Thread: 1996 Blazer VL100 Restoration to Crappie Chaser

Certainly some fine craftsmanship

I had to play catch up on all your hard work! I can hear the engine purring in my mind and see the fish in the livewell! Very close…

I ordered a Stainless Marine Seat Swivel Mount and bolted it to the new Livewell Hatch. The hinge was seriously upgraded to a 1/4in pin Marine Aluminum Piano Hinge. I had to attach the Swivel Mount to the Seat first then bolt from inside the lid thru the Swivel Mount using a locknut on top. The HD Perko Hatch Latch secures the Livewell Hatch Lid when the Livewell is not in use.



She is getting Wet Tomorrow. I have oil in the gas till I verify the oil tank is going down. Also Yamaha Ring Free Plus, a double dose, I have been running for a few minutes every day to make sure the Rings get a chance to loosen up from sitting 5 years.

Awesome job. Looks beautiful and very unique. Well done sir.

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

Awesome job. Looks beautiful and very unique. Well done sir.

The cool thing about the swivel seat is it's much easier to turn around and look back to see if your cutting someone off when you make a turn. My neck is not as flexible as it once was. In the bass boat on Ross Barnett the fixed seats make it very tough to look behind you before turning in somewhere.

Awesome build! Fill da cooler !

First test the prop vented a whole bunch allowing the rpm's to climb before the prop caught and She shot like a rocket to porpoising. The Prop was vented, it didn't need it. It shot to 35mph and climbing at around 3200. I was paying more attention to getting the boat slowed down with the little freeboard aft. I have to remove the 4in extensions, I have them on the other Blazer with a 4 in Jackplate but the Hooks in the hull give a tremendous amount of Stern Lift. The static balance is off too, I have to relocate the cranking battery to Stbd. Pulling the Extensions and moving the Battery first then another water test. I used the Starbrite Marine Silicone to seal the Engine / Extension install. A piece of Piano wire zipped the sealer right off. I have been picking up the trailer tongue all along and was concerned too much setback may be a problem. More due to the weight removal longitudinally, smaller front deck, the extra 38 pounds in the Yamaha and having a oil tank and being located so far back. I located the oil tank partially under the aft deck leaving more of the Hatch area open. The Hull really lost some weight. So much water logged material was removed. Although I added to the Pad Height increasing the Transom total height the Bob's Machine Jackplate has little rise built in, since I had a couple of sets of extensions I hoped it would work. The Extensions have about 4 inches of rise added. The Static Balance must be corrected to improve "On Pad" driving & handling with such a narrow Beam. My Prop shaft all the way down was 3 inches below the Pad to start so I have to use all the lowest mounting holes when removing the extensions. Most likely will need to run with the Jackplate up a bit once this is done. I like to fish "The Horseshoe" on Ross Barnett and the Marsh below my house here, both areas require a Jackplate to shortcut to the good fishing. You can access going around all the Shallows but that takes time. My rigging was adjusted for the height I run the E-Tec 90 on the other Blazer which is way in the air in hopes of having the entire 6in stroke of the Jackplate. I don't think I need to pull out my pencil yet to calculate corrections, the front storage is completely empty also no cooler on the deck. I engineered this boat for a Yeti with ice in front of the console, 20 pounds of tackle in the forward storage, being such a small boat the weight sensitivity to balance is huge. 20 pounds of tackle 12ft forward plus 40 pounds 9ft forward of the Transom will really make a longitudinal difference in balance in such a short boat. I plan on pulling all the tackle out of the other boat today to weigh and weigh the Yeti Roadie and 35 Yeti to see the difference before ice and I run with the Roadie sitting where the passenger seat went where the 35 Yeti will be well further forward. Once I have some weights I can drop lead shot bags in the forward storage to simulate loaded conditions. I have 200 pounds of lead shot for this kinda of stuff.



I use a Harmonic Balance Puller for lifting Outboards, it centers the weight well for me. Here I unbolted the Jackplate from the Extensions and pulled the Engine back out of the way.



You can see I had a great seal between the Extensions and the Hull. The silicone was removed by softening it using a professional automotive adhesive remover. I used a plastic scraper and new, sharp razor blades to shave the silicone off.



Thought I would post a picture of the removal in progress, shaving the silicone. You can not cut straight thru, I rotate the razor blade, patiently working off 1/8in at a time till the skin falls on the floor. This mounting using the highest mounting (lowest hole in engine bracket) puts the propshaft 4-1/2 inches below the pad. Interesting other thing, I didn't expect the amount of increase in trailer tongue weight but just the 4 inches positive (forward in relation to the transom - calculations all start from the transom, in front of the transom is a positive and aft of the transom is a negative number) movement of the engine inward over doubled the tongue weight. That much influence on tongue weight shows engine weight to hull weight ratio is way up. The hull really lightened up using the Coosa Bluewater 26 and S-Glass.

Note; I don't remember posting earlier in this thread but I did have this engine on my other Blazer VL100 briefly. It would top out at 49mph, didn't break 50 once on the GPS but I had to remove the engine as the other boat is rotten inside so the boat was rolling up in the bow too much for comfort. Kinda Spooky watching the old boat hull suffer under the load this Yamaha put on it. More to come.

Closer everyday. Have it dialed in before long. It's been a good thread to follow.