1984 Starcraft SF-1616T Conversion

A little over 5 years ago, my oldest brother died unexpectedly (46, a year older than I am today), and my wife and I decided to buy his "Warrior" from his widow to keep as a kind of memento.

It is a 16' Starcraft with a split seat in the middle, and a flat floor throughout except for the bow (he put one in up there).


Here's the mods I did before (add new seats, wired it up for electronics front and back, small stuff):



It should be noted that my "fishing buddy" is my best friend,who happens to be my wife... she fishes off the very tip of the boat an only sits in the nice seat I purchased for her when we are underway.



We have had many, many good times with this boat, and have dragged all over the state, and even into Canada. It's a great boat. But...

I stay in the back ALWAYS running the old '84 Merc 25HP backtrolling most of the time, or using the trolling motor when it is calm (me and the buddy fish walleyes with live bait rigs trolling almost exclusively here in central Minnesota because no matter what lake you are on in the state, you will catch several dozen fish in a couple of hours and a few will be walleyes).

I have a small transistor radio that I use to drown out the putt-putt-sputt-sputt from the Merc, but the backbreaking bench seat sitting just kills me after a couple of hours. I fished with a buddy with a newer tiller model that just had a pedestal seat in the back, and that got me wondering... I'd love to remove this bench and put in a nice seat like I did for my fishing buddy (which she doesn't use).

So after trolling around the web a while, I kept coming back to some of the other projects that you guys undertook, and I listened and learned.

What I learned was:

It is going to be a great bit of fun to undertake
It is going to be a pain in the A**
It is going to be cheaper to just buy the boat I want with the features that I want and probably a way better power plant

What trumps it is that it is my brother's boat, and I am going to be working on it with my second oldest son, (a 15 year old, who I already bequeathed my very first boat once he gets established : 1958 14' Starcraft deep-V aluminum ).

So... here goes! First step is the demo. Ripping everything out.

All righty then...

Here's the before (profile):



Rear:



Front:



Thanks jasper60103 for the picture formatting tip, no more off kilter pics from me, hopefully!

I rotated it 90 degrees in paint then uploaded it.
Also works from my photobucket account.

Btw, nice project. Big Bro would be proud.
Keep the pics coming. Thanks for sharing.

-jasper

Teardown...

Here's the boat with all the extraneous junk removed.



Next, we took on removing the split seats and the benches, which were screwed to the floor and riveted to the sides. I read somewhere on this forum about using a punch to mark the center of the rivet, and then use a drill bit one size smaller than the rivet and drill straight in to about the depth of the rivet head. You should then be able to wiggle the bit and the head should snap off. That didn't work for me, as the rivets were painted on, I had to use a nail punch after I drilled them all.

Here we have the split seats taken out, the trolling motor mount removed from the tip, and the very front seat removed.



Next came the rear bench. I was anxious to see what was under the floor to see what I would be working with in terms of structure and hopefully leaving the bench out.



My pops (who has owned/modded/sank more boats over the years than everyone I know combined), is worried about the transom integrity, especially when I mentioned my desire to upgrade to a 4-stroke to save my remaining brain cells from inhaling Merc flatulance. The transom is rated to a 40HP, I currently have a 25HP. I was thinking of tying the sides together with 1 inch aluminum tubing, and possibly doing something similar to this:



Anyone remove their rear bench? I'd love to hear any thoughts...

I love the boat, keep up the hard work. I do think that the story behind it as well as the work put in will make that boat far better than any boat you'd ever buy. I feel like you could pop out the seats so long as you rebraced the hull. You have taken out small split benches that probably braced the walls more than one may think, and removing the back seat may too hurt that.

I love the boat, keep up the hard work. I do think that the story behind it as well as the work put in will make that boat far better than any boat you'd ever buy. I feel like you could pop out the seats so long as you rebraced the hull. You have taken out small split benches that probably braced the walls more than one may think, and removing the back seat may too hurt that.

Thanks for the comments, derekdiruz1! My wife and I agree with your thinking on "the better boat" completely! To stiffen the sides, I was planning on replacing the split seats with storage running up both sides, and tying the sides to the storage, the storage to the floor, and the floor to the bottom of the boat.

Possibly something like this (in my dreams):



Do you think that would help replace the strength that the split seats provided?

Ok, here's what she looks like "with her kimono open":



I was happy to see the aluminum "beam" that I am going to reuse for the new floor. I was expecting to see some rotted wood.

I can't see why it wouldn't stiffen the walls so long as you had L brackets of such, rather than just bolting it up creating seams rather for the weak points on the build... if im making sense

Time for some paint removal... I was shopping at the "Man Mall" (Fleet Farm in MN) for some paint stripper that I could use in the garage, as it is still in the 30's here (it even snowed today). The pickings were slim. I settled on an orange bottle of "Citristrip" because it was in a gloopy gel-like form factor so it would theoretically stick to the sides well. I did not have high hopes for this stuff, how good of a job could it do if it didn't come with a ton of death warnings that all the other "big boy" strippers had?

So I tried it out on a small section of the transom, and let it sit for a couple of hours. I used a plastic scraper to see how much paint I could get off, and was pleasantly surprised!

