New to me 96 Prostar 205

[sk8salomon]

Originally Posted by supturb89

Not sure who was more excited, him or me???

i know the feeling. just wait till one day you jump in your boat and can't find the key or plug. in the meantime, your blower is running, lights are on and you find smashed pretzels in the driver's seat!

[blackcreek]

Excellent! That baby will clean right up over the winter. I bought a 97 205 that was abused by the previous owner. Mechanically it was in OK shape with only 350 hours on it but he ran out of money to keep it running and had it sitting uncovered on blocks out in a farm field for years. Every seam in the vinyl was rotted and simply sitting on the seat would cause a rip. I wet sanded and buffed out the gel coat, stripped out the carpet and seats and had new skins made at a local shop. I cut and glued in new carpet, made new boards for the side panels (only wood in the boat), and then bolted everything back up. I paid 6k for the boat and spent 3k for carpet,skins and various mechanical parts to make the boat worthy.
Time consuming but not technically difficult at all.

Before





After




Next up is fixing the flimsy teak swim platform, not a great design.

[supturb89]

Originally Posted by blackcreek

Excellent! That baby will clean right up over the winter. I bought a 97 205 that was abused by the previous owner. Mechanically it was in OK shape with only 350 hours on it but he ran out of money to keep it running and had it sitting uncovered on blocks out in a farm field for years. Every seam in the vinyl was rotted and simply sitting on the seat would cause a rip. I wet sanded and buffed out the gel coat, stripped out the carpet and seats and had new skins made at a local shop. I cut and glued in new carpet, made new boards for the side panels (only wood in the boat), and then bolted everything back up. I paid 6k for the boat and spent 3k for carpet,skins and various mechanical parts to make the boat worthy.
Time consuming but not technically difficult at all.

Before





After




Next up is fixing the flimsy teak swim platform, not a great design.

Nice job on the restore. How difficult was the carpet replacement? I will probably do that this winter as well. I don't know if I will have to wet sand or not. I'm planning on replacing all the decals so I hope that whatever I do you won't be able to see where the old decals were on the boat. With new skins the boat should look much better. My teak needs some attention as well. I may end up getting another one because it looks as though the previous owner may have modified it a little with what doesn't look to be teak???

I have been researching this product and it seems to get good feedback.
http://www.aqua-buff.com/

Anybody have any experience with it?

[east tx skier]

Did a local shop do those skins for you? They look great!

[blackcreek]

I used a place called Larry's trim shop in Jacksonville Fl. I took in all the cushions and motor box and told him to make it look just like the factory and he did. I made new side panels and dry fit them first then took those in also. He repaired the foam in the seats and did the carpet on the motor box and all the kick panels along with all new skins. Not cheap at 2300 but I thought that was a fair price for all the vinyl and that also included the matching extra carpet for me to do the boat.

I did the carpet in sections which made it easier to handle in a one man job. I did each side wall and then each side floor up to the seats. The seam for each side of the floor runs under the side panel. In the front I cut a section that ran as far back as the drivers seat so the seam for it runs under the seat. There is really only one very small seam showing between the observer seat and the in floor cooler. I used the old carpet that I cut out for a pattern in the front and just cut it a little bigger then glued the center part down so it would not move then carefully trimmed in the edges with an exacto knife. You can cut the old carpet out from under the front seats a bit and that left me a little edge to stuff the carpet under. The front was by far the hardest as it is slow going at first if you want to get it exact, the sides and floor are not bad at all after doing the front.

Carpet seams are under the side kick panel you see in the picture.

[blackcreek]

Here are pictures of where I ran the seam for the bow carpet. Don't know if this is the easy way, it is just how I ended up doing it.

Passenger side just follows the seam that comes up from rear of boat.


Rear of bow carpet then runs across the ski pole cover seam.


Rear carpet and seam on drivers side runs under the kick panel to the bow carpet(A) . The bow carpet runs all the way to the wall and the seam is the edge where side and floor meet. (B)


The small hump at the walk through used up enough carpet that I needed to glue in a small strip at the edge. You have to stick your head under the dash to see this so it is a non issue. The black stuff is just dirt.

[rjracin240]

Originally Posted by blackcreek

If you need any extra pictures on the carpet let me know, I can show you where I put the seams.

Excellent job on the restoration, working on my 88 Prostar as I get the oppurtunity. Will look into that shop that did the upholstery work for you as I am right around the corner from you on Lake Asbury and desperately need some upholstery work for mine

[blackcreek]

Originally Posted by rjracin240

Excellent job on the restoration, working on my 88 Prostar as I get the oppurtunity. Will look into that shop that did the upholstery work for you as I am right around the corner from you on Lake Asbury and desperately need some upholstery work for mine

They are on 103rd halfway between Cecil Field and I-295

[1985 Skiier]

Nice work, you did a great job on that carpet and your interior look factory!

[blackcreek]

I don't mean to thread jack, hopefully this gives supturb89 some ideas. The only thing I did different on the vinyl was the brown accent stripe. The factory color was nowhere near the same color as the carpet so I picked the closest match we could find when ordering vinyl at the trim shop. Very subtle difference if you look at the before and after photos but I think it looks better.