Flipping couches for fun and profit

[WFO Speedracer]

The repair kit is in and it's not what I wanted but I am using it anyway , I wanted gelcoat paste, this is epoxy pure and simple, it comes with colorants and trust me it takes very little to make a color that is so far off it gets thrown in the trash, twice lol.

Anyway the process is the same , it's all taped up , three layers thick , the epoxy is mixed up and everything is set to go. I am using one of those fake credit cards they send you in the mail as a spreader.

Right now I am waiting on the epoxy to kick a bit , I hate fooling with epoxy because it's fiddly and you have to babysit it a lot , gelcoat 15 minutes and it's cooked , epoxy is hours and hours.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

It's pulled and covered with wax paper , it still may stick but it will need a lot of sanding so it does not matter , the wax paper allows you to manipulate the epoxy , gelcoat , whatever you are using a lot better , it eliminates a lot of sanding and hopefully I can get this with one pull if I don't screw up sanding it.

As far as I can tell there is no epoxy on the other parts of the ski, when you pull the tape only the epoxy not on the tape will be left.

On the sanding don't even attempt it without a sanding block, you will screw up big time otherwise and this gelcoat isn't that thick.

No idea on the cure time on this but most likely I will let it rest till tomorrow.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I roughed one spot down with some 120 grit rolled up like I did the initial edge smoothing with , them I removed the masking tape , now the next thing you may not understand , I retape it with packing tape , the packing tape is a little more sandpaper resistant it lets the sandpaper slide over it a bit and you can work the area down a bit lower, after all you just got rid of three layers of masking tape , get it to the level of the packing tape and then remove the tape.

You have to be very careful sanding these out , unlike boats the gelcoat on Seadoos is pretty thing, enough to sand some pretty major scratches out but not a whole lot more than that. One of the areas I was sanding out started going thin and I stopped, it only gets worse from there .

From there you use the sanding block and 220 grit to get it down at least close to level, then 400 , then 600 grit, 1000 grit then buff , what you see here is still at 600 grit because I have to go buy more sandpaper , but you will notice yes you can still see it if you are right on top of it but from a few feet away it's gone , it 's close enough and way better than I expected with this epoxy.

All you are after here is a good five footer , it's a 25 year old ski , you will never get it perfect.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Lets do a quick recap shall we , before and after.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Today we are doing decal touchup , yes you heard that right , decals for this ski are not available , I did find one on Ebay and only one , while I know I can't make them look like new I thought I could make them look better , even if they were available they would be expensive, and if you replace one the rest of them look off , I did some artwork on them with grafitti pens for use on fabric, then I sprayed clear over them to lock the colors in , to me they look much better and good enough for this ski.

The goal here is to make it look good , not perfect it is still a 25 year old ski after all , you just want it to look like it was a well kept 25 year old ski.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Someone was playing bumper cars with this thing and ripped off the rear bumper corner, tore up the rub rail and the insert , I had all that stuff on another ski so I went and pulled the parts this morning , rub rail has been replaced and I SEMed the other bumper corner to match.

I also snagged a hood deflector for this ski but it' going to need some attention fo sho !

One of the main things customers look at are the seats, the hood and the rub rails, they tell you pretty much how well the ski has been taken care of.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The deflector had a really nasty sun baked GTS decal on it, it wasn't coming off and leaving the paint intact , so I sanded it off with 80 grit on the DA , then I hand sanded it with 120 grit , hit it with bonding clear and then a heavy coat of primer.

That baked out in the sun for about four hours , and when I say sun , I mean unrelenting hot a Hades sun , I then wet sanded it down with 400 , then 600 and sprayed it with Rustoleum 2X Ginger Yellow.

There was not going to be any matching the purple on this hood , at least not for a reasonable amount of money , since I am accentuating the yellow on this ski anyway , I just painted it yellow , I had a decal in the kit I bought with the large Seadoo decals that fit the deflector really well so I used it here.

I like Rustoleum , this 2x says extreme gloss and they didn't disappoint in the least , I do have to say for a quickie spray bomb paint job it turned out pretty amazing.

