Thread: New toy/project 1998 Sea Ray Seville

Jordo..truck is fixed enough to do the work.

Rico.. being younger, I've ignored a warning or two. Even broken a couple rules.

Ok..been a while since an update.

Once it hit August I figured it wasn't worth tossing the boat in the water when I could just hop onto my buddies party boat this year.

Printed the manuals and have the relief for the hydrauilic on the motor open to lift it up.
New battery is rocking for kicking over the motor, need to test the pickup for the coil.
Going to fill the steering and hope the seals relube and seal up.
Picked up submersible LED lights for the trailer for $35 (usually $55+) and ran the new wiring. Had to extend the wiring anyhow and had a light lense messed up. Figured this way I'll never have to worry or deal with remembering to unplug at the launch. Need to finish the install.
Floor...soon I'll grab the wood and make a day of it at my buddies heated shop.

Nice work, I love sea rays and own a 21 footer my self. Although, mine is a decade newer, the hull design is the same the interior is almost the same, the quality is hard to beat. For the size of the boat they are fast hulls and ride better than just about any boat the same size.

Mine weighs in around 3600 dry and have thought about how nice an outboard would handle (docking- slow speed maneuvers) compared to my stern drive.

They do make an LS9 out board 557hp, would be a fun upgrade.

My dad had one and put on a 275. It gets crazy high trying to plane. But being that small can do right turns for a boat

Thanks guys...there have been a few setbacks along the way, but mostly it's been little stuff like the brake lines on the truck etc...lol

Got the side marker LED's in and connected all the lights up. Looks and works great. Only thing left is to use liquid electrical tape on the side marker wiring to ensure it's waterproofed and put some loom on the pigtail wiring.

Next up is take a day off and get the trailer inspected and registered.

Liquid taped the lights that next day. These lights are good. I'll never worry about unplugging them.

Found a radio for the tunes.
http://www.grandprixforums.net/fs-pi...ses-74586.html

Now..should I use a GM wheel to retain the wheel controls to the radio? I'm thinking it might not be too tough...lol.

i had my radio in this box, its water proof.

they also sell marine radios that hold up to the beating of being on a boat, and they are more water proof then a car radio. i had the same HU for 10 years, worked great. you also want to hook it up to a vhf radio for safety ( you want one trust me) and then you can run the fm antenna wire to the vhf antenna.

being you will be towing the boat, you want a antenna mount with a swivel lock, so you can lower it when towing it.



if you dont have dash space this works well for top dash mounting, but the plastic U mounting bar breaks over time. so i made one out of flat metal stock when it broke.

they also have a water tight face cover just like this for a dash mount.

Good stuff Scott. There's a closed glove box that the original has been in and still works since 1988

id hose test it, just to be safe. boats get wet lol like more then you think, then theres rain, and then just sitting there parked on a trailer.

this is pretty much the boat i had, its a 25.7 mine was a 24.0 this dash still got wet just driving the boat if rough enough out. top off and no side skirts on of course. and you can see how high the dash is out of the water.

this one has a hard top, i had a soft top, but also had the full enclosure like the hard top, i had to break it out a few times when i got caught in some nasty rain on the water. rain hurts pretty good at 40 mph lol






and this is how it looked flat out trimmed to the max, on smooth water. not my boat, but the same thing.

I hear you buddy. You know if I do it..I'll put it on my side instead of on the passenger side.

Sooo why are steering wheels and controls in boats, typically on the opposite side from a car?

i wish i knew why too lol but its pretty easy to get used to. and the gas is still on the right so im all good.

my factory dash was full of engine gauges, so i had to use the box, then top mount it, yes on my side with the gps, and the vhf radio.

i even had to as far as cutting 6 inch holes in the boat to mount the speakers, ( on a days old boat, lol) oh speakers, get marine grade speakers. they can get wet no problem, used hose mine down all the time.

i need to get some of my pics scanned. lots of good times went down on that boat. and some big fish.

Let's dig this thread up and...update it.

Met the now wife after getting boat and didn't get working on the boat until recently. Quick reminder of the list:
Motor doesn't seem to have spark
Hydraulic steering seems to have leaked and doesn't work
Trim motor is unresponsive
Boat needs a heap of TLC, so let's dig in!

Fast forward to the last week or two. Shop vac'd the interior of the boat again because crap got in it (seems to be a boat thing lol). Looked over the motor and spark was super weak, diagnosed a bad stator. Being a 2 stroke it has an oil tank and the hoses had rotted, replaced those. Dropped in the new one, sprayed a touch of brake clean at the intake and it fired up. Pulled all four carbs and cleaned the nastiness out of them, hooked up a small external tank (mixed 50:1), turned the key and it runs great. Clean out a plastic fitting and the impeller pee stream is working again.



