where I am going to put the knees in. If I find any black or wet wood, I will change the entire transom. But I highly doubt I will. Aside from the core, all other wood on this boat has been perfect. No signs of water al all. Of the four boats I have redone, this is the most solid to start with.

[skialot2]

Apparently when i took the floor out I exposed the bottom of the transom. Looks like the floor was installed before the inside of the transom was glassed in. Then they glassed both in at the same time. The wood looks great.



545038 545039

[tnelsmn]

Doing great work, can't wait to see how this turns out!

[skialot2]

I haven't done any work on this for a while because I hurt my shoulder pretty badly again. Been in an isolator sling for a little over a week. But it's feeling a little better and I am going stir crazy. So I am back at it basically with one arm. The core went further up in the bow then I thought. But I got the rest out. In the back there was a big gap where the floor covers the sponson in the battery area big enough so I could stick my finger in the sponson. It felt wet. So I cut a hole on both sides to take a look. They are filled with water. One side is half filled with foam with 2" of water on top. The other side is filled with foam up to the top. I chopped out some foam and the water is a few inches down. I guess I have to cut the tops off the sponsons and strip the all foam out. I drilled 1/4" holes in the back of the sponsons to drain the water. I am thinking of adding drain plugs. Probably should have had them to begin with.

545383 545384 545386 545382 545385

[skialot2]

I opened up the sponsons and started pulling out the foam. I only did one section. I still have a lot to go. But it coming out easier then I thought it would. It's not stuck to the fiberglass. Because my arm is hurt I improvised and sharpened up a spade shovel to cut through the foam and dug out the middle breaking it up into pieces using mainly my legs. Then just pulled the rest out by hand. I am only taking the foam out that is below the floor. Everything above the floor is dry and in good condition. I am going to cut it off clean and leave it there. At the bottom of the sponson there is about a 4 foot section that is cored. I still have to get that out. I can see it is black through the fiberglass so I am sure it's rotten also. I am debating if I should replace the foam when I am done. There is no way to drain the sponsons if they are filled with foam. If I leave the bottom empty and add a drain plug. There will still be enough foam in the boat to keep it at the surface if it sinks. But I will be able to drain any water out that gets in.

545393 545394 545395
545396

[LakeFever]

I wouldn’t bother with the foam. It’s a Mickey Mouse way to add some rigidity to the sponsons that always seem to soak up water. Every boat I’ve ever worked on that has foam beneath the floor has been soaked. My thoughts are core more, not less, when in doubt. I cored my entire hull from bow to stern under ever square inch of floor. No regrets.

I have seen a few resto threads of yt’s and hst’s and adding some bulkheads seems common but my thoughts are core the entire sponsons, both sides and bottom is the best way to go. It’s low cost and high return. Labor intensive but otherwise a premium upgrade. The bulkheads are an option but imo at least you really need to lay glass up in a special manner to make bulkheads perform properly or you just create a hard break point. Due to the time this would take and the difficulty glassing around them as well as the ruining of useful space? Makes coding the easiest and best option

[skialot2]

Pulled most of the foam from the other sponson. Still need to get a couple feet further under the bow. I could leave it there because the water is draining out of it now. It will dry up eventually. But I will probably take out everything that is wet. It had to be about 50+ lbs. of foam/water in each side. I most probably will not be putting it back. I don't think it does anything for structural rigidity. But it definitely does some sound deadening and makes it sound solid.

545434 545435

[LakeFever]

The foam is supposed to add some structure. It’s also used on v hulls in boxes sort of like stringers on the rear sides. I’d be Leary leaving that foam up front. This is where you need a young skinny helper to get to those tight spots. It is right under there that’s for sure

[skialot2]

My checkmate has those boxes of foam by the transom and under the dash as well as a layer of foam along the sides. I could be wrong, but I think that is more about USGC regulations for required floatation then for structural rigidity. The boxes the foam is in are not very rigid. Really kind of flimsy. The foam I pulled out of the sponsons definitely was not adding anything to the rigidity. There was about a 1/8" gap between the foam and the fiberglass. Kind of like the foam was floating in the water. The fiberglass itself is in great condition. It's nice and thick where there is no core. I will replace the core where it is. But I am not going to add any core to where it wasn't before. Seeing how these boats were built originally and knowing myself, by the time I am done, this boat will be twice as strong as it ever was.