Marlin re-fit/restoration

[Salmondogs]

What are the chances that boat took on water as a result of the chine damage and visibly deteriorated genset? I'd start to look in other concealed spaces as best you can to see if there's any staining or other telltales of intrusion...

I've climbed all over the boat. Like I mention earlier I'm a pretty skinny guy and I've been in every hatch and hole, hell I was sitting in the aft bilge for an hour yesterday! That being said there's no damage, staining, or abnormal corrosion that I can find other than what's visible on the hull. The previous owner did say it started taking on some water when the crack opened up on the repower seatrial but they caught it right away and had it on the trailer before there was any meaningful amount of water onboard.

I'm pretty familiar with this family of Kohler gensets and they honestly just rust to pieces when left in a bilge like this. Everything on them is just painted steel and this one has been pretty neglected, hell the whole boat has been pretty neglected. My wife always jokes that all boats we buy are in need of saving haha!

 

[Family Tradition Fishing]

By the way where do they mount the diesel tank for the Fischer Panda's? I'll probably be installing a diesel heater before this fall and have been wondering where to mount a tank.

My deisel tank is just aft and starboard of my gen set. 2005 Marlin w/ FP. Pretty much between my fresh water tank and starboard. Great thread, I'll be following closely for inspiration.

 

[Salmondogs]

My deisel tank is just aft and starboard of my gen set. 2005 Marlin w/ FP. Pretty much between my fresh water tank and starboard. Great thread, I'll be following closely for inspiration.

Thanks for the info! Those Fischer Pandas are so small I can see that. I think I'll be putting a tank somewhere similar. Right now I think my inverter bank will be two maybe four AGM golf car batts which should leave me enough room.

A little update from yesterday. Cleaned up the back side of the AC/DC panel. Ran the new 6 gauge power and ground feeds to the 12v side from the new 2 gauge feeds I ran up to the dash from the back, cleaned up the bus bars and cut all the wiring to length and bundled the looms to help them self support. I also ran a completely new triplex line all the way to the back for the battery charger. My guess is it had been cut back so many times over the years it was now on the verge of too short. There's evidence of more than one replacement charger having been installed and the original wiring was pulled very tight. I also went up a size to 14 gauge, because why not?

Generally I just cleaned everything up and made it easier to see what's what and where it's going. Don't mind the broken breaker, got a little carried away with pulling on the harness's and the plastic on the old breakers is a little more brittle than it used to be lol, new breaker will be here tomorrow. I had already finished the DC side when I took the first picture, I'm really bad at remembering to take before pictures, but sufficed to say it was a bit of a mess in there.

 

[georgemjr]

Kohler gas through 2005. Those Kohlers have a tendency to look exactly like that after a few years, much more so after more than 15 years. I am guessing that is why they changed to FP diesel. You could mount the tank where the genset was.

 

[Salmondogs]

Quarantine Santa called today! My sheet of seafoam starboard showed up! Looks like I'll be able to stay busy for the rest of the two weeks, possibly longer if needed!

 

[Fishtales]

diesel tank is aft starboard side behind the generator.

 

[Harpoon]

I had a Mako CC I bought on Cape Cod that continually took on water, after re plumbing everything, I did a thorough sanding and found a crack in the about the same area. In my case there appeared to be no layup just resin that had cracked long ago. It wasn't such a difficult fix as there is nothing to re-core, its just solid layup.

So on my current Marlin (98) I noticed quickly the motors don't charge the house/accessory batteries (no generator). I sit on anchor running livewell and electronics for 12 + hours so that isn't cool. I jumped a charging line from my port battery switch into my house battery switch and that resolve the issue. I see you doing all that wiring work so it may be something to consider. After dealing with friends Gradys and spending some hours making repairs in the bilge I'm super happy NOT to have a generator.

 

[Salmondogs]

The wiring project has somewhat stalled out, I have a lot of little odds and ends I need to figure out before I can totally finish. I made the new housing for the Fusion stereo, turned out pretty good I'll post pictures of it later today if I have time between my honey-do's. I'm finalizing location of the amplifier and need to run speaker wires as the old ones where hacked up at some point to add in more components that are no longer on the boat. If it stops raining today I'll finish the ground side of things and maybe finally hook the batteries back up and power things up for the first time!! The biggest thing I'm waiting on is actually hardware to put together all the little boxes and mini bulkheads I'm building to cover up the new....erm….rigging access ports I've created lol.

I had a Mako CC I bought on Cape Cod that continually took on water, after re plumbing everything, I did a thorough sanding and found a crack in the about the same area. In my case there appeared to be no layup just resin that had cracked long ago. It wasn't such a difficult fix as there is nothing to re-core, its just solid layup.

