1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

[local]

Hi everyone. After reading some of the build threads and reviewing what needs to be done I have decided to make this thread in order to both document my first major restoration and to get some guidance to minimize my mistakes along the way, but first the story.

Back in 1990 my father bought a 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy with the 5.7L OMC Cobra drive. On our first outing the fuel gauge stuck and stranded us in the middle of the lake. This set the scene for the future, multiple cracked blocks, forgetting drain plugs, impacting random rocks and stumps at speed as well as the standard problems from age. It was sold to someone who apparently did not like to talk to people as they added through the hull exhaust above the swim platform. After repossessing the boat in the late 90's it was taken out in the gulf where it was inundated with salt water and the unsecured anchor hatch was blown off leaving a large hole for untold amounts of water to enter the bow.

Since the early 2000's it did not see much use and was only used for the occasional fishing trip. It was during this time period that the interrupter switch and shift cable started acting up. By 2005 I was out on my own and becoming interested in using the boat again. I only used it a couple of times and it ran great, usually, once it got into gear but we noticed it had a rather large leak at the transom. The fix of course was to put in a better bilge pump...

In 2006 I found that gear oil was leaking out the prop and it had water in it. That finally convinced us that we needed to take it in to the shop to get the problems looked at. They replaced the shift cable and interrupter gear as well as the lower gear case. I sealed around the transom mount hoping it would stop the leak and it did significantly slow it down.

2007 was the year that Lake Texoma flooded for most of the summer and since I did not feel like driving it 100 miles I only used it three times. At Thanksgiving I went to drain the water from the block when I noticed the motor was sitting a little funny. On closer inspection the motor mounts were sitting about 1" lower than usual. When spring came around we started to tear into it to see what the problem was, what we were not expecting to find was this...

Sunken mount.

Rotten deck.

More rotten deck.

Under port motor mount.

It was quite discouraging. We pulled the rest of the carpet and the upholstery and let it sit while we figured out what to do. That was over four years ago.

So now I have gotten the urge to try a restoration and hauled it down here so I can work on it without a 4 hour trip. Today I did some poking around and found that the lower transom might as well not even be there. So any plans of a quick repair job are gone and it is time to tear it up and start the biggest project I have tried yet.

Tomorrow I am going to pull the drive and start working on getting the engine out. I will also get some better pictures of the boat and damage in general so hopefully someone can give me some pointers.

Current condition.

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

I was only able to work on it for an hour and a half today but I was able to remove the stern drive. Of course I probably destroyed the pivot rod since one nut was seized, the other stripped the threads and I had to beat it out. The only unexpected surprise was that everything else seems mechanically sound. I decided to bring the drive home and store it in my garage instead of leaving it in the shell of a 1940's Ford covered with a tarp, it seemed like the right thing to do. Thankfully it is much lighter than I was expecting.

Just a little corrosion...

As you can see from the picture with the motor mounts being MIA the alignment is virtually non existent. How can I know the right place to put the new mounts when I start rebuilding? I can guess but if I guess wrong that could be...not fun. Either way my next step will be pulling the motor and gimbal housing which I hope to have done by this weekend.

 

[Sawz]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

Are you dead set on using that omc combo? if you are taking it down that far and have that much work to do it may pay to consider re powering with a merc unit/ motor just my opinion though

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

Are you dead set on using that omc combo? if you are taking it down that far and have that much work to do it may pay to consider re powering with a merc unit/ motor just my opinion though

While that would probably be the smart thing to do for reliability and access to parts, etc. It would just not be the same boat I've known since I was 8 years old. Plus I kind of like having something different than the usual.

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

Well I was delayed a bit last week due to rain but was able to make some decent progress yesterday as well as find a new surprise.

I started cutting away the rest of the deck to see how far up the rot went. The most obvious spot was where the seat pedestals mounted.

This is where the starboard seat mounted. I noticed that there was a block under the deck that I am assuming was ment to support the seat but they missed half of it, nice quality control guys, and now it is almost completely rotted away.

Other than that I was encouraged by what seemed to be good looking wood around the fuel tank including a unprotected 2x4 that looks new.

