So how do you rebuild one you ask, what are the basic steps?  That is what this series of posts is going to be about and I could think of no better pontoon boat to demonstrate the real meaning of the coming Redeck Revolution than our 1958 Riveria Cruiser.  This pontoon boat has had a sorted past, we picked it up from a local farmer for $250 (which was way too much to pay for it after actually seeing it).  You can usually pick up a great rebuild candidate for less than $1500.  This pontoon boat is in such bad shape I thought it would be the perfect boat to demonstrate the restoration process.  This pontoon boat's tubes are in bad shape and I want to stress how important it is to pick a pontoon boat which has pontoon tubes that are in good shape, no major dents, holes that have been patched.  You'll see what I mean as we move forward with the redeck, I'll post pictures on the How To Redeck A Pontoon Boat page on www.PontoonStuff.com. 

 

We begin the process this Tuesday, Dec. 28th and the first thing that needs to be done is to remove the debris from the deck.  You'll find this alot of times on older pontoons that have been left out to rot.  The pontoon boat's deck will somehow have attracted things like old tires, bits of wood, cans, garabage and ours even had a bed frame living on it!  How these things gravitate towards older pontoon boats is beyond us but it makes for a heck of a deal when you offer the owner a few hundred bucks for the thing, especially when you know the tubes and railing are in good shape! 

 

My next post will detail step number one in any rebuild project, THE TEAR DOWN PROCESS.  I will detail what is all involved when you tear the boat down to just the aluminum crossmembers (I'll show you what they are) and tubes.  If you are replacing the marine plywood you want to take everything off the boat, usually just throw it in all in the back of a trailer of truck and head to the landfill, if the seats are in good condition cover them in the garage or another area to keep the vinyl protected.  Everything that you are not going to use should be thrown away, don't hold on to it  as it will just accumulate in your garage and building.  A man (or woman) only accumulates enough stuff as he/she has room for:)  So if you have a building, just toss the old parts or they'll hang around in the corner for years.  You should see our buildings, we cannot seem to throw old parts away!  I keep thinking, 'Hey, we can use that old piece of wood for something, maybe a shelf!'  So there it sits for years in the way when I could be storing something more useful.

 

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

 

Pontoonboatguy

 

 

Posted Dec. 28th 2004 on the older Pontoon message board.

 

Step One in our series of 'How To Rebuild A Pontoon Boat' is underway. The Tear Down stage began with the removal of all debris off of the pontoon boats deck. In our case it was a bit messy, an old bed frame, huge mirror, semi truck tire, plastic seat, the old frame for the vinyl soft top, various pieces of wood and about a dozen shot gun shell, gotta love it! Remember, we chose to show you what can be done with the worst case scenario. All in all it was quick and easy, all the junk was thrown in the back of a pickup truck and hauled to the dump while all of the vital parts, the stuff we wanted to save, was laid out on the back of a flat bed truck to be taken to the local sand blaster. We've decided to keep the old fence and try to restore this pontoon boat to its original glory. The removal of the old fencing (railing) and side rails, we call it deck trim was a bit difficult in our case due to the age of the pontoon boat. This pontoon boat has steel fencing and deck trim instead of aluminum, in most cases you don't want a pontoon boat with steel fencing and you NEVER want a pontoon boat with steel tubes. Our pontoon boat had been redecked at some point as it does not have the original tubes and we noticed the deck wasn't half bad, though the 12oz indoor/outdoor carpet was junk. One thing that I'll talk in detail about when we write out 'How To' manual is that you should not spend much time trying to salvage old hardware. Old bolts can be a drag on your project time and are inexpensive to replace, so if you have trouble getting them out simply cut the heads off with a small hand grinder or drill the heads out. The same thing should be done with the deck bolts or screws, if they give you grief just cut them off or drill them out. Many times if you are replacing your marine plywood you can use a hole saw to drill around the bolt and then knock the head off with a grinder. Remember that it is sometimes easier to simply replace the decking, even if it is in good shape, if you are having difficulty removing the older carpet. If the old carpet does not come off easily and you cannot remove all the dried glue it will most likely react with the new adhesive and you'll have problems with lines, wrinkles and carpet not sticking to the deck. We should have all the fencing and hardware off the pontoon boat tomorrow and we'll begin pulling up the carpet and dismantling the deck. Our pontoon uses a very old steering system, something we'll show in the manual. Depending on the type of steering system you have it may be easier to just replace it with our steering bezel and cable rather than try to deal with outdated cable steering systems. I am getting pretty excited about restoring this old boat, the steel fence railing will look very sharp after we have it sand blasted and repainted. I'm sure I've got an old post card with the exact same boat as we are restoring somewhere and when I find it I'll have it up to compare with the rebuilt pontoon. Of course we'll be using our new pontoon furniture and we'll replace the tubes with ones in better condition but the comparision will be fun in any case.

Have a prosperous and save new year everyone.

