1984 Checkmate Enforcer restoration – Part III – The Cockpit
For the purpose of this post, see Part I – Intro and Paint.
The included photos are of a dirty, unvacuumed, unpolished boat. I'll save the pretty pictures for the before/after.
Cockpit Side Panels
The original side panels had some rot at the back corners and the vinyl was in extremely poor condition, so they had to go. I bought some ½” marine plywood, traced the old panels onto it, and cut them out. Then I decided the rectangular openings looked old-fashioned. (folly) so I had to cut a piece of ply to fit the opening, glass it in, trace half a circle, and cut the opening again. I also cut out an opening for an embedded drink holder.
I wanted a slightly puffy look, so I used a ¼” layer of marine upholstery foam under the vinyl. I stapled it all on, but after failing a couple of times on test pieces I chickened out on cutting the vinyl around the circular ends of the holes and took it to a marine upholsterer. I should have cut the holes myself because I had to do curves later on another cockpit part and it wasn’t too hard. You just cut wedges, and stretch while stapling. If that doesn’t work the upholsterer said you can steam the vinyl to make it stretch more. Just don’t cut the wedges too close or too far from the edge of the hole.
The old panels had screws under screw caps attaching it from the front, but I didn’t want any visible signs of attachment. It took me a long time to figure out how to get around this problem. I have in my head what I really need to do this job the way I want, but I never could find a fastener system that matched my vision. So, I had to come up with a solution. At first, I glued 3M Dual Lock to the boat’s side panel supports and a piece in the corresponding place on the back of the side panel. This stuff is like Velcro, only much stronger. It held, but only for a while. Sometimes the glue wouldn’t hold the Dual Lock to the support and sometimes after about a week the weight of the panel would just be too much. No way would it take the pounding out in the bay, but I did like it as an auxiliary support system, so I screwed it to the supports and panels with #4 screws. Then I came up with the idea of cutting off the straight part of a stainless L-angle bracket and slotting it into the support, and screwing it to the support and the panel. I did this to one support at the front and one at the back. I also ran a piece of Dual Lock along part of the bottom edge of the panel. All screws were coated with 3M 4000. We’ll see how well this lasts. If this doesn't work, I'll try neodymium magnets, or countersink canvas snaps in the supports.
I also replaced the shelf in the middle of the panels with ¼” Starboard HDPE. This is screwed (covered by screw caps) to the original shelf supports attached to the hull. It’s attached to the back of the side panel with brass L-angle brackets.
So, between the Dual Lock, the shelf being attached to the hull, and the two screwed-in supports, it seems pretty solid.
Here are a couple of pics ... #1, #2.
Carpet
What can I say? No big problems here. I used Cabela Premier with exterior carpet glue. I’m very happy with this carpet. It's very plush. I liked it so much I bought it twice (folly); the first time when I was going to stay with the boat’s original blue, and the second time when I decided to go with charcoal. I gave the blue carpet to the fiberglass guy at the marina who gave me some painting advice.
Back seat side panels
For this year, I was going to stay with the original side panels that flank the back seat, but since I made the cockpit side panels “puffy” those panels didn’t fit anymore (folly). So, I came up with these “mini-panels” to cover the top part where the cockpit side panels weren’t. There were already slots cut into the fiberglass, so I decided to come up with an attachment system that utilized them. I used exterior plywood, free-hand routed a rounded edge along the top, soaked them in epoxy, and embedded and epoxied stainless nuts in the back. I covered them in the same vinyl I had used for the cockpit side panels. The nuts pulled out as soon as I tried to bolt them. What I needed was more gripping area. My rigging guy at the marina suggested fender washers. So I countersunk a hole the depth of the washer, 3M 5200’d the nut back in its hole, then 5200’d the fender washer over top of it. They’re now bolted on tight and seem to be fine.
