Thread: Updating and Upgrading My Skeeter F-80 Strada

Bon Temps, your Grandfather was a wise old man. My dad, always told us, "Do it right the first time, and you wont have to do it again", Followed by a "now do it again..."

When I cleaned the carbs the fuel hoses were so hard they leaked upon reassembly. I ordered every fuel line under the Cowl new from Yamaha.



Now I know I have good, current composition, fuel lines everywhere.



I put a new Rectifier / Regulator on the engine also so most of the electrical components are new.

Good job! I know the feeling on the fuel lines; I replaced every fuel line on my Evinrude earlier this year because of leaks and other old age issues.

Well it took a little work but I have the fuel tank straps installed, Trolling Motor Battery Charger installed, Trolling Motor Battery strapped down, installed & wired, a separate Odyssey PC925 battery for cranking installed & wired, and the fuel line assembled with a inline filter and installed. A third battery for electronics is installed up under the ledge of the Aft Compartment.



I ordered this windshield from Great Lakes Skipper several years ago when I was building the Blazer VL100. I was still planning on that boat being a Side Console at that time. Recycling parts & inventory in my shop to rig this boat has been & still is the mission. Here I used a piece of that 100 year old Mahogany Flooring to fill the gap under the Windshield so it can be properly mounted on this boat. The windshield is a Ranger windshield but now will be a Skeeter windshield.



Mounting a windshield needs to be done with great care. No stress to the acrylic can be allowed. Also much care must be used when drilling the mounting holes. I ran the wood on the table saw for a exact fit.



Tomorrow I will complete the windshield install, finish the wiring under the console and fill it up with gas. Getting close. I also bought the steel to weld up a new axle for this boat's trailer today.

Making that windshield work reminded me of a cross stitch my great aunt gave me many years ago.

You do such good work. Great job Rojo.

Installed the windshield today. Not too bad a job, drilling the Acrylic was the worst, worrying about cracking it to drill 3/8in holes for the mount grommets.



First thing was to determine where to put the mounting hardware along the windshield. You have to take into consideration the stresses that will be applied.



You have to support the windshield to drill the holes. Here I'm using 2x6 drops to support.



I bought these Step Drills on a Amazon Prime day just for drilling Windshields and other Acrylic products.



So very carefully using little pressure and a slow bit speed you get your first step of the bit through. Once it is through I block each side of the hole then finish drilling out to the size needed by the mounting hardware. Never screw a Acrylic windshield directly to your boat if you don't want it to crack later. There is very specific Acrylic mounting hardware and it needs to be used.



I pictured the hardware earlier but you can see the windshield floats off its base being held up by the bottom grommets. When tightening the the mounting screws you just tighten till the acrylic touches the top of the bottom grommet. Well it looks like I didn't take a picture of the completed install from the front. I will upload one tomorrow.

Like the energizer bunny I'm all over the Skeeter. I jacked up the trailer first thing this morning and pulled the old bent axle. I had put it back under the frame to have something to roll the boat around on.



Pulled the tires, hubs, and mounting U-Bolts of the old axle.



Normally I can cut the old spindles off and weld them on a new tube but one of these was run so hot it turned very blue so I just canned the old axle and made a new one.



I needed to reuse the spring perches so I took all the measurements before cutting them off.



Using a Porta-Band I cut through the welds enough to knock the spring perches loose with a chisel.



I usually use 1/4 in thick stock but the steel yard only stocks up to 3/16in. The original axle tube is only 1/8in thick stock.



One cut was a little out of square so I had to be sure and tack it well so the welds didn't pull the spindle out of align. I don't try to put any toe in the axle doesn't hurt the tires. All the axles I have built the tires wear uniformly.



Got ready to weld and since I'm TIG welding all the time I didn't think to change to boots till I got ready to pull the trigger on the MIG Gun.



I ran a solid bead on both ends so water doesn't get inside the axle and rust it from the inside.



After washing off all the oils from the Mill I put a coat of Red Lead primer and one coat of Top Coat paint before quitting for the day.



I made this axle a little wider as I have 4 13in Trailer Mag Wheels I plan of refinishing and putting under this trailer. The Wheels offset is about a inch more than standard trailer wheels.