Hi,
I am new here and i hope everyone is doing well. I have purchased my first boat at 57 (1988 Tracker Tournament 1800SF) grey with red stripes. Even though i have some good well rounded skills in many areas, boating related skills and a lot of knowledge in that area i dont have yet.
I live by Lake Fork in East Texas.
I have decided to restore the boat and trailer. So i hope i can lean on members here if i need some guidance along the way.
Your knowledge is a blessing. And sharing my journey on here might help someone else as well..
I have already done the trailer. I broke down the trailer to only the frame. New axle and leaf springs, used the eastwood internal frame spray to protect the inside of the frame from rust, replaced all internal frame wiring, sanded and grinded off bad exterior rust and then used the locktite rust inhibitor, then painted the whole trailer, along with all new lights, led under trailer lights, new winch, replaced rollers and added two new auto center rollers, replaced the bottom bunks and will add new style of guide bunks later (already have them just waiting). I also cut and shaped new wooden steps, stained, and used poly on them, then added anti slip strips. Also had a welder weld some new safety chains on for me and also had him cut me out some new wheel well back plates.
Regarding the boat, so far i have ripped off the carpet on most of the lids, i have decided to go with textured vinyl, wine colored, i think that would look great with the grey of the boat. I need to patch the bottom as the keel has some minor fiberglass damage, just a very small hole and the keel and bow scrapes. I feel somewhat confident i can patch those fiberglass areas (although this is my first experience patching fiberglass). I also need to fix some quarter size gel coat flake offs which i have sanded and cleaned with acitone.
I removed the fuel tank today as it was awful, totally covered with dirt and oil over the years and i cleaned that up inside and out, i will let it dry for a few weeks till im ready to put it back in again. Sadly the information sticker on the fuel tank came off and i cant read most of it. I can see it was made by some company whos part of their name is fabricated products in perry Florida, cant read the first part of the company name, or the serial number or the model number of the tank or how many gals it is. Ill do some more research on line to see if i can contact the company and see if i can somehow get a new sticker made.
Here are some pics of the trailer.
Good to meet everyone here and i hope we can help each other along the way.