Dash
The old dash was covered by a piece of wood, but since I had gotten rid of all the wood in the cockpit because it looked old-fashioned and wasn’t in the greatest of shape, I removed it and filled the screw holes. I bought a Momo Spargi steering wheel. When I took the old wheel off I saw this funky-looking hub. I had no clue how to get it off, so it fell to my rigging guy. He said he’d never seen anything like it either, but after a lot of prying he finally got it off. Since the steering was an old dual-cable system that someone had cut off one of the cables, I decided to get a new system. Hydraulic steering was too expensive, and I don’t think my boat will be fast enough to really need it, so I went with dual cable. I had my rigging guy put it on.
(Folly alert) I’m cheap, and sometimes that winds up costing me more money. Gauges were a case in point. I like GPS speedometers, but I wasn’t going to pay $400+ for one. So I bought matching tach, trim and fuel gauges from an online surplus dealer, figuring I could find a matching pitot-style speedometer. No such luck. But I did find one that looked close, so I bought that. Then Livorsi had a closeout on a full GPS speedo kit for $199. I snapped it up … but I didn’t like the way it looked with my other gauges, so I bought a matching Livorsi closeout tach for $69, figuring I could find matching fuel and trim gauges because I had seen them online. But when I went to buy them, nobody had them in stock. Everyone was sold out and Livorsi doesn’t make that model anymore. Couldn’t find any on Ebay either. So if you look closely, you’ll see that the rim on the big gauges is different from the ones on the small gauges. Fortunately, all the colors are the same. The new Livorsi GPS receiver is butt ugly, so I wouldn't even consider mounting it on the dash like the old hockey puck style. I'm going to try it under the dash and if that doesn't work maybe I'll try it under the hatch. Folly #2 was buying the first set of gauges a year before I installed them Come to find out, the OMC System Check lights on the tach didn't work anyway and the trim gauge wasn't made for OMC, so it read opposite from its true position.
Since my original tach with the OMC idiot lights didn't work, I had to drill a hole in the dash using a 2” hole saw for a new OMC idiot light gauge. It fit nicely into a spot next to the trim switch.
I filled the old pitot tube transom hole with polyester resin mixed with cabosil.
I installed a new switch panel, face plate for the trim switches and a new grab handle. To place the holes for the grab handle I taped a taut piece of paper across the grab handle then stuck a pencil through the paper into the bolt holes. Then I could just trace the holes onto the dash. No folly here. Worked perfectly. I just had to remember to drill backwards so as not to crack the gelcoat.
When I tried to hook up my horn to the new switch panel, it wouldn’t blow. I had the old glass fuse block and when I touched the bottom of the clip with my test light it would light up, but when I touched the fuse itself … nothing. I asked around and someone said try an emery cloth on the clips. That only cleared up the bottom of one clip, so I said the heck with it and bought a new blade fuse block. It was only $25 complete with 14 fuses. Easy job to install.
(Folly alert) I bought Windaway wind flaps, figuring I could find a way to attach them (they're clamp-ons), but I couldn't figure out an aesthetically pleasing way to do it and didn't like the squareness of them anyway. So I ordered a set of flaps from Finney's with white powder-coated handles and an added lip for more wind deflection. I like the look of the Finney's. They're unobtrusive. We'll have to see how they perform..
Here are some pictures of the dash area ... #1, #2
Compass
This was an interesting (and time-consuming) little project. The old compass was yellowed and faded. (Folly alert) I measured the hole and ordered a new one to fit. But when I dropped it in the hole there was a small gap on one side. The hole looked round, but it obviously wasn't. Seems someone used a jig saw instead of a hole saw. My error was measuring only one spot. I didn't want a bigger compass, so my only option was to make the hole smaller. I could have glassed the hole in, but that's a big job. I decided to cut out a 1/4” width circle measured to the inside diameter of the hole using the Starboard HDPE I had used for the cockpit side panel shelves because it wouldn't rot and the 1/4” thickness of the HDPE was the same depth as the top of the dash.
HDPE is supposed to be darned near impossible to glue. Some people use some $30 glue with some success. I decided to see what thistothat.com had to say about it. It recommended Goop. I tried it and it worked great. I also glued another piece underneath for support. I smoothed some Marine-Tex on top to even things out and sprayed Easypoxy over everything.
