1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

D'Hag

New Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2011
Location
Thurman
#1
Back in October 2010, my bass boat sank. Like a stone.

After I got it used, I had patched a hole in the hull. It gave me three great seasons. Oh, it had a little leak, but I had installed an automatic bilge pump, and it more than kept up with the leak.

Well, my son-in-law and I were fishing up in the nether regions of Iowa's Three-Mile Reservoir (a top-100-rated bass lake, I might add). Fishing around the stumps up there, I managed to get the boat "hung" on top of a stump. "Hung" should have been a red-flag clue, but no.... Anyway, I worked it off, and we kept on fishing. Then my S-i-L says, "Hey, we're sitting kinda deep in the water, aren't we?"

Yes, we were. And that silent little bilge pump was running, but nothing was squirting out. It was plugged.

I fired up the motor and started to the ramps, but there was so much water in it already, there was no getting up on plane. Ran that way until the motor started to lug down. We flagged another boat that hooked on and towed us to the ramps. When we stopped at the end of the dock at the ramp, the back end went straight down. Thankfully, the water there is only six feet deep, so the point of the bow stayed above water. If it had done that out on the lake, then that's where the boat would still be today.

I backed the trailer as far down the ramp as I could without hurting the truck, and it was close enough to the boat that I could hook the winch to the bow. I winched the boat onto the trailer with the winch underwater, then we drove it out and drained it.

As soon as I got home, I pulled out my Mercury shop manual and followed the instructions for drying out the motor. The motor is fine, thank goodness!

Beside sinking, I added up some other symptoms that I had noticed, like how the top speed was gradually getting slower, even though the motor was stronger and nothing wrong with the prop. I figure that's probably from water gradually soaking into the 30+ year old foam, from that persistent slow leak.

So.... story told.

Now I'm tearing it apart. I just pulled the top cap off. I'll be pulling the deck, checking for rot, replacing foam, and repairing any and all damage in the hull. THE RIGHT WAY.

I'm taking pictures, so I'll post my progress and experience in this thread for those who want to follow along. Maybe I'll encounter and/or solve something that someone may find helpful.