Inboard with a sundeck! No more sun deck envy!

(robandrus) · (robandrus) **Join Date: Feb 2002** 07-09-2003, 11:50 PM

Well the greatest thing about our old boat was the sun deck on the back, When we bout our direct drive we missed the old deck and always suffered from sun deck envy every time we saw a V-Drive. Well we came up with a solution, don't know if anyone else has done anything like this but we love it. It also makes a great place to store the fat seat and gear. Here's the pic's. It was real easy, we just went down and bought a sheet of 3/4" plywood, then went to the appulstry shop and told them what whe wanted, $200 later we had a sun deck, Add a couple gas riser and some gate hinges and we were all set.

(h20jnky) · (h20jnky) **Join Date: Mar 2003** 07-10-2003, 12:20 AM

Nice job!

I assume the fenders are the next project?

j/k......

(yooper) · (yooper) **Join Date: Jun 2002** 07-10-2003, 5:57 AM

Cool! Do you have any pictures looking down into the boat?

(sbt3) · (sbt3) **Join Date: Jun 2002** 07-10-2003, 6:04 AM

Thats sweet, I actually have a tristar as well, but it is the 190 closed bow. I was thinking about building a seat/sundeck for the back too. Do you have any pics from the top looking at how it sits. I assume you are just using the gunwals for support. Did you support it with anything in the middle? Any more pics or info would be appreciated, that maybe next winters project. That looks nice and it looks like I could get both my sacs under it.

(texastbird) · (texastbird) **Join Date: May 2003** 07-10-2003, 6:49 AM

I'd like to see a pic of the inside

(robandrus) · (robandrus) **Join Date: Feb 2002** 07-10-2003, 10:06 AM

I'll get some pics up later today, I was in the middle of a project in the picture, our impeller went out, causing the engine to overheat, which caused the spark plug cables to melt slightly, which caused them to short across which caused it to backfire and blow up one of the exhaust tubes. At the same time I put in a ballast system. It was a long day in the sun.

The trailer is one we bought for $300, it looked like crap but we took it down and got it sandblasted, repainted it, mounted the new bunks, cut out the rear cross beam, then put lights and some wheels off a jeep on it. I have the fenders, before they were really high up so we cut them off to see how the boat would sit on the trailer before re-attaching them.

As for support, my brother welded a little metal frame together and we attached it to the bottom side. It also partially rests on the engine cover. To keep it down when traveling we just put a couple of bungee cords from the metal frame to some hooks inside the boat.

(sbt3) · (sbt3) **Join Date: Jun 2002** 07-10-2003, 11:05 AM

Cool I look forward to other pics. By the way if your engine overheated that badly you are going to want to keep a eye on your head gaskets. Usually once you over heat them bad they have a tendancy to go out soon afterwards. Just a bit of warning.

(robandrus) · (robandrus) **Join Date: Feb 2002** 07-11-2003, 11:27 AM

Ok, as promissed here are the pics

For future use, I would have chosen a black backing as the white has stained

(Message edited by robandrus on July 11, 2003)