Howdy I’ve been working on my ranger 17 like yours for 5 years now. I ripped out my swollen deck and removed the top cap. I repaired over 500 holes,replaced foam and deck and cut out the tank area. I cut out the rotten wood in the transom replaced with 3 inches of coosa. I still have to fair the sides of the hull and repair the indentations on the bottom from the rollers on the trailer, also reattach the top cap. Oh I forgot , I reinforced the the whole top cap and cut out the rotten hatch and wood. While I’m at it , I’m relocating the gas tank to where the fish box was. This is the project from hell. If I knew what I was getting into I would never have done it. I sold my aluminum klamath for this ,it ran great, fished all the time….. Now that I have torn apart the whole boat and rebuilt it I have come to the conclusion that they are not the boats people say they are. They’re made sloppily with mediocre materials. While repairing the top cap I discovered they used many pieces of 8 x 8 x 1/4“ pieces of wood instead of solid boards. Looks like a bunch of scraps. I can see the end of the tunnel now and hope to finish it by the rock cod opener. Anyway good luck with your can of worms…..
Thanks for the comment and insight! Yes it is easy to just keep digging into the rabbit hole once you tell yourself "I'm already this far". But i know when its one solid piece again i will be glad i went the extra mile. I too was not that impressed with the build and internals, i am no pro glasser but the bulkhead into the foam stringer face was just nearly pointless.. You can see all the pressure cracks because it was not very structural at all.. Also saw why these boats are so light, they are quite thin!! Thats maybe why rollers are not ideal for them. But i will say you can tell someone spent allot of time on how to make it all one structural piece together between the cap, liner, and hull, this might be the reason they were able to make it so light weight. They seemed to be structurally relying on each other. Should be a fun maiden voyage with this beaut on the local lake!! Im with you there, if i can get out in the salt by rock fish opener ill be happy, especially since they pushed it way back in the year now! Maybe we can meet up and compare refurbishing some day in the hopefully near future. Good luck and tight lines!
I ended up buying ANOTHER center console project boat with a nice low hour 90hp outboard motor i am going to swap with, the catch was a blown out transom and rotted stringers.. I am about 70% done with that job then its back to the Arima! Tedious work!!
This is a crazy amount of work. My Arima 17ft sea chaser has a deck thats starting to crack. Wondering if I could just cut out and replace the deck after watching this. Im not a fiberglass guy at all. Cant wait to see this come back together
That is absolutely insane. The boat was definitely a lost cause but your going to bring it back from the depths. Atleast I hope.
Howdy I’ve been working on my ranger 17 like yours for 5 years now. I ripped out my swollen deck and removed the top cap. I repaired over 500 holes,replaced foam and deck and cut out the tank area. I cut out the rotten wood in the transom replaced with 3 inches of coosa. I still have to fair the sides of the hull and repair the indentations on the bottom from the rollers on the trailer, also reattach the top cap. Oh I forgot , I reinforced the the whole top cap and cut out the rotten hatch and wood. While I’m at it , I’m relocating the gas tank to where the fish box was. This is the project from hell. If I knew what I was getting into I would never have done it.
I sold my aluminum klamath for this ,it ran great, fished all the time….. Now that I have torn apart the whole boat and rebuilt it I have come to the conclusion that they are not the boats people say they are. They’re made sloppily with mediocre materials. While repairing the top cap I discovered they used many pieces of 8 x 8 x 1/4“ pieces of wood instead of solid boards. Looks like a bunch of scraps. I can see the end of the tunnel now and hope to finish it by the rock cod opener. Anyway good luck with your can of worms…..
Thanks for the comment and insight! Yes it is easy to just keep digging into the rabbit hole once you tell yourself "I'm already this far". But i know when its one solid piece again i will be glad i went the extra mile. I too was not that impressed with the build and internals, i am no pro glasser but the bulkhead into the foam stringer face was just nearly pointless.. You can see all the pressure cracks because it was not very structural at all.. Also saw why these boats are so light, they are quite thin!! Thats maybe why rollers are not ideal for them. But i will say you can tell someone spent allot of time on how to make it all one structural piece together between the cap, liner, and hull, this might be the reason they were able to make it so light weight. They seemed to be structurally relying on each other. Should be a fun maiden voyage with this beaut on the local lake!! Im with you there, if i can get out in the salt by rock fish opener ill be happy, especially since they pushed it way back in the year now! Maybe we can meet up and compare refurbishing some day in the hopefully near future. Good luck and tight lines!
How's the project coming? Would love a follow-up video
I ended up buying ANOTHER center console project boat with a nice low hour 90hp outboard motor i am going to swap with, the catch was a blown out transom and rotted stringers.. I am about 70% done with that job then its back to the Arima! Tedious work!!
This is a crazy amount of work. My Arima 17ft sea chaser has a deck thats starting to crack. Wondering if I could just cut out and replace the deck after watching this. Im not a fiberglass guy at all. Cant wait to see this come back together
wow, nice.
where is it ?
u have all these boats....
Bro what are u doing cutting the hull brah just sand it slap some glass on it
eeeeeeh u r cutting the boat.... wow