So the total for yesterday pulling parts, installing parts , prepping the hood and doctoring the decals was about two hours labor, total spent for rivets, spray paint and markers $18.00 .

Usually you can't find these rivets anywhere outside of a nut and bolt distributor and they are expensive but we have an amazing old timey hardware store here with old wooden floors, their motto is if we don't have it you don't need it and they rarely disappoint me .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

So now I am waiting on the pink Bombardier decals , a set of registration numbers , Xmas trees to reattach the seat and a new battery , all due in by this weekend .

New reggies are something I always add to a flip ski , especially if the old ones are damaged like these are , they take up a lot of real estate on the ski , cover up damage and just make it look a lot nicer.

I went with this set of Hardline Yellow and purple numbers , the cost was $26.19 because I was in a hurry and it's almost go time here , but since I usually get two sets of reggies out of these packs I am cutting that in half and saying amount spent was $13.10 .

Today we make a trip to the car wash and wash out the nastiness inside of the ski , reinstall the jet pump and put a drain plug in it , add another $10.00 and 30 minutes spent on the ski , we are almost done here .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

And there you go looking all spiffy ,while I was at it and had the stuff out I resprayed the gas cap and most likely I will do the rear grab handle and the sponsons as well..

I am also going to pop that front grille out and give it some love.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The Bombardier decals are in and they won't work, wrong script ,back to recoloring decals .

 

[MADMAT]

As I peruse for sales daily I realize how much I hate couches.....all of them.....

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Couches make my world go round here and keep the doors open, trust me I would much rather work on standups , but that market is dead here , I work on these so I can afford to build and ride standups. Back out $7.50 , I only spent $2.50 at the car wash , add another 15 minutes.

Xmas tree plastic clips are in , fore-seat is on , I don't think photos are needed here it still looks exactly the same lol. I did pop out the front grill and spray it with Grey SEM, I didn't have any black, it looks just fine.

It took longer to open the package than it did to install the fore-seat so I am not counting any labor on this one.
I am waiting on the battery and the registration number , both should be here by Saturday , meanwhile I have to go to the courthouse and get this thing registered.

I always register the skis in my name, that way they can water test them if they want and they can ride the day they get the ski , the few times one that I didn't do that it was always some kind of hassle , I sold a Yamaha SUV to a guy in Texas and ended up having to register the ski here and send it to him, he couldn't get it registered in Texas, it's just easier all around this way.

Today is not that day for all of that , the courthouse in this one horse town in Alabama closes at 12: on Wednesday, go figure. The tradition was started because the had an overpopulation of Pigeons so everything closed at noon on Wednesday and Saturday so they could shoot Pigeons, the Pigeons are now gone , but the tradition continues.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Jet pump is back in, I replaced the missing boot on the reverse cable and cleaned up the pump tunnel area while I was at it .

Now it's down to a second water test then on to finicky stuff like rubber supports for the gauges and a rear vent , I probably have both around here somewhere or at the other shop.

I just ordered two of these Grote grommets from Zoro , they are for 2" lights and these are 2" gauges , they may or may not work, it cost me just under $8.00 to find out.

If you can find the OEM stock grommets and if they haven't turned to play dough , they are going to be a lot more than $8.00 , I saw some on Ebay for $20.00 each.

Add another 15 minutes and $8.00 to the tab, also add another $41.00 for the battery since that money was already spent.

https://www.amazon.com/Grote-94100-Grommet-92120-67050/dp/B000NDL7VA/ref=sr_1_2?crid=CF3K3TQT1ZWE&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.djCu41k25zGVTQEw-5PR0kWPoWIbqE2toA549rWGAX9jrUkjgT3t5yndgKbvW8_Mh8sHJ_J69fFrUjFZWQNg5IZvtfznwJc42ytD9DYuo5-SdsJZZ2_t35KOA6Xop8r-UlLvicGY-m-wznuMtQxRcH8qGTFLZft2sWeds-0xnSIuIQFX13uzSwbR5wbVJyWKklY6fU_JC8Ief7kbLoXqYHV3GGWArULQVRzGLKJ

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The Grote grommets worked out great , or at least I think so , on the Purple Seadoo gauge plug I just popped it in , no mods were necessary , on the actual gauge it had a bit of an internal lip at the back of the grommet that I cut out with a small pair of scissors, I put some Dawn dishwashing detergent around the grommet and the gauge slid right into like it was made for it , the grommets have some internal ridges built into them to hold the gauge in place since they are originally made to hold clearance lights , is it exactly the same , nope it's not , will anyone ever know the difference again probably not.

