Other Yamaha powered Bass boat build

[WFO Speedracer]

So I am kinda in between builds, gathering parts for the Thunderjet and the X2 flat deck, A customer comes by out of the blue and drops off a FREE 14 ft fiberglass Peterson bass boat complete with trailer,minnkota trolling motor, rod holders, seats,basically everything except an engine. I have a wrecked Waverunner lll here with a good 701 and pump so, here we go. The plan is to cut the center of the Waverunner lll with the engine mounts and jet pump tunnel and graft it in. The floor on the boat is toast anyway and had been covered over with carpet and OSB. Today when I ripped into I found the foam is soaked , the stringers are rotted and the transom is rotted out, that makes this the perfect candidate for this conversion, pics will follow shortly my camera is dead.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

A few pics, If you have seen one nasty rotted out boat floor you have seen them all lol

 

[WFO Speedracer]

This should clear things up a wee bit. I also think using the 701 is out, I don't see it having enough a$$ to push this thing, stepping up to 760 power and a 155mm jet pump !
Lots and lots of cutting ,trimming and grinding before I get this the way I want it, its slow go but its a lot easier to cut it out than to put it back.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Its moving along slowly and I am itching like crazy, been working on the tedious stuff like building the stick steering system drilling the holes for the steering cable and figuring out the reverse lever operation and seating arrangements, I am waiting on the West System SIX 10 to show up so I can glue up this biotch, it should be here by Wed.
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[WFO Speedracer]

I know the progress does not look like much but believe me this was a lot of work to get this far. I ended up cutting 7 inches out of the bottom of the WRlll hull and moving the engine back by using a 1200 midshaft which just so happens to match up to the 155mm pump shaft, plus I get 7 inches of boat back.

There was a lot of nasty grinding going on here to make this work, the rear section is glued in place with West System Six 10 epoxy, its kinda pricey probably going the epoxy cabosil route with a drill powered mixer for the front part.BTW old batteries make excellent ballast for holding down the PWC hull to the boat till the glue dries.

 

[special fx]

cool.....it'll rip better than you think! I have a 701 pushing a 16 footer and it pulls great and does about 40mph.

 

[shawn_NJ]

Awesome Terry, I'd love to have a boat like that!

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Yeah the price was right,worked on the transom today, nothing left of what used to be the plywood inside the transom, this is some messy work repairing this jalopy. I also worked on the stick steering which is made from the Yamaha WRlll reverse assy.I will add some pics later today.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Here is the shelf I made to mount the steering to and the stick steering setup, I used the Yamaha reverse mechanism for the steering,not happy with the throttle so I will be looking for an old Kawi standup throttle to replace it with, the bracket on the back that the cable hooks to is only temporary.I should be able to mount the cable to a metal piece which will mount directly to the hull.