More rot at the port seat. The 1x4 spanning the fuel tank fell off when I pulled the deck...

After getting most of the deck cut off we started tearing out foam. I found that a sheetrock saw and 10" pry bar will remove it very quickly. This is the known bad stringer after the foam had been removed. The wood has just disintegrated inside it I cannot find a piece bigger than 1" left.

I drilled into the starboard stringer which looked good from the outside but seemed a little soft...rot.

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

Yesterdays work continued.

This is the area in front of the starboard seat. Note the rotted bulkhead and if you look closely you can see my new surprise. The lighter colored glass lines are a little raised up from the floor and in some places cracked.

A closer look...

Interesting that the bulkhead is cracked right above the spot that the broken glass goes under it.

Rot around the port seat mount.

Progress for the day, the really rotten areas are obvious but what you cannot see is that both stringers are completely rotten going all the way to the cabin.

After I got out of the boat I checked under the hull where I noticed the crack. My suspicion was confirmed several small black chips in the hull due to an impact.

What am I going to need to do to fix this new little gem? I have not looked into hull repair at all yet.

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

We were able to get some work done this weekend but by the end of it I am about ready to give up. Literally everywhere I look the wood is rotten.

We started out with getting a major milestone out of the way, the engine. When pulling it apart I found some hitchhikers that has had some use of the boat over the last four years...

I guess someone could not afford the $10 gaskets and instead decided to fill the water jackets with silicone.

My father-in-law lending me a hand. Yes I pulled the engine with a tree. No I will not be using a come-a-long to reinstall as it was a pain.

Pulling the engine went very smooth and it was nice doing something that was not completely new to me and did not make me itchy. I was actually surprised at how simple it was to remove, much easier than pulling the motor out of a car. I don't expect the install to go so smoothly though.

Here is a pic of the motor mount, I mean the hole left behind after we vacuumed out what was left of them four years ago. I am about 98% sure that if I build the mount even with the floor it should be close enough that I can add a spacer to get the alignment right.

More to follow.

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

After getting the motor out we were finally able to finish removing the foam. If I thought I was ever going to need to do this again I would put some trash bags down before pouring the foam so it would be easier to remove. Luckily the manufacture either ran out of foam or was incompetent as the back of the boat was only about half full of the annoying stuff.

Either way after removing it I vacuumed the crud out and took some measurements for the wood. While vacuuming I found more rot when it sucked a chunk of the area beneath the console off the wall.

It is wet and I can push my finger through it into the cabin area.

I finally have a place to walk without tripping.

But when I removed the last piece of foam it was caught on a loose piece of glass. Behind that glass was wet rotting wood. I honestly don't know what was protecting it as the loose glass is not big enough to cover the whole thing, has it been exposed this whole time?

I was able to easily stick a screwdriver through to the outer hull.

This is where one of the stringers meets the transom. It was not attached when I found it and you can see some pieces of wood coming out of it.

So now I am at a decision point. Should I continue this project or scrap it? I knew that I was going to have to do some transom work but I thought it would only be the thick area behind the motor not the whole damn thing. Then I have the cabin to worry about now. Can I remove the wood under the console or is it helping to hold the top up? And once I remove that piece I am betting that the piece after it is rotted as well.

I was not prepared to find these two things and if I have to rip out the cabin it is going to easily double the size of this job. I love this boat but what little confidence I had in being able to do this job correctly is fading fast. No one seems to think I am doing the right thing by spending the time and money to repair this thing and I am starting to believe them.

But I guess the next step is to remove all the remaining "wood" and start poking around the cabin to see if anything is salvageable there.

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

Need some quick help. I am getting ready to start cutting out the transom but I don't know if I should cut it to the top our not.

Crappy phone pic of where the cap attaches.


My finger is at the edge of the wood. If I take all the wood out how can I properly tab the transom back in? Should I leave a few inches at the top for tabbing?

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

Anyone have an opinion? I am about to start cutting.

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

So I never got around to cutting out the transom. I am going to wait to do that when I have the materials on hand to start reassembling. I did decide on how I am going to do it though. I will just connect the two parts together I will never need to pull the cap off and if I do I can always just cut it.