Seats
I kept the old back seat for now. The frame is made of 3/4” Starboard. Once I attempt sewing a new cockpit cover, I may try my hand at a new dual-color back seat.
(Folly alert) I bought the front seats online. They're new surplus from Regal boats (that's why there's an 'R' on the back). They're my favorite part of the cockpit restoration. I attached the old pedestal and placed the seat in front of the steering wheel, but when I sat in it to get the correct placement I noticed it was way too high,.and I'd be thrown over the side. These seats are much thicker than the old seats. So I ordered shorter pedestals that had a built-in slide and swivel. Of course I had already bought a swivel for the old pedestal.
Misc.
What I Learned:
If I Had To Do It Over Again:
For the purpose of this post, see Part I – Intro and Paint.
The included photos are of a dirty, unvacuumed, unpolished boat. I'll save the pretty pictures for the before/after.
Cockpit Side Panels
The original side panels had some rot at the back corners and the vinyl was in extremely poor condition, so they had to go. I bought some ½” marine plywood, traced the old panels onto it, and cut them out. Then I decided the rectangular openings looked old-fashioned. (folly) so I had to cut a piece of ply to fit the opening, glass it in, trace half a circle, and cut the opening again. I also cut out an opening for an embedded drink holder.
I wanted a slightly puffy look, so I used a ¼” layer of marine upholstery foam under the vinyl. I stapled it all on, but after failing a couple of times on test pieces I chickened out on cutting the vinyl around the circular ends of the holes and took it to a marine upholsterer. I should have cut the holes myself because I had to do curves later on another cockpit part and it wasn’t too hard. You just cut wedges, and stretch while stapling. If that doesn’t work the upholsterer said you can steam the vinyl to make it stretch more. Just don’t cut the wedges too close or too far from the edge of the hole.
The old panels had screws under screw caps attaching it from the front, but I didn’t want any visible signs of attachment. It took me a long time to figure out how to get around this problem. I have in my head what I really need to do this job the way I want, but I never could find a fastener system that matched my vision. So, I had to come up with a solution. At first, I glued 3M Dual Lock to the boat’s side panel supports and a piece in the corresponding place on the back of the side panel. This stuff is like Velcro, only much stronger. It held, but only for a while. Sometimes the glue wouldn’t hold the Dual Lock to the support and sometimes after about a week the weight of the panel would just be too much. No way would it take the pounding out in the bay, but I did like it as an auxiliary support system, so I screwed it to the supports and panels with #4 screws. Then I came up with the idea of cutting off the straight part of a stainless L-angle bracket and slotting it into the support, and screwing it to the support and the panel. I did this to one support at the front and one at the back. I also ran a piece of Dual Lock along part of the bottom edge of the panel. All screws were coated with 3M 4000. We’ll see how well this lasts. If this doesn't work, I'll try neodymium magnets, or countersink canvas snaps in the supports.
I also replaced the shelf in the middle of the panels with ¼” Starboard HDPE. This is screwed (covered by screw caps) to the original shelf supports attached to the hull. It’s attached to the back of the side panel with brass L-angle brackets.
So, between the Dual Lock, the shelf being attached to the hull, and the two screwed-in supports, it seems pretty solid.
Here are a couple of pics ... #1, #2.
Carpet
What can I say? No big problems here. I used Cabela Premier with exterior carpet glue. I’m very happy with this carpet. It's very plush. I liked it so much I bought it twice (folly); the first time when I was going to stay with the boat’s original blue, and the second time when I decided to go with charcoal. I gave the blue carpet to the fiberglass guy at the marina who gave me some painting advice.
Back seat side panels
For this year, I was going to stay with the original side panels that flank the back seat, but since I made the cockpit side panels “puffy” those panels didn’t fit anymore (folly). So, I came up with these “mini-panels” to cover the top part where the cockpit side panels weren’t. There were already slots cut into the fiberglass, so I decided to come up with an attachment system that utilized them. I used exterior plywood, free-hand routed a rounded edge along the top, soaked them in epoxy, and embedded and epoxied stainless nuts in the back. I covered them in the same vinyl I had used for the cockpit side panels. The nuts pulled out as soon as I tried to bolt them. What I needed was more gripping area. My rigging guy at the marina suggested fender washers. So I countersunk a hole the depth of the washer, 3M 5200’d the nut back in its hole, then 5200’d the fender washer over top of it. They’re now bolted on tight and seem to be fine.
