Thread: Updating and Upgrading My Skeeter F-80 Strada

Nice work on the boat, and I feel your pain on moving plants inside, too. This is the time of year when kids activities and weather cut my opportunities to fish, so it is nice being able to do maintenance and improvement projects on the days that I can’t fish so that I don’t lose as many fishing days for repairs when the weather does get better.

Originally Posted by jjue1979

Nice work on the boat, and I feel your pain on moving plants inside, too. This is the time of year when kids activities and weather cut my opportunities to fish, so it is nice being able to do maintenance and improvement projects on the days that I can’t fish so that I don’t lose as many fishing days for repairs when the weather does get better.

I'm replacing the boat I leave on The Rez, retiring my old Blazer. Also lining up projects while the deep freeze is on.

Like the Energizer Bunny work continues here. Swapping the Hydraulic Steering from my old Blazer VL100 to the Skeeter dealing with existing holes in the console prevented a accurate layout for mounting the Seastar Helm Pump. A pattern was needed to control the Holesaw from walking across the gelcoat as well as new mounting holes were needed very close to the edge of the existing center hole.



Using a piece of drop 3/16 aluminum sheet, a Dometic mounting pattern, some blue tape, and a center punch I first laid out where the new hole centers would be located on the aluminum.



I have the aluminum tightly clamped onto the drilling deck of my drill press. Aluminum cutting wax stick is used to lubricate the holesaw and slow speeds to reduce the chatter & sticking of the holesaw to the aluminum.



Now that the center 3in hole is cut I center a 5/16th bit on the stud mounting holes and drill those holes. Once that is done the aluminum is cut to square up the sides with the Helm so no matter how this new tool is used as long as one of the sides is level the Helm Pump will be level with the fill hole on top.



Now I'm left with a bunch of sharp edges & burrs. If I leave those and clamp the new template tool on to the gelcoat permanent damage will occur.



Using a "Surfacing Pad" on a air die grinder I polish every edge & burr smooth beveling the outer edges so no hard edge will come in contact with the gelcoat.



After centering the new center hole as best a possible allowing the same amount of stud mounting hole material all around I clamp the template tool to drill the first hole. As soon as the first hole is drilled I put a bolt securing the template then drill a opposing hole and bolt it. Now after that I can drill both the remaining holes. I used 3/16th thick aluminum so it would serve as a drilling guide for the holesaw & drill bit too.



The aluminum template is controlling the holesaw perfectly.



A bit of work in upfront fabrication but a template tool for perfectly fitting a Seastar helm to this Skeeter is fabricated. It will be useful as well for the numerous future Hydraulic Steering Installs that I will do. Makes the drilling a breeze.

Busy Bee ��!!

looks great. ��

BON TEMPS!

Yea, I'm rolling on it again today. I expect it will be ready to dunk in the water by this evening. Then I will start hooking up the engine on the Blazer.

Still Goin', the shift cable outer cover started peeling. Time for new control cables. Timing is good since I'm swapping boats with this engine.



Most controls work similar here I remove the bottom cover over the control cable, not cables because the throttle cable is on the Hot Foot under the console. OMC uses cotter pins & flat washers to retain the cables on the moving pins. The cover starts falling off your control cables rust set in making them hard to move over time.



I like this Quicksilver Grease, good stuff for Controls.



After liberally adding grease to the moving shift pin I place the cable on locking the fixed Boss into the casting. Then add the flat washer & cotter pin so the moving joint is well lubricated.



After replacing the control cable cover on the Control itself I plug the PT&T plug and Ignition Circuit plug into the Control before pushing both back thru the access hole.



Well I ran into another problem, the control handle hit the hull on forward movement. I used the drop holesaw disc in the front and stainless very large 1/4in fender washers in the back to make the control miss the hull when shifted fully forward. I didn't want to use the thick spacer, it moves the Control further out than I like.



I also installed the Humminbird 999CI SI that I use around the house here. I like these as even though the processors are slower the mapping has so much less data I think these spot locations represented on the screen are faster than newer equipment. Legacy equipment works.

Now that the controls and Hot Foot have the new control cables installed moving to the Stern and finishing the job on the Etec itself is next.



It starts with the engine harness, unlike Yamaha OMC Etec engine harnesses have multiple plugs and on this engine connect with a cover on top of the engine. Another cover tops this connection area and was added once all the connections were made and the water pressure hose connected to the block.



Etec's control cables land under the lower cowling so the lower cowlings are stripped off for access. The Battery cable, Control Cables, Ambilocal Cable, Water Pressure Hose, and Fuel Hose all run thru a grommet within the lower cowling.



All hooked up now ready for the Engine Covers.



All that plastic once reinstalled makes a huge difference in appearance. The new fuel line is primed, I do that before connecting to the engine or the Primer Bulb will not prime itself.



Cockpit is complete. Now all that is left is mounting the Bow Electronics.

Looking great Rojo, as always. Looking fast and sleek...