Now that it runs, let's fix the rest. Sent buddy to the store while I was working yesterday.
Being nearly 30 years old, some plastic pieces break and some seals are going to leak (at least until they see fluid for more than a few seconds)...
Needed a new latch that holds the throttle cables to motor
Needed a new bushing that holds part of the throttle rod for the accelerator pump
I figured a fresh fuel filter was in order
Accelerator pump appears to be leaking, needs a diaphram/spring rebuild kit (ordered)
Oil pump might be wet, might not be working. (could get a replacement off ebay, no kits to rebuild. Cheap fix is mix gas yourself)
Steering needed some super special pricey fluid, few turns of the wheel and filling the res.. it's magic. She was seeping a little off the pump (aka steering wheel backside) and after a few minutes it seemed to stop.
Trim motor diagnosed (Monday) as bad. Looks like engine would usually come off to replace it. Read one forum that suggested you could sneak in and get a hidden bolt if you loosened/removed a few others and got creative. I'm going to be very creative. Looking around you can buy a new Mercury one for $600 or snag one of the million replacements for around $100. Found one on Amazon from a guy in Boston who bought the wrong thing, never returned it and is selling for $70 shipped.
Started looking over the rest of the electrical last night. I'm not a fan of the current switches/dahboard fuses, some switches are missing the nuts that hold them in place. Going to look into that today, maybe a newer fuse panel as well.
Once all the ugly is set, I need to decide... cheap the floor this year and put plywood over bad wood or rip it out and spend a lot more time before being in the water vs fall/spring project on that. Part of me says go cheap for now and see how good the motor is before sinking a ton of extra cash into the boat.

Off to find parts at the right prices!

If you can find some indicator of how the wood laminated inside the hull glass is holding up, that might help you decide. When I worked making boats, we called that the "stringer system"... the wood rails lengthwise along the bottom of the hull. On outboard stuff the transom has to be #1 solid, but I'm sure that equally critical areas are present on an inboard. The days are getting so perfect for it... no wonder you are back on this.

Matt, that has been my thinking as well. With the gas tank exposed, the stringers around it seem to be in reasonable shape. But I will be poking at them further to get a better idea if it's just the floor boards or stringers as well. Very likely I'll be doing this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd0tOOcdTwU

Watching vids of someone doing the job, he's using regular lumber and glassing it. Amazing work.

i like what that guy did, only screw the carpet, glass the top of the new wood floor, now it wont rot again. and you can wash the damn thing properly.

carpet keeps you from slip sliding in rough seas, you can keep your footing. i would say glass the top of the deck then install marine carpeting that drains trough

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

i had a fishing boat, 24 footer, not a stitch of carpeting to be found, no one ever slipped and fell.

every one of these boats like bills with carpet and just wood under it, well they all rot out. you can still put down that rubberized backed carpet if you like, i got one and cut it in for the dog, cause hos was sliding all over the place lol

A woman the wife works with mentioned how her husband gutted and redid their boat for very little money. I was watching a rebuild by friscoboater and it was a ton of labor plus a lot of money invested. I'm not looking to exceed the valve of the boat ~$2K. That would be silly versus buying a different boat.

The hydraulic steering is leaking at the helm, determined it to be a lock valve. Sea Ray did a bang up job of putting together a great boat and relabeling everything in it as theirs. No model number info on the steering at all. Hopefully Sea Star can help me ID it and buy a seal.

In the meantime

Electrical: I pulled out the old VHF radio and non working depth/fish finders. Replaced the old switches and fuse holders in the control panel with new marine ones and circuit breakers. Tried restoring the old plastic oxidized gauges, not sure what to do as they still are oxidized and crappy looking. Also replaced the under controls fuse block from old glass fuses to ATC style with a nice new clean ground buss incorporated into it. Of course the only thing using that fuse block now is the radio. Installed the pioneer stereo that I picked up a couple years back, now to get fresh speakers and that is complete. Then add a current depth finder.

Trim motor: The trim motor is DOA, bought a replacement and the crappy part is you have to pull the engine off the boat in order to get to one of two screws holding the motor to the trim assembly. The not so crappy part is I have a hoist available and literally we should have to pull only the 4 bolts holding it to the transom, spend two seconds changing the part and it'll be back on the boat. Even the guys at the boat places say the engine has to be pulled to do it. Few extra millimeters of room would have made the job possible.

Tires: The tires are the original 1988 tires as verified by the DOT code on them. They get pretty soggy and lets admit it, new tires and rims done for a total of $120 off amazon was too good to pass up. I'll snag another tire and have it mounted, as a spare.

Anyhow.. I'm off to do more research etc