Dash
The old dash was covered by a piece of wood, but since I had gotten rid of all the wood in the cockpit because it looked old-fashioned and wasn’t in the greatest of shape, I removed it and filled the screw holes. I bought a Momo Spargi steering wheel. When I took the old wheel off I saw this funky-looking hub. I had no clue how to get it off, so it fell to my rigging guy. He said he’d never seen anything like it either, but after a lot of prying he finally got it off. Since the steering was an old dual-cable system that someone had cut off one of the cables, I decided to get a new system. Hydraulic steering was too expensive, and I don’t think my boat will be fast enough to really need it, so I went with dual cable. I had my rigging guy put it on.
(Folly alert) I’m cheap, and sometimes that winds up costing me more money. Gauges were a case in point. I like GPS speedometers, but I wasn’t going to pay $400+ for one. So I bought matching tach, trim and fuel gauges from an online surplus dealer, figuring I could find a matching pitot-style speedometer. No such luck. But I did find one that looked close, so I bought that. Then Livorsi had a closeout on a full GPS speedo kit for $199. I snapped it up … but I didn’t like the way it looked with my other gauges, so I bought a matching Livorsi closeout tach for $69, figuring I could find matching fuel and trim gauges because I had seen them online. But when I went to buy them, nobody had them in stock. Everyone was sold out and Livorsi doesn’t make that model anymore. Couldn’t find any on Ebay either. So if you look closely, you’ll see that the rim on the big gauges is different from the ones on the small gauges. Fortunately, all the colors are the same. The new Livorsi GPS receiver is butt ugly, so I wouldn't even consider mounting it on the dash like the old hockey puck style. I'm going to try it under the dash and if that doesn't work maybe I'll try it under the hatch. Folly #2 was buying the first set of gauges a year before I installed them Come to find out, the OMC System Check lights on the tach didn't work anyway and the trim gauge wasn't made for OMC, so it read opposite from its true position.
Since my original tach with the OMC idiot lights didn't work, I had to drill a hole in the dash using a 2” hole saw for a new OMC idiot light gauge. It fit nicely into a spot next to the trim switch.
I filled the old pitot tube transom hole with polyester resin mixed with cabosil.
I installed a new switch panel, face plate for the trim switches and a new grab handle. To place the holes for the grab handle I taped a taut piece of paper across the grab handle then stuck a pencil through the paper into the bolt holes. Then I could just trace the holes onto the dash. No folly here. Worked perfectly. I just had to remember to drill backwards so as not to crack the gelcoat.
When I tried to hook up my horn to the new switch panel, it wouldn’t blow. I had the old glass fuse block and when I touched the bottom of the clip with my test light it would light up, but when I touched the fuse itself … nothing. I asked around and someone said try an emery cloth on the clips. That only cleared up the bottom of one clip, so I said the heck with it and bought a new blade fuse block. It was only $25 complete with 14 fuses. Easy job to install.
(Folly alert) I bought Windaway wind flaps, figuring I could find a way to attach them (they're clamp-ons), but I couldn't figure out an aesthetically pleasing way to do it and didn't like the squareness of them anyway. So I ordered a set of flaps from Finney's with white powder-coated handles and an added lip for more wind deflection. I like the look of the Finney's. They're unobtrusive. We'll have to see how they perform..
Here are some pictures of the dash area ... #1, #2
Compass
This was an interesting (and time-consuming) little project. The old compass was yellowed and faded. (Folly alert) I measured the hole and ordered a new one to fit. But when I dropped it in the hole there was a small gap on one side. The hole looked round, but it obviously wasn't. Seems someone used a jig saw instead of a hole saw. My error was measuring only one spot. I didn't want a bigger compass, so my only option was to make the hole smaller. I could have glassed the hole in, but that's a big job. I decided to cut out a 1/4” width circle measured to the inside diameter of the hole using the Starboard HDPE I had used for the cockpit side panel shelves because it wouldn't rot and the 1/4” thickness of the HDPE was the same depth as the top of the dash.