So now it was off to the races. I covered the rest of the transom with this glop, and then moved onto the sides. After a couple of hours, we went along in small sections and removed most of the paint with the plastic scraper, and finished up removing the (I assume) green primer underneath with a wire brush.

Here's the transom and one side afterwards:


I am pretty pleased with the Citristrip, I'll have to remember that stuff when I do the trailer...

Looks like it did a great job!

hi i have the same boat but a 14 and was wanting to put a pedestale in the middle but i dont want to hit the beam when i drill the bottom, looking towards the bow is the beam on the left side of the boat slightly, and how wide is the top of it?

25yamaha, the top of the beam is about an inch wide, and is offset from the center to the port side.

Thanks for bringing that up, you probably saved me from hitting the beam as well!

thank you very much! :lol:

Well, it's been a while since an update, we had some pretty crappy weather between April and now.



With the last couple of decent weekends we were able to clean up the bottom of the hull and coat the seams with Goop Cover-It just for good measure.



Then, we bought the wood, and made some templates out of cardboard to make a deck cutout. I bought some aluminum angle 1" x 1" x 1/8" online at grainger.com for about 1/3 the price you could buy it in a big box store ($9 vs. $32 for 8 foot lengths). I saw some interesting work on this forum and others on using the angle to frame up the structure for the deck, so I decided to give it a try. I'm really liking playing with the adult tinker toys! The rivets hold the structure very well. Once we had a decent weekend, we could finally apply a few coats of spar urethane to the flooring and the deck. Stinky stuff.



For the sides, I decided to do a grey bedliner rather than black (thought it would get too hot). Of course, no local store has any colors, just black, so I ordered it off of Amazon.com. I really like how it turned out.



I was on the fence on what to put on the flooring. I know I don't want carpet (have that on my pontoon and the adults track in more crap on their feet than the kids do). I was considering a rubberized paint or even bedliner. I settled on some marine vinyl from Cabela's after I saw and felt what looked to be a similar brand on a boat on display at Fleet Farm. I am very happy with the vinyl.



We put in a total of 4 pin-hole seat bases, 3 on the floor and one on the deck. I have to go around and secure the flooring to the stringers and then I can begin to assemble the storage running along the sides. I ran some sump pump tubing under the floor and threaded a transducer through it before laying down the floor. It should make running a different transducer quite a bit easier in the future.

As you can see, I am considering putting the split benches back in, but I'm still not 100% sold on the idea. They would be carpeted on the sides and top if I did put them back.

Next up: framing in all the storage along the sides, making a door for under the casting deck, and a shelf across the back of the transom. Also installing cup holders galore!

All right, here's some final updates...

Here's the front construction progress:



Framing in the gas tank enclosure and integrated tackle box holders took me a while, if I were you, I would plan it on paper rather than do it in your head and wing it. It worked out in the end, though, and I am happy about the results.



Next up was the paint. We primed it with Interlux Pre-cote, 2 coats with plenty of drying time between. I read that if you don't let it dry enough, it is hard to sand it down smooth between coats (using 220 grit sandpaper).



Once primed and sanded, we used the "roll and tip" method for the paint using Interlux Briteside Black yacht paint. I was nervous that only one quart would be needed, but we got 2 great coats, and probably could have put on a third. I decided to save the rest to repair any scratches and dings that will happen (and have!) in the future.

If you want to know about the "roll and tip" method, start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-SGcSlNmoo

Look at the comments and go to that guy's blog, it was very informative, especially about using the correct brush thinner (Interlux 333, order online or go to your nearest West Marine like I did). The video gave me and the fishing buddy the confidence to do this on our own, and we think it turned out great.



Next up were the decals. I found some cool Starcraft replacement decals on ebay, and some updated ones for the old sputtering Merc. My fishing buddy gently scraped off the old decals on the Merc and all we had to do was apply the new ones. What a difference! It looks 20 years newer! (still runs the same, but looks cooler)



After that, it was finishing up the storage, carpeting, and installing the wiring (bus bars, control panel switches, stereo, downscan sonars, etc.).

Here's some shots of the final product:







The boat is done! I think my brother would be happy with the results. It definitely was a lot of work, but it was worth it working on it with my son and wife. My wife and I took it out the other day and fished for 4 or 5 hours, and I really like it. She actually sat in the seat I bought her, but she still likes to sit on the decks I built too. Whatever works. I have a stereo, a comfortable seat, and plenty of storage. Plus it looks pretty kick ***, if I do say so myself.

As I was launching it on 4th of July weekend, I helped the County Sheriff land his big enforcement boat. He commented that he liked my "new" boat, and I had to explain several times that it really was over 30 years old, motor and all! Have had lots of compliments for the neighbors since then as well.

We are still thinking about the lettering for the back to honor my brother in some way, so I guess it isn't "quite" done... stay tuned!

=D> That is an amazing transformation of a a boat. Well done! I think you have shown me the layout I will use in mine now. My searching, googling, and sketching are over \/

^ +1

Very nice restoration. Thanks for sharing. Enjoy!

jasper

WOW! Kevin would love what you have done.

Now you have me thinking about my old Sears in the shed.

Bill

That's looks amazing, I especially like the wrap around storage and how the benches in the rear look. Great job on a perfect way to honor your brother.