Pontoonboatguy

 

Posted Dec 30th 2004 on the old message board.

 

Alright, we've completely dismantled our project pontoon boat and have come to the realization that the entire boat is junk. So, we just took it all to the dump, tubes, deck, fence railing, everything. So much for our great restoration project :) I decided that the since the pontoon tubes needed replacing we were better off junking the entire thing as it would make no sense to put old fence on brand new tubes. So we are going to start from the ground up and build a pontoon boat. This is bascially the same exact process you'll go through when redecking your pontoon only we'll need to put need crossmembers on to support the deck. So this is what we are doing.

Once you strip your existing pontoon boat down to the deck you need to make the decision whether or not to replace the actual marine plywood itself. Many times you can simply recarpet over your existing pontoon boat deck, saving you the cost of the treated marine plywood. However, it is very important that you make your decision on replacing the deck after thorough examination of the deck. The biggest mistake you can make would be to go ahead and lay new marine carpet over a bad pontoon boat deck and then spend the money on new furniture. What happens 9 out of 10 times is that the deck will go bad a year or so after your major rebuild job, requiring you to do it all over again. If the deck seems solid, no noticable weak spots when you walk up and down the deck, no major delamination of the marine plywood (the top layer of the decking is not wrinkled up or seperating from the other 'plys') no major areas of rot that you can see. Pay special attention to the edges of the marine plywood. Make sure your pontoon boats deck is not delaminating from the sides and pay close attention to the seams where the sheets of marine plywood join, if you see major warping along the seams it may be rotting from the inside. CCA treated marine grade plywood will not warp or rot so if you see your deck has any major warping you'll know it is not proper treated marine plywood and your chances of having trouble down the road will increase. You'll see photos of what I mean by a warped and delaminated deck when we publish our manual. The other factor in determining whether or not to redeck the pontoon boat is how easily the marine carpet comes up. If you find the boat carpet just pulls right up and is easy to remove then this will make your project much easier. If the boat carpet does not come up easily and you find yourself spending hours trying to tear it up, you may just want to replace the deck. It is vitally important that you get all the old marine glue off of the deck as it will react with the new adhesive and cause your marine carpet to come up. Marine carpet that is difficult to remove will also leave alot of old adhesive on the deck that you will need to either scrap or grind off. So keep all of this in mind when deterimining what to do. Half the time it is easier to replace the decking even if it is in good shape.

Okay, so you've made the decision to either redeck or just recarpet. If you are going to redeck your pontoon boat the first thing you need to do is find the proper marine plywood. We offer complete pontoon boat kits on our site, www.pontoonstuff.com and you can either purchase the decking from us or try to find it locally. The type of marine plywood you will need is 3/4', 7-ply CCA treated marine grade boat panel or plywood. It is very important that you use the proper type of marine plywood due to changes in the treatment process used on standard plywood found at local lumber yards. Today's standard plywood is treated in a manner that does not include arsenic ( a superior preservative), a copper based chemical is used instead and it will destroy the back of your marine carpet and even eat through aluminum. This is why all pontoon boat builders use CCA treated plywood. There has been a great increase in demand for CCA treated marine plywood due to the new EPA laws regulating the treatment process for standard plywood. RV manufactures, trailer companies and cargo trailer manufacturers are startting to use CCA treated plywood and so the price has gone up dramatically. We sell it for $65 a sheet, it is discounted if you buy our pontoon boat redeck kit, but you'll pay anywhere from $80-$95 a sheet from you local supplier, if you can find it. Once you've got the proper marine plywood the job can begin. The first thing you want to do is lay the first 4x8' sheet of marine decking across the rear of the pontoon boat, nearest to the transom. You want to lay the sheets of decking width ways, or 8' wide across the deck and 4' up towards the front of the pontoon boat. Before you begin laying all the sheets of plywood onto the aluminum crossmembers (frame) you will want to lay our 8' strips of pontoon boat deck joint tape. This tar like deck tape lays across each aluminum crossmember or brace were two sheets of decking will but up against each other. This is important because the deck tape will prevent water from entering the vulnerable edges of the decking, preventing wet lines across your pontoon boat carpet and preventing any breakdown of the marine plywood's inter plys. Once you've laid out all the deck joint tape you can begin laying out all the sheets of plywood. Do not fasten them all down as you go along, get them all on the deck first so you can make sure they are all square. You don't want your deck to sit cockeyed on the frame. Once you've eyed the deck and put a square edge to it you can begin fastening the deck to the crossmembers. You'll most likely want to use our self taping deck screws or you can use our deck bolts. The deck screws are much faster and easier to do if you are by yourself. Either fastener has a large flat head that will not protrude through the carpet, do not use carriage bolts as you'll feel them when you're walking on the deck and you'll see the round heads sticking up through the carpet.

I'll give you exact spacing between the fasteners in the next post. I've got to run out and do it first though:)

PontoonBoatGuy