Wellcraft Nova undergoes a conversion from Sterndrive to Outboard.

[Smoking Joe]

The Project.
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Inboard/outboard to outboard conversion on 1985 Wellcraft Nova with Indmar Vortec 320hp 5.7 litre V8 engine and Alpha one drive. Replacement engine to be one or two Johnson 4.0 300hp V8 outboard engines.

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The boat arrives. We remove the engine and leg. We then removed all appendages from the transom both inside and out.
Prior to purchase we could see from photos that there had been some restoration done to the transom. Prior to purchase I had been assured that both the floor and transom were solid and that the boat had recently undergone a $US15k refit on mechanicals and transom etc.
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On Closer Inspection. We foundthe phrase restoration was not correct. It appears as though poor quality repair work had been done on two or three different occasions on the transom. It became very quickly apparent that the whole transom would require removal through to the glass and gellcoat.
At some point in it’s more recent history heavy Woven Rovings glass had been laid over the transom, engine bearers hull sides etc, it covered everything up to and including the first bulkhead forward of the transom. It had been poorly applied and had not been clearly thought out. Some of the glass we were able to rip off the substrate. Some areas the cloth had not been wetted out properly and had consequently not stuck. Much of the substrate had apparently not been prepared for glassing contributing to the poor adhesion of the glass. Excess resin had been allowed to accumulate at the base of the transom and require considerable grinding to remove. This excess was between ½ and ¾ of an inch thick in places.
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We removed more than one full rubbish bag of grinding residue (dust). The positive was the removal of plenty of excess weight.
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Rebuild preparation. The transom removal was quite straightforward; the removal of the recently added glass cloth was time consuming and tedious in the extreme. I have decided to remove only that which is necessary for our transformation. So complete removal on the transom and parts of the existing engine bearers, which we will need to laminate to. A straight edge showed us the remaining laminate on the transom was fairly straight and would require no rectification.
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The Plan. We plan to build a pod on the transom and incorporate a boarding platform on either side of the engine(s). We have purchased one Johnson 4.0 300hp V8 outboard to power the Wellcraft. However I am not convinced one engine will give me enough speed so the reconstruction has to be strong enough to take the weight of two V8 outboards with minimal alteration. The pod will provide positive buoyancy when the boat is at rest.
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To support the weight and stresses imposed by possibly two V8s we plan to build longitudinal bracing glued and glassed to the existing internal engine bearers and forward to the first bulkhead. These bearers will extend aft through slots in the reconstructed transom and will form part of the pod structure. Internally the braces will also go to the full height of the transom/topsides and will extend forward to tie the transom to the aft topsides giving additional support to the topsides/hull join.
These braces will be constructed from 1 thickness of ¾ in thick Okoume/HW ply and then glassed using 1 skin of 600grm Double Bias E glass. The inside layer of laminate will consist of a single skin of +/- 45* 600grm Double Bias.
Reconstruction of the transom will consist of one layer of ¾ in Meranti/HW ply, This layer will consist of 4 separate sections. The internal transom will then be glassed using two layers of 600grm Double Bias E glass with a lighter layer of 100grm ‘boat cloth’ over the top. The boat cloth is only there as a sanding barrier so we do not reduce the structural integrity of preceding laminates. Some areas will receive a second thickness of 3/4 ply with another layer of 600grm DB glass to further support the installation of trim tabs etc.
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Corner joins will either be glue-coved and glass taped over or will have Cedar timber fillets glued into the corners and then glass taped over depending on point loading for that particular join.

Resins and fillers will be by West Systems.
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The pod will be constructed from Okoume ply with the pod base for the jack plate attachment built using 4 pieces of ¾ in Meranti ply. Each ply join will have two layers of 600grm Double Bias E glass with the second layer extending 1 ¼ past the first. The internal corner will only require one layer of 600grm DB with an overall finished thickness of +/- 3 inches. Again internal corner bracing for the pod will be provided by Cedar timber fillets glued and glass-taped over. Other areas of the pod will be constructed from ½ in Okoume ply.
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Moving on. Today I started to prepare the original engine bearers ready to accept our bearers. Problem. The existing bearers have rot in them and the internal cavity on both sides contained water and all timber was soaking wet.
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So today I spent the day removing the original engine bearers. Yet another day of grinding with probably most of tomorrow on the grinder as well. That hopefully will be all but the end of the grinding preparation.