We got a lot done last weekend. Now that the foam is out of the way and I can see exactly how it is built I cut out all the stringers. It did not take long I just ran the grinder along the bottom of one side and bent it over to break the glass on the other side. I think the biggest piece of wood I found in the stringers was about 10" long.

I also pulled the gimbal housing and everything else attached to the transom. It actually took a bit of work to remove since the manufacturer did not drill the bolt holes straight so I had to really pull to get it off. After removing it I found where the water was getting in, the lower gasket was loose and the bottom of the cutout was caked with sand. I am guessing that is a result of using the drive to hold the boat on the shore which is not a good idea. The top of the cutout is 1/2" thinner than the bottom I think that is a little out of spec.

Here you can see the sand, I had already brushed a lot of it off, and one of the crooked bolt holes.

This is where I removed the exhaust it does not look as bad as I thought it would but it is still not good.

After removing everything I drilled some holes to see just how bad the transom was. I did not find good wood until I hit the top quarter of it. The bottom third had the consistency of jelly. I don't know how this boat lasted as long as it has with all this rot.

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

I put the holiday to good use and spent most of the day tearing into the rot at the cabin. I was going to leave this area alone but seeing that the bulkhead had some rot and thinking that is was the only one that actually spanned the width of the boat I decided that I had to get to it.

The drain for the cooler ended in the middle of the foam it did not go to the center of the hull. I think this contributed to some of the rot in this area.

Tearing out the back of the cabin turned out to be really easy. I was nervous about doing this as I am not the best fabricator and did not think I could get it to line up right again but now I don't think I will have a problem. The teak entry way came out as a solid piece and the walls on either side were only held in with four screws at the bottom. I will replace the wood in both walls even though only one has any rot.

You can see the water tank in the above picture. I do not know why anyone would ever use this as there is no way other than pumping it all into the sink to drain it. We filled it when we first got the boat 22 years ago and it still had water in it when I took it out. I will not be putting it back.

This is what the backside of the bulkhead looks like. I was surprised to find this much rot when I pulled the carpet off. But the wood was easy to remove I only had to vacuum it out.

I spent the rest of the day trying to find solid wood on the starboard side of the cabin the port side is very solid. Unfortunately the starboard side was the only side that actually had any foam in it. I guess they forgot to put it in the other side. The foam that was under the cooler had standing water in it.

I am starting to find good solid wood now so my plan is to get it cut even at a place where I can attach the new stringers. I am not going to pull out the entire cabin even if I find a less than good area. I am going to make the bulkhead dividing the cabin and the deck with some extra glass on the cabin side so that I can come back if needed and redo the cabin without disturbing anything under the deck.

Today I started sanding as we had some storms blowing through and the temp dropped into the mid 70's. I am still unsure how much I should actually sand. Should I grind off all the old tabbing down to the hull or can I just get the top few layers off and save myself a few days work? Even using 24 grit it takes a while to get through all the old tabbing.

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

It has been 11 days of sweaty, itchy, knee hurting fun. I have been sanding whenever I can find time, usually weekends as I only have about an hour of usable light after work. And I am almost to the half way point on the bottom hull.

This is about as safe as I personally am going to get in 100+ degree weather. And it actually works pretty well. I found some good fiberglass sanding masks. The only thing that gets itchy are my arms. If it was cooler I would get a tyvek suit but I would drown in my own sweat in short order this time of year.

Making progress, sometimes it is hard to see what is sanded and what isn't through all the dust.

I found a 5' long section of tabbing that was not exactly secured to the hull. Easily saved me an hour of work.

I am never going to get rid of all this dust...especially in the cabin.

I had my wife follow me around with the vacuum and that really cut down on the amount of dust but I have to stop sanding every 15 minutes or so to clean out the filter. Hopefully I can get a good rhythm going this weekend and finish up as my first batch of materials arrived this week and I want to get started on the rebuild.