So on my current Marlin (98) I noticed quickly the motors don't charge the house/accessory batteries (no generator). I sit on anchor running livewell and electronics for 12 + hours so that isn't cool. I jumped a charging line from my port battery switch into my house battery switch and that resolve the issue. I see you doing all that wiring work so it may be something to consider. After dealing with friends Gradys and spending some hours making repairs in the bilge I'm super happy NOT to have a generator.

My fiberglass guy said it shouldn't be that complex of a fix for him, just kind of labor intensive due to the size and how much gelcoat blending that might be needed right smack dab in the middle of the hull side. There is coring in the side of the hull but he didn't sound too concerned. He told me he just finished a large hull side repair in a 330 express recently that had an incident with a sign post while being trailered! He joked that he's all up to date on early 2000s Grady White construction and repair techniques. He also just rebuilt the entire transom and motor well area of another 330 that started cracking badly after a repower. It was a hurricane boat that had been slapped back together with filler (a lot like my boat). Turned out gorgeous and is structurally stronger than it left the factory!

At least on our Marlin, there isn't a house bank, just port and starboard banks. All the house electronics run off the Starboard battery switch whether it's on #1 (stbd bank) or #2 (port bank) I'm actually not a huge fan of the way it's wired. There's no way to interconnect the banks incase I have some sort of charging failure on one engine, and I'm forced to use only starting batteries. I'm laying out my new wiring scheme with the anticipation of adding a house bank in the future with an automatic charging relay and emergency interconnect switch for the engine banks. Yea I'm happy to not have the generator anymore, I can more or less comfortably sit in the bilge to make repairs, and i'm thinking I may add some storage down there. I'm starting to think I may just skip the whole idea of an inverter bank and I might just get a little suitcase generator for as little as we would use AC power not at a dock. Not sure.

 

[Fishtales]

By the way where do they mount the diesel tank for the Fischer Panda's? I'll probably be installing a diesel heater before this fall and have been wondering where to mount a tank.

Tank is grey behind the genny to the starboard side. It isn't huge, I'd say 8 gallons or so.

 

[SkunkBoat]

So on my current Marlin (98) I noticed quickly the motors don't charge the house/accessory batteries (no generator). I sit on anchor running livewell and electronics for 12 + hours so that isn't cool. I jumped a charging line from my port battery switch into my house battery switch and that resolve the issue. I see you doing all that wiring work so it may be something to consider. After dealing with friends Gradys and spending some hours making repairs in the bilge I'm super happy NOT to have a generator.

Look into an AUX charging wire for your Yamahas. Most have a built in isolator for charging a secondary "house" battery. All you need is the right plug.

 

[SkunkBoat]

At least on our Marlin, there isn't a house bank, just port and starboard banks. All the house electronics run off the Starboard battery switch whether it's on #1 (stbd bank) or #2 (port bank) I'm actually not a huge fan of the way it's wired. There's no way to interconnect the banks incase I have some sort of charging failure on one engine, and I'm forced to use only starting batteries. I'm laying out my new wiring scheme with the anticipation of adding a house bank in the future with an automatic charging relay and emergency interconnect switch for the engine banks. Yea I'm happy to not have the generator anymore, I can more or less comfortably sit in the bilge to make repairs, and i'm thinking I may add some storage down there. I'm starting to think I may just skip the whole idea of an inverter bank and I might just get a little suitcase generator for as little as we would use AC power not at a dock. Not sure.

Take a look at what I did..might give you some ideas on house batteries
https://www.greatgrady.com/threads/new-battery-config-for-265.25744/

 

[Fishtales]

Take a look at what I did..might give you some ideas on house batteries
https://www.greatgrady.com/threads/new-battery-config-for-265.25744/

Same here. 2 banks, both can start either engine or both and all 4 batts charged by the onboard charger and motors.

 

[Salmondogs]

Look into an AUX charging wire for your Yamahas. Most have a built in isolator for charging a secondary "house" battery. All you need is the right plug.

Wow I completely spaced the whole idea of the auxiliary charge posts haha! Thanks for the reminder! Does anyone know the part number for the harness or kit I would need for dual 4.2l Yamaha engines?

Thanks for the link to your set up! After looking at your diagram I totally understand why you did what you did, but my boat has easier access to the switches and I'm not supper concerned about emergency switching. This is what I've come up with, some would argue that it's not perfect because I can't completely isolate the engines from their dedicated batteries and then choose what battery is connected to X engine, but there would have to be one heck of a specific failure for this set up to not get me home. Plus I'm a mechanic so worse case I always have a decent tool kit with me at all times on the water and I almost always have a jump pack with me as well.

