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18' ADVANTAGE Bubledeck Project

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advantage bubledeck project
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48K views 197 replies 38 participants last post by  holorinhal  
#1 ·
Well here we go again. I picked this project up at the beginning of the summer. It is an 18' Advantage bubledeck,which is the exact same hull as a Rogers Bonneville 18.
The boat is in pretty good codition. The Gell coat is in pretty good shape,with the exception of a sun faded spot on the deck of the transom. It is a solid boat and it did come with some decent hardware, which i probobly will not use any of it. The plan is to use every thing out of the Kona, which is all brand new hardware.
Although I won't be thrashing on this untill the fall and winter, I have started cleaning it up and stripping it down.







THE GOOD

The good things about the boat are, The Gelcoat is in decent shape.



The stringers are solid.


It came with some good dash hardware.



Has a decent tandem trailer.

THE BAD

The transom deck has a real bad faded spot that I will have to figure a fix for.

The deck and transom have holes where there were deck hardware, thru transom exhaust, and swim steps.
I do not plan on disturbing the gelcoat to fill these holes, so I will have to get creative with some cover plates.







The trailer has a broken fiberglass fender and needs to be rebunked and repainted.


I think I will need to replace the front bulk head, because Ifound a little rot in one of the corners of the bow opening.


All in all I think this will be a fun project.......Hal
 
#2 ·
Good luck Hal. Love the color of the gel. Knowing how great you did on the last one, you'll do a awesome job . :))THumbsUp
 
G
#4 ·
18 Advantage

What year is that boat. I rigged alot of those boats for Harry but most of them had e pumps in them. It was a very popular boat on the stetch river from below the Parker strip all the way to Yuma. Harry and Debbie had a trailer at Shaggy Tree which Debbie still has to this day. Great boat for that part of the river espically in the open bow .
 
#7 · (Edited)
greg shoemaker said:
What year is that boat. I rigged alot of those boats for Harry but most of them had e pumps in them. It was a very popular boat on the stetch river from below the Parker strip all the way to Yuma. Harry and Debbie had a trailer at Shaggy Tree which Debbie still has to this day. Great boat for that part of the river espically in the open bow .
Click to expand...
Hey Greg. The boat is an '86. It is funny You mention the open bow and Debbie. I have a 83 Advantage openbow ( same hull as the blue one) that I baught at the beginning of summer. We had it out at the CP regatta and Debbie was out at the sandbar, She saw the boat and was talking about how clean it was and how they did not make that boat any more and how much She lked it and would like to have it.
I got numbers from 3 different people that were begging Me to call them if I decided to sell the openbow. Here is a picture of it. The open bow does have an E pump in it.

 

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#8 ·
Hey Kevin,Yes the trailer does need to be rebunked. The boat will be comming off and put on a dolly and the bunks cut off and moved to propperly fit the hull, before any real weight ( engine) is put in it.
I need to find out where I can get the weld on bunk brackets.
 
#16 ·
Square peg in a round hole, sort of.

The idea for this build is to use all of the parts from the Kona to put this boat together. That being said, I thought I would mess around with trying to mock up and fit the interior in the boat,
Needless to say it was kind of like fitting a square peg in a round hole.
The bucket seats will work fine, but the cocktail seats are a different story. Here are a few pics.

This is the rear seating that I would like to make work.



Here is what it looks like in the boat. The seat is too long, and it has a hump that was made to fit the hump in the Kona.
I would have to do a whole lot of modifying to make it fit and then I still do not know if it would work.
I wonder if I could just build a new frame and have an upholstery shop cut up and modify the vinyl covers to fit?
If any one has any sugestions, I would love to hear them.





Maybe I will just rigit as a two seater with the front cover.

 
#17 ·
A little Rigging

I just could not help myself, so I started mocking up some rigging.
I started with fabing up the rails and stringer plates for the engine mounts. I made the rails 36" long and i set them 1/4" below the top of the stringers.



I cut the ears on the rails and drilled the stringers for the bolts.

Battery Box and Bracket

I mocked up and drilled the holes for the battery box bracket that I had fabed.

Mocked up the battery box.



Seat Brackets

Fabricated seat brackets for the the two bucket seats.
I mocked up the steering post and wheel, so that I could judge the distance back that I wanted to mount the seat. The steering post is from the Spectra and will be ano blue or polished.



 
#19 ·
Thanks Adam That's a bet I would probobly loose. I have been resisting the urge to do that, but it is like a crack head jonesing for a fix!... This is supose to be a budget build......H
 
#23 ·
Hey Sean:)hand

flat screwd said:
Hey Hal Im sure this will be a quality resto ! What ever came of the open bow Eliminator?
Click to expand...
I still have it, but it is an 18' Advantage open bow. It is the only running boat that I have right now.

HotRodJosh said:
Nice work....I'm gonna "steal" that battery mounting idea for mine....:))THumbsUp
Click to expand...
Josh, You can copy any of My work any time. That is what is so great about this forums. Lord knows I have taken alot of ideas fom here.
 
