New Starcraft Supersport V16 Project

[Randyhutch10]

Well I'm the new owner of a 1973 Starcraft Supersport 16'. Been looking at purchasing one of these boats for a few years now, and finally pulled the trigger. This will hopefully make a good winter project and we can have her ready to go this spring. Will probably need plenty of advice from the experts on this forum moving forward. Let the adventure begin.

 

[GA_Boater]

She's a little chewed up, but we've seen much worse to start with.

A winter fix-up is easily doable, Randy. What are your plans?

 

[Randyhutch10]

Tear out most of the interior and clean everything up. Install new foam and flooring. Put four swivel seats in place and some type of non-slip floor. Maybe a tinted color raptor-liner a good portion of the interior? Good idea or bad? Plan to paint the boat. Then add powerplant and clean-up/paint trailer.

 

[GA_Boater]

How about we move this to the Starcraft forum? More Starcraft guys, we have a bunch, will see it be able to give some good advice.

You can see plenty of Supersport projects for ideas over there.

 

[Randyhutch10]

That would be great, thank you!

 

[Watermann]

Welcome to the Starmada :wave:

There's lots of restores to get ideas from and you have a whole bunch of work to do before getting to the rebuild stage. Not many guys here will recommend using bed liner in your boat, especially on the AL.

What do you have for power?

 

[Randyhutch10]

The Bed-liner just seems like a nice way to protect the boat and should look pretty good sprayed on? No motor as of yet. Will probably look for something in the 60hp-85hp range.

 

[Randyhutch10]

Has anyone on here ever converted these boats to a center console configuration? Is it doable or difficult?

 

[82rude]

I put a new wood floor in mine ,sealed it and applied dupicolor transparent bed liner as a no slip coating.Works great.That stuff is tuff!

 

[GA_Boater]

Moved to the Starcraft Arena. Now I can say Welcome to the Starmada! :smile:

Prep for bedliner is probably worse than paint and often chips off. Except when you decide you don't like the liner - Then it's almost impossible to get off. jbcurt00 has his not so good thoughts about bedliner. Paint is a better choice and some non-slip stuff can be added to paint.

Not sure if any SS's have been converted to CC, but wouldn't be surprised.

 

[jbcurt00]

Bedliner if you wish, but only on stuff you attach to the hull, like a plywood deck (floor), not to any of the actual aluminum hull itself... uke:

 

[Randyhutch10]

What are the main reasons for not using raptor bed-liner on more of the boat?

 

[Watermann]

Use bedliner on decking just not on the AL is the recommendation but it's your boat so. I recommend vinyl deck covering. You can see what the restorations look like and decide for yourself in the mean time you have a ton of work to do on the tear down, clean up and hull repairs before you have to commit to a deck covering method.

Power for your 16' SS, the 3 cyl Johnny/Rude 70 HP is the very best option for power, reliability and availability.

 

[DLNorth]

I'm going to partially disagree with this statement.
It depends on how you plan to use the boat as to what is the "best" power.

My 1st exposure to the SC 16SS was my buddies, a very typical mid 70's boat with the OMC 70 hp on it.
With 3 guys in the boat just riding around it was fine, maybe even good as it just sipped fuel. BUT, if you were going to do any skiing, it was under powered. It just couldn't pop us out of the water. And I was a lot lighter back then.

When we got our SS16, and were looking for a motor upgrade, I got the (at the time) 4 cyl Merc 85 hp. (later prop rated at 75 hp) this turned out to be the perfect size, 66 CI, halfway between the OMC 3 cyl and 4 cyl. The Merc may not be everyone's idea of reliable though.

So for the SS16, you might want to consider the smaller OMC V4, the 85/90 version. Plenty of power and reliable (?) depending on your view.

There's nothing worse then an under powered boat.

Dan


"Power for your 16' SS, the 3 cyl Johnny/Rude 70 HP is the very best option for power, reliability and availability."

 

[Randyhutch10]

Thanks guys for all the advice so far. Like Watermann pointed out I have a ton of work to do before worrying to much about motor choice.

I did however make a little progress on demolition today. All-in-all it wen't pretty smoothly today in tear-down. Will work more tomorrow on cleaning everything up and start checking rivets. Any advice on what to do next?

Really debating on on a center console conversion.

 

[Watermann]

Lot done there in short order, after you get the transom wood out and the cleaning you'll be moving onto rivet and hull inspection for any rivets that are damaged, tipped or outright missing. Try to do eyes on for every last rivet on the bottom. A leak test would be good too but this time of year depending on where you live it may not be an option.

 

[Randyhutch10]

Yeah thank you. I was able to salvage all but one piece of old flooring. Hoping to luck out with leaks, there was plenty of water and ice in the bottom of the boat, along with some mice. I will be trying to get it cleaned up and the transom out tomorrow. What type of flooring should I get if I didn't want to get marine grade plywood.

 

[Randyhutch10]

Also, what size and type of rivets will I need to purchase? Riveting is completely new to me.

 

[Randyhutch10]

Just read your rivets rivets rivets post. Very helpful Watermann thank you!

 

[Randyhutch10]

Going to go look at a Johnson 85hp V4 tomorrow. See how it checks out. Would this make a good power plant?