 

[Ogden2]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

Nice, local! I'm at just about the same point in the process as you are with my 1987 Dynasty Magnum 190 with a 5.7 Mercruiser and Alpha One Gen.2 outdrive. Though, you have a bit more daunting task at hand since you have the cuddy and all, and my rot stops conveniently just before the bow so I don't have to go all the way up, I know what you're going through. I have a few more days of grinding left and I'll be cutting replacement transom wood this week.

It looks like I'm stumbling across your thread past the point of being able to help answer any of your questions, so I guess all that is in order now is to say "good luck, sir!"

 

[local]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

Thanks Ogden, I am just going with whichever way seems like more work unless I can convince myself otherwise.

It has been two very annoying weeks. I finished sanding the bilge area last weekend but due to the massive heat could not get back out there to finish this week until today. I took the day off and started early in the morning, by noon I was able to finish sanding all of the stringer area.

Tomorrow I will start tearing out the transom and getting the new one put together. I decided to wait to tear it out until I was going to be ready to put the new wood back as I am still a little worried about warping the hull with all the support I have removed. Last weekend I cut a 3" hole in the transom skin to see what came out, the only thing in there was damp mulch.

Hopefully I can start moving a bit faster now that working on it will not automatically mean suiting up and itching for the next few days.

 

[Ogden2]

Re: 1990 Dynasty 220 Cuddy Restoration

How goes it Local? I just completed my engine test-fit this past Sunday and now I'm starting to glass in the front engine mounts. It's coming along nicely but I'm getting a little sick of all the detail work.

 

[local]

Resurrect!

So, it has been 8 years... wow.

I stopped posting on here mostly due to the lack of feedback, but that is ok. I continued to work and removed the transom then acquired some good wood and rebuilt the transom to my specs, larger thick portion and overall larger surface area.

And that is when I stopped. Soon thereafter I had my first kids, twin girls. Then my 3rd child, also a girl. I have been busy. And to this date the boat has been sitting there baking in the sun.

The whole lockdown virus thing got me thinking about having a boat again. We decided at more than zero prodding from my wife that it was time to abandon the Dynasty and move on. So we looked at boats, and so did everyone else in TX. Used boats disappeared instantly, cheaper new boats don't exist. Trying to get a boat is the singular most frustrating purchase I have ever tried to make. And now I have given up, there is nothing left to buy that I can justify.

However, I still have the Dynasty. I figure with all the materials I still have on hand I can get it back together for less than a years worth of payments on some new boat. My aim is to put together a crash program to reassemble the boat. We have done the hard part. The stringers are completely gone. The transom has been replaced. It is time to put some wood back in place, glass it over and get back on the water.

But, I have to ask has there been any new developments in the last 8 years on how to reassemble a boat? Or is it still put in wood, peanut butter it to the hull, layer glass on the wood, repeat?

I am still working, mostly from home but I also travel quite a bit. I am moving the boat to my house with the goal of having it in the water within a month. Stay tuned for some kind of failure I'm sure.

 

[local]

Went out and started dusting off the boat today and getting ready to move it. Surprisingly it does not look much worse than it did 8 years ago but I did keep it tarped, mostly.

 

[local]

Disaster! I was drilling holes in the transom for the stern drive and found wet wood. Went ahead and took some core samples and found about 1/4 of the "new" transom was soaked and coming apart on the inside. It is my own fault for leaving the boat to sit right after installing it 8 years ago so, nothing to do now but start carving it out.

 

[local]

Well thanks to some help from some friendly people here I decided to do a full redo instead of doing just the bare minimum.

This is the second time I am building a transom for this boat, so it needs to be better than last time. When pulling off the old one I found that the square edges created voids against the wood behind the fillets so I decided to bevel the edge of the new transom so I could make sure I did not have any voids. I also found that only about 30% of the transom was adhered to the hull, scary. Thank fully that eliminated a lot of chiseling but made me reevaluate the way I installed it in the first place.

So after much chiseling and sanding and cursing in the 90 degree Texas morning sun. I got the hull back to a respectable shape. For the new transom I beveled all the edges, cut the keyhole and tie down holes for anchoring the top. I then mated the two pieces with waterproof Gorilla glue and stainless wood screws.

More to come in the next post.