Complete winter make-over

[BadKachina]

Here's my boat, I thought I would show everyone some of the stuff I'm doing this winter to it. I'm also doing the motor and will show pictures of that too down the road. The motor was a 502 mag efi with a Vortech blower and Lightning headers. Now it will have Canfiled alum heads with some cnc port work, full rollerized valve train with a custom ground cam, extruned honed intake fully port matched. It should have enough hp to brake my drive quicker.
Pirelli Flooring
Gaffrig guages with new bezels, and gps.
Mechanical trim indicator.
Imco full hydraulic steering (was just external add-on)
billet seat bases
billet trim pump
bigle paint
diamond plate anodized blue in engine compartment
back seat redone
tons of motor work and everything will be painted, powder coated or polished.

[GoCiggie31]

wow, looking good- Keep the pics-a-coming and thanks for sharing. Nice job on the Gaffrigs

Badkachina, Can you point me to a source for Pirelli Flooring? Looking for some upgrading myself on an old deep-v. Thank you

[BadKachina]

I'll start with the flooring. Of course you will have to remove your entire interior to get out your old carpet. Then I used a putty knife to scrape all the small chunks of backing and carpet that stayed behind. Next I used laquer thinner to remove all the old glue followed by scotch pads and sand paper to rough up the old surface.

The flooring itself is pertty hard to work with, I say that because it heavy and big sections don't really like to move around much once they are down.
I measured each piece and cut them (with a straight edge and razor knife) so that they would be a small amount bigger than what I needed. Then you can lay your pieces out in the boat and trim them to exact fit, remember once you go to small it's over....... I had a couple of edges in the cabin that I had to hide with a tiny amount of white silicone. I can find them but most wont ever notice them. The biggest problem with the boats floor is that its not perfect to begin with. There will be parts where they glassed in boards from the side or on the floor and they will be thicker or have ridges that you just wont be able to over come. You can sand them some to get rid of the excess resin but you don't want to remove the fiberglass or sand all the way down to wood. So just put in your mind that carpet will hide these imperfections better than this flooring will. Most of my issues were in the cabin where the couches meet the floor, the cockpit came out just fine. The ski locker had some ridges in it, but who cares, its a ski locker. It should have never had carpet in a ski locker any way.
I used Lonseals contact cement. They also sell and epoxy but the rep. told me that once you lay down your piece on the epoxy it will be stuck and you will not be albe to move it around. At least with the contact cement you have a small window where you can still work it. The epoxy could be a better product, I was just too chicken to use it.

Thats about it, its a couple of day project not including the interior removal and replacement. Make sure you don't skimp on the prep work and you should never have any problems with the stuff.

[BadKachina]

Gauges.........

My boat had a couple of problems with the gauges. First of all most of the Kachinas were rigged with Medallion digital gauges. If you have this type of set up you will have to get a new harness that runs from the plug on the motor to the helm. If you have standard gauges than it's as easy as removing the old ones and wiring in the new ones. They all have a signal wire, positive, ground, and positive and ground for the lights. You can just jump the grounds but will have to keep seperate hots for the ignition and the lights. I added an oil temp and water pressure. Since I have a mechanical trim indictor I will use the trim signal for the oil temp, the water pressure is mechanical and will need a line tapped into the water system. If you don't have a water temp, it's a cool gauge to add. You will know if your impeller is working as soon as you start it up and will know if it ever fails.
Once I cut out the digital harness and put the new harness in the wiring is pretty much straight foward. The hardest part is deciding if you got all the gauges straight. I've made about a hundred adjustments to them before I tightened them up and I still can't decide if they are all perfect. The GPS will need a hot, ground, and an antenna and recall switch if you want one. I've had the GPS for a couple of years, the gps doesn't need any harness or special wiring from the motor, it's a stand alone unit. You will need to do cap the water line from your drive. I removed the fitting from the transom and put a tapered cap in the hole. You could also pinch the line and zip tie it but I would rather have it done one time the right way. It should never leak on me the way I have it rigged. As with any installation, don't cut corners, use plenty of zip ties, cushion clamps, heat shrink and good connectors. The more time and effort you put into the less problems you will have down the road.

[BadKachina]

Gauges are finally done, I added two fuel gauges so I wouldn't have to switch back and forth. Here's what I put in,
mechanical trim indicator
water temp
mechanical water pressure
oil temp
oil pressure
volts
two fuel gauges
pyrometer
tach and gps speedo of course.
Water pressure is such a cool gauge, you know as soon as your sea pump quits working. I had to add a fitting in the thermostat housing and run a line up to the dash. For the oil temp, I added a sender and taped it into the trim sender wire already in the harness. Since I have mechanical indicators I don't need the wire for the electonic sender. The pyro is a little harder, you will have to weld a bung in your exhaust to install the sending unit, and then run the wire up to the gauge.
Here's some pics of the dash completed. The full hydraulic Imco helm is in, the dash is completely rewired and functional.

[BadKachina]

Motor is in and running, almost ready for Desert Storm. Lots of two stage paint and powder coating. I put a nasty cam and some Dart Pro 1 heads on. Hopefully I can get the computer remapped and get on the water in the next couple of weeks.......

[Kachina26]

Very nice! You should see 67-68mph easy! :D:D:D j/k ;)


Let us know how you do with that set up. Very nice rigging indeed. I hope to go through my bird's nest someday soon.

[No Name]

Originally Posted by BadKachina

Motor is in and running, almost ready for Desert Storm. Lots of two stage paint and powder coating. I put a nasty cam and some Dart Pro 1 heads on. Hopefully I can get the computer remapped and get on the water in the next couple of weeks.......

Looks great Paul, Very nice.

[msmeads1]

Who Makes The Blue Steering Wheel In The Pic?