Photos will be added soon, now it is off to the shower.

[jp2dunk]

I have been there before about 20years ago.Had a 1970 23 ft formula. It had a 5.7L 350 cu.in 300hp Merc inboard-outboard.Boat had a very deep V bottom.I converted it over to an outboard(235hp v6 evinrude) with a bracket. .Boat picked up 10-12 mph and planed off 3 times quicker.Only had one problem,The old and the new were quite different in weight and boat floated like a cork .A V8 out board and moving the fuel tank back in the boart would have cured the weight-balence problem.I also missed the sound of the 350 due to it sounded like a gun boat.So good luck with your project.

[Greg G]

Easily solved by using a sling to tune the proper Center-of-Gravity with the new set up using 45lb Olympic disks to simulate the OB weight.

[Smoking Joe]

Today I found that rather than grind off all the old glass in the old engine bay I was able to use a wrecking bar and a heavy hammer to lift off the glass from the original hull laminate. Some was easy, a lot was tough. In the keel area between the added glass and the hull laminate there was old engine oil and water. Sure glad I made the decision to remove it all. I guess tomorrow will be the same as today. Photo’s as promised.

[Smoking Joe]

I have been there before about 20years ago.Had a 1970 23 ft formula. It had a 5.7L 350 cu.in 300hp Merc inboard-outboard.Boat had a very deep V bottom.I converted it over to an outboard(235hp v6 evinrude) with a bracket. .Boat picked up 10-12 mph and planed off 3 times quicker.Only had one problem,The old and the new were quite different in weight and boat floated like a cork .A V8 out board and moving the fuel tank back in the boart would have cured the weight-balence problem.I also missed the sound of the 350 due to it sounded like a gun boat.So good luck with your project.

JP, I am motivated by the speed gains with your conversion. In your conversion you lost 65hp and gained 10mph to 12mph. I would love to see a similar result with my conversion.

[VELOCITOY]

...cheering you on SmokinJoe...already talkin twins...lol...nice bracket idea...project makes me smile...V-Toy...

[Frank Molé]

hi Nev... looks like you have a handel on it,good luck and ill be watching.....

[OFFSHORE GINGER]

Joe ,it really is to bad that you were so misinformed on the true condition of the boat , and good luck considering owning a Wellcraft .......when doing any repairs structural or otherwise can sometimes be like opening up a can of worms due to the lack of poor workmanship , and the quality of the build .

[Smoking Joe]

OG, thanks for not sayin "told ya so" and rubbing my nose in it. Appreciated bud....

I am not surprised that I have significant work to do, after all it is a 26 year old boat. The transom failure was due entirely to appendages etc not sealed through the bolts and brackets. Many are fitted after market by sparkies etc and they just don't know or have the gear to do the job properly. These problems are not the making of the boat builder or a design fault.
The engine bearers I am assuming were rebuilt/replaced when the other glassing was done so no surprises there that they failed.

At the end of the day I had factored in some reconstruction and as it is my field of expertise it is no biggy. You had given me fair warning. Thanks mate.

Joe ,it really is to bad that you were so misinformed on the true condition of the boat , and good luck considering owning a Wellcraft .......when doing any repairs structural or otherwise can sometimes be like opening up a can of worms due to the lack of poor workmanship , and the quality of the build .

[Smoking Joe]

Frank, Vtoy, thanks guys, I hope to have it knocked out in no time.

[Smoking Joe]

Progress report. I had decided that once the old engine bearers had been removed and before going forward I would put two layers of 600 gram Double Bias E glass with West Systems epoxy resin across the inside of the hull. So all surfaces were wiped with epoxy thinners then a "primer coat" of epoxy resin/glue powder slurry was applied. This was followed by the two layers of 600 DB.

The next job is to replace the first section of transom and the first bulkhead going forward. I hope to get this completed next weekend.

[Instigator]

Great project and the perfect conversion. I've thought of converting a 25' Nova to twin O/B's several times.
You'll have a great rig when you're done.

[pantera24]

nice job!!

[Greg G]

Looking good Neville. Are you going to alter the cap slightly?

[afr]

looks good looks like you will have a great ride after its all said and done