#24 ·
Here is a litle mock up of what most of the interior will look like. I will have to mock up the engine to see if I will be able to have any side or rear seating. One thing is for certain, there is no way that I will be able to modify the cocktail seats that I showed previously. They are entirely too long and I wouldnt do any thing but destroy them if i tried.





I decided to go ahead and drop the motor in for a mock up, to see what i will have to do with the engine plates and the rest of the interior.



And she is in.



Ok so with the engine in, the plates are going to have to be 2" wider ( which I allready knew becauosethe stringers are 26" and Konas were 24") and it looks like the engine will have to be droped down about 2".
I was hopeing that it would have been a little closer. i measured the kona and advantage stringers andthe advantage is abou 2"deeper.
The only problem now is that i do not have a spare block any more, to use as a fixture, so I will have to try and find one.



Another thing that is evident, is that i guess this boat will be rigged as a two seater. With the seat moved back to where it is comfortable for my fat ass, there does not look like there is enough room to even have a side or back seat.
The cock tail seats in the open bow are only 18" and there is a couple inches less here.
It also looks like the front engine shroud is a little to small. I mdified it to fit the sringers ok, but it does not quite cover the alternator pulley and belt. Still it looks a little more finnished with it there.

 
D
#28 ·
yea I know, i remember seeing the previous owner with it and some time ago he added i believe a shoe and ride plate, and i remember when he did some engine work on the ford thats in there. iv had my boat for about 8-9 seasons now and watching him do the work was exciting, i dont know why exactly but it was! probley the same as seeing you work on the blue boat now :))THumbsUp i remember when cyclone and trg each had a red and white rogers and watching those builds was a lot of fun too.


concerning the seating in your blue advantage, i just realized that im running an E pump, and the way they're installed is with a factory set-back ( for lack of a better term) so that might be something that's giving me a little more room inside for the back seats. (you mentioned not having enough room for cocktail seating)

sooner or later im going to have to make it out to the river and meet everyone, i think im finally getting to the age where it could be a reality to make the long haul.
 
#29 ·
Yes, the open bow has an E- pump also. This one runs a jc/jg and the intake is set from the builder as a half setback, where the handhole is half in and half out. I know these boats were set up with cocktail seating, I could make the seating work , by building new frames, but the seat would only seat one person. I have The driver seat set back to where I am comfortable , and the rear seats that I have are so long, that there is just no way I could make them work ,without destroying them, and I would rather just give them away ,rather than destroy them. So for now It will be rigged as a two seater.


So now for a little bit more of the bad on this boat.
This boat has a stock intake in it with no shoe and rideplate machined in it. It is just a bone stock intake. Soooo, I am faced with the decition of whether or not to pull this intake and replace it with the intake that I have cut out of the crashed up Kona, which has been machined for a shoe and ride plate. Well I guess that is a no brainer, so the intake will get pulled and replaced.






here are a couple of pics of the stock intake.
 
#34 ·
Yea Lee here we go again, I just can't seem yo leave well enough alone.

smupser said:
Hey Hal since you're gonna pull the intake couldn't you do a full set back at the same time and give you a little more rear interior room like you wanted?
Click to expand...
Yes I could, but it is already a half set back, from the factory. I am not sure I want to break all the way out the transom on this one or not. I will have to ask some questions in regards to this particular hull. I did go all the way, with the kona and it did seem to work well.

Dean Corinth said:
my father bought one awhile ago, it ws an 18ft bubble beck open bow. nice little cruiser boat, very solid. and smooth,... lots of pictures, i got excited i guess.
Click to expand...
Hey dean, I have seen that boat before, didn't it use to belong to junkyard, here on the boards? It is just like my yellow open bow. I would imagine that mine
Had bow rails and swim steps at one time, but some one must have removed them and filled the holes.
 
#33 ·
my father bought one awhile ago, it ws an 18ft bubble beck open bow. nice little cruiser boat, very solid. and smooth,... lots of pictures, i got excited i guess.
 

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#37 ·
Trailer Rebunk

Well, the trailer that came with the boat, at one time, belonged to another boat, with a totaly different bottom.
So It was neccessary to totaly readjust the bunks ,to fit the bottom of the Advantage.

Here is what the fitment looked like before.

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Blocked the boat up on the trailer and cut off all the existing brackets.

Image



I bought some 3/16" 10" x 10" plate from the scrap bin at the steel supply. I cut the plate into 5" wide pieces and then bent the shelfs.

Image


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I clamped the brackets to the trailer with the bunk wood fitted to the hull.

Image


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Image
 
#38 ·
I then took the boat off the trailer.

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I cut all the brackets to size, cleaned them up, tacked them in place then welded them up solid.


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I cut the bunk boards to length and attached them with one screw to hold them in place temporarily.
I will put the boat back on to test the fitment and then i will install all thru bolt harware.

 
#40 ·
LOL! Yea I know they are not the puuurdiest welds. I do need alot of practice.
 
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