1987 Alumacraft Super Bandit Restoration

[Gilby]

Hey everyone, new here but thought I would join up and share my restoration with anyone that may be interested. I have done a lot of searching on this site in the past for reference on my project and it has helped me out, so I figured why not post some of mine as it just may help someone else down the road. It does not seem that my boat is very common, at least as far as anyone fixing them up, it is very difficult to find much on them. I have a 1987 Alumacraft Super bandit. It is a MOD V, 17' 8'' long and 72" beam. It is powered by a 1987 Yamaha 70 oil injected 2 stroke.

I have had this boat for several years now and it got to the point that a lot of the wiring was going bad, the old flotation foam was holding water and it had a few leaks. So, I just decided to do it all. Stripped it down to a bare hull, literally everything. Put a new transom in, had some holes and a crack welded up and am now in the process of putting it all back together. I will add a few pics to see the before during and current state.

I would like to thank you all for sharing your knowledge here and it seems to be a great site.

 

[airshot]

Impressive job !!!

 

[Stand Up]

Looks good. Keep on keeping on.

 

[Gilby]

Thanks guys. Its been a fun and frustrating process. It's not like working on a car or something. I did not realize how much forethought needs to go into a lot of this. I have learned the hard way that you can't finish one thing without looking ahead to make sure there isn't something else that needs to be completed first. Like right now, I am going to town today to get a few things. I can't finish the last couple rivets in rear deck until I get some teflon paste for the threads on tank vent. It wont spin all the way around where the framing will be. A ;ot of trial by fire!

 

[Gilby]

New seats showed up today and carpet was shipped today. Ordered both through bassboatseats and seemed to be a decent price. Not really ready for the seats but i need the carpet so that i can put a piece down on the floor before getting the console secured in place. But it is pretty cool to have the seats and see them. Makes the whole project seem that much more real

 

[Gilby]

Another update on progress. Had a pretty nice day yesterday so I decided to finish the paint. Just needed to do the bow and top rail and just below rail on inside for where the carpet will not cover. Did the bow and had just a bit of the red left over so decided to paint the rear corner caps. It's a very pretty color with flakes in it and sort of expensive so didn't want to waste it. Then, in my hurried state while the weather was good, I taped it all off to finish the black. Well, that was a mistake. Painted the black and uncovered the red in hopes to clear coat it. It wasn't quite dry enough apparently. Felt dry enough but i'm thinking the plastic i covered it with may have trapped some moisture inside and it left lines in the paint. So, with pretty crappy weather the next few days I will have to wait to do a light wet sanding to remove the lines before clear coat. Here's a few pics. The last pic doesn't show it well but you can sort of make out the lines in the paint. The paint looks really red in the pics but it is the same as the more maroon looking from first post.

 

[Stand Up]

This is going to look so good when completed. The seats will match nicely.