 

[Salmondogs]

Was able to get some pictures of the progress I've made

Here's the enclosure I made for the Fusion, I'm really happy with how this turned out!



I'll be basically re-rigging the entire stereo from scratch and there isn't much access on this side of the boat for a lot of wires soooo....I made access! This is the bulkhead just in front of the chief navigators chair. I can run the wiring out from behind the head unit then down into the aft bunk and across. I will be making an enclosure to hide everything similar to what was already hiding the pump out hose. As a bonus I'll be able to support the lower forward part of the plastic side panel, which seems very flimsy.



Finally here are some detail shots of all the work I've done under the dash. I moved the under dash fuse panel to behind the gauges, the people that rigged the engines just crammed all the extra harness up here and then zip tied the Yamaha network bus to that...I mean I guess it worked but that's not my style. Had to cut a large portion of the bulkhead to access this absolutely infuriating mini rig tube glassed to the back of the bathroom. I made a cover for the cut out and reinforced the area where the foot rest will bolt to. The engine harness's aren't fully back together and the pictures really don't do it justice but its a million times better under here. New positive and negative bus bars with the larger primary wire running to them which in turn feed the fuse box and the main breaker panel. I also relocated some of the engine rigging for better access and less stress on the harnesses. Generally I consolidated things and cleaned out all the crap to make it easier to see what's going on.

 

[SkunkBoat]

Wow I completely spaced the whole idea of the auxiliary charge posts haha! Thanks for the reminder! Does anyone know the part number for the harness or kit I would need for dual 4.2l Yamaha engines?

Thanks for the link to your set up! After looking at your diagram I totally understand why you did what you did, but my boat has easier access to the switches and I'm not supper concerned about emergency switching. This is what I've come up with, some would argue that it's not perfect because I can't completely isolate the engines from their dedicated batteries and then choose what battery is connected to X engine, but there would have to be one heck of a specific failure for this set up to not get me home. Plus I'm a mechanic so worse case I always have a decent tool kit with me at all times on the water and I almost always have a jump pack with me as well.

View attachment 11971

I left the original switches in place because they already had the cables from one side to the other. Basically what I do is leave them in the normal 1 & 2 positions and then add switches on the feeds to the motors in a more accessible place. One of those also controls the House. It uses a minimal amount of new wire. Your diagram looks workable but it might just be easier to leave a lot in place.

 

[Salmondogs]

It's been awhile since I've had time to update, work is INSAINE right now, the boating industry has exploded because of the virus. The bad news is I haven't been able to make much headway with my projects on the boat, but the good news is the fiberglass repair is almost done!

Like a lot of these types of things, when he started digging into the repair we started putting a timeline of probable events together. It would appear the boat took a hard blow low on the hull-side at some point. There is a previous repair here that was very well done, but it would also appear that at that time the stress fracture under the chine wasn't visible and went undetected. At a later date it would appear that the chine crack opened up and the boat was probably and unfortunately cheaply repaired and sold.

So to repair the repair he ground out all of the filler in the damaged areas, added two layers of biaxial mat on the inside and outside of the hull. Each inner layer consisted of overlapping 6" squares, so once both layers were put down if you were to dissect any spot of the repair it would actually have 6 layers of biaxial on the inside alone. He followed that up with two layers of mat and an epoxy barrier coat. On the outside he laid two sheets of biaxial, one slightly larger than the other, to add a little more strength but also make final shaping of the hull-side easier.

The final shot is something of a secret, I'll put up more pictures of it when the boat is finished, hopefully later this week.

Other things to note:
- I took the pictures during varying stages of exploratory sanding and repair so don't take any one picture as a finishing point for any particular stage of the repair.
- Our glass guy made a point to tell me that in his 25 years of doing glass work he's never seen a boat with thicker factory gelcoat. This is the first Grady White he's worked on (because of where he used to live he's mostly worked on ski/wake, cruiser and go fast boats) and other than the crappy repair he seems to be pretty impressed with the factory layup/construction.
-We are using vinyl-ester resin (OK'ed by Grady customer service)
- It's interesting watching a professional vs reading internet "experts". At various points I would see something that would get a normal person absolutely roasted online. I'd ask him about it and once he explained what he was doing it made a lot of sense. I wish I could have talked to him when I did the transom in my old SeaSwirl, he would have saved me ALOT of time haha!

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I know those look like large air bubbles but its actually the gray gelcoat in some nooks and crannies that were left behind during surface prep.