HDPE is supposed to be darned near impossible to glue. Some people use some $30 glue with some success. I decided to see what thistothat.com had to say about it. It recommended Goop. I tried it and it worked great. I also glued another piece underneath for support. I smoothed some Marine-Tex on top to even things out and sprayed Easypoxy over everything.
Seats
I kept the old back seat for now. The frame is made of 3/4” Starboard. Once I attempt sewing a new cockpit cover, I may try my hand at a new dual-color back seat.
(Folly alert) I bought the front seats online. They're new surplus from Regal boats (that's why there's an 'R' on the back). They're my favorite part of the cockpit restoration. I attached the old pedestal and placed the seat in front of the steering wheel, but when I sat in it to get the correct placement I noticed it was way too high,.and I'd be thrown over the side. These seats are much thicker than the old seats. So I ordered shorter pedestals that had a built-in slide and swivel. Of course I had already bought a swivel for the old pedestal.
Misc.
- Since I removed all the wood trim, I needed some vinyl U-channel edge molding around the cockpit. I bought it from an RV place. It was easy to install along the sides, but the wood behind the dash came all the way down to the edge of the fiberglass, so there was no lip to slip the molding on. (Folly alert) First, I tried cutting the back of the molding off and gluing it on. That made it wavy. So I used my Harbor Freight multi-tool with a diamond wheel to cut a slot in the wood just behind the fiberglass, creating a lip that the U-channel could slip onto.
- The bilge pump, trim tab and gas gauge wiring were OK, but because of corrosion I had to run new stern light wiring, as well as replace the stern light base and pole. (Folly alert) I had bought an exact replacement base, but for some reason it wouldn't seat. It seems the hole was slanted, but the base was straight. When I looked at the old base closely it looked uneven, like someone had sanded one side to make it fit. I didn't have the tools with me to do something like that, so I just took a chisel and whittled it down until it fit.
- (Folly alert) I covered the hull sides, bulkhead and cabin floor with Nautolex. I used 3M 80 Rubber and Vinyl glue. It started to peel from the top. Then I tried 3M 77. No luck. Then I tried contact cement. That peeled in a week. Then I asked myself, “How the heck do they stick vinyl roofs to cars?” After a little research I came up with 3M Super Trim Adhesive. Twenty-something bucks a can, but it works.
- I let my rigging guy deal with the steering, controls, ignition switch, new bilge pump and new oil tank hookup. He also had a new stainless steel plate made for the transom. The old one must have been made of galvanized steel because it was a rusted mess.
- I installed a new gas tank hose. Of course even this didn't go smoothly. First, I couldn't get the old one off. My rigging guy said he had the tools to get it off, so I let him deal with it. Then, I found out it's not a standard size. The local marine parts store would only order 12 feet at a time … at $17 per foot! I scouted around online and found the 3 feet I needed for $8.75 per foot.
- I made a cover support out of 1 1/2" PVC because the two poles I had let puddles (more like lakes) form over the cockpit. So far it works well. It's bolted in four places so it can be taken apart and stored flat. All the other joints use PVC glue. I didn't know I was going to become a plumber on this restoration.
What I Learned:
- Don't try to piecemeal accessories together to save money.
- Measure a hole in more than one direction.
- When using Nautolex, just buy Nautolex's glue.
- Don't buy stuff before you absolutely need it. I could open my own boat store with all the left-over parts. Sometimes I changed my mind about what I wanted to do and sometimes I learned how to do things more efficiently after I had already bought the stuff.
If I Had To Do It Over Again:
- I would have thought about the design of the cockpit as a whole instead of trying to piecemeal everything to save money. I would have set a budget and developed a plan around that. I wound up replacing almost everything in the cockpit anyway.
More pics. that is!
. Maybe I'll have a poll on whether I should leave it all white or white on the deck and bottom with some kind of "mild" silver/gray/charcoal scheme or solid color on the sides.