Heading out to the courthouse to get registration and then to the lake for the second water test, I feel pretty sure that fixed the pump issue but I want to make sure before I list it for sale, battery comes in Monday , registration numbers either tomorrow or Monday at the latest , they were in Palmetto Ga. this morning.

If the water test goes as planned then all that is left is spit shining it and listing it , then on to next one.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I finished up those couple of spots on the hood this morning , one of them didn't turn out great so it got covered with a decal, it's a ghost decal from 10 ft away it disappears, turned out pretty good. I added the Bombardier logo and the small Seadoo logos since I had them already here.

I also did some buffing and removed the old registration numbers , I did not sand that area , you can try all you want to get rid of that shadow where the decals were but it will never happen without spraying new gelcoat , been there done that have the t-shirt to prove it.

Just get it shiny and cover it over with the new numbers the best that you can , these style numbers are much thicker and they take up a lot more room than the old ones did , there should be plenty of room to cover that shadow up completely , they should be here in a few hours and I will get them and the Alabama regs put on and go riding.

It is already listed on Facebook marketplace for sale because I have confidence in my mechanical abilities.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Reggies are in ,they have been installed and that about wraps this one up except for putting it on the other trailer and putting in the new battery Monday when it comes in..

I will probably respray that rear grab handle and the sponsons just because I am stupid and don't know when to leave well enough alone , but I digress.

 

[Myself]

I bought this 4 stroke '02 GTX off one of my customers . Her son-in-law had jump started it and blew up all the electronics. It was on a single trailer that I sold. Then recently I bought another one EXACTLY like this off another customer with a bad engine WITH a trailer. It had all the electronics I needed. I sold it today for $3000 and cleared some profit. Could have made another 1k but didn't want to sit on it 'til next summer.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Yep I may be sitting on this one till next year , it doesn't matter eventually I will make some money .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I really hate to update this thread like this but I decided to take the ski out for Labor day , our family was having a small get together at the river Saturday, the ski was full of gas and currently registered so I figured why not . Last time I had it out it ran perfectly but had serious cavitation issues. I swapped out the pump and wear ring and was reasonably sure I had that issue fixed.

I get it to the river , eat lunch and drop the ski in, it starts right up , goes about 100 yards and dies , I got it fired up and back to the bank, it would fire up on the choke then go dead like it was running out of gas , I checked all the usual stuff and found nothing, I ran the battery down messing with it and decided to load it back up on the trailer.

After spending a few days on the couch with stomach issues I finally looked at it again this morning , I pulled the carb back off and basically found nothing, internal filter was clean , fuel separator and filter were clean, no sign of water in the gas everything looked good.

I decided to get a small bread tie , skin the plastic off of it and bent the end at 90 degrees and I ran this up the three bypass holes , I pulled the pilot jet and the low speed screw all clean as a whistle , I put the pilot and adjuster back in and squirted carb cleaner through the pilot jet , ran the wire through the bypass holes again and sprayed cleaner while watching the bypass holes to verify flow ( this is something I recommend you always do when you have a carb apart ) everything looked good so I put it back together.

It now cranks and runs perfect, the only thing I can think of is that somehow one or more of the bypass holes got stopped up , just trying to be honest.

I believe I might have the ski traded for a Glastron ski boat , apparently it's a bowrider with a 115 Johney rude on it , I am waiting on the pics to get here and of course I have to go water test the ski again but that's where we are at right now.

 

[Batteryman]

Reggies are in ,they have been installed and that about wraps this one up except for putting it on the other trailer and putting in the new battery Monday when it comes in..

I will probably respray that rear grab handle and the sponsons just because I am stupid and don't know when to leave well enough alone , but I digress.

Ski looks great!

haha i ended up re spraying my grab handle as well. was tempted to do the sponsons but didnt.