76 Custom Sea Ray Restoration Almost Complete

lucky enuff

Member
Sep 14, 2009
72
Lake Ontario
Boat Info
1976 customized 240 SRV
Engines
2008 Mercury 250 Optimax Outboard
I'd like to share some pics with you guys of my classic Ray.

I purchased my 1976 SRV 240 sport bridge back in 2007, and in 2010 I began to customize and restore it to suit my needs. I'd work on it in the spring and fall, while using it a lot during the summer while salmon fishing on Lake Ontario. It originally had a flybridge and twin mercruiser 165's. I cut off the bridge and raised the custom top 6" so normal size people can stand up without hitting their head.

I then added walls to make it an enclosed pilot house. Next big job was pulling the I/O's, doing a lot of fabrication to close up the outdrive holes in the transom, rebuilding the floor and installing an Armstrong outboard bracket and a Mercury optimax 250 outboard.

My last phase began 5 weeks ago. I am finally dressing it up, which is the most enjoyable and aesthetically rewarding project I've done to it. I've chosen a combination of Fighting Lady Yellow and Snow White with a black pinstripe.

One month to go and my long restoration journey will be finished !! It's taken a long time, but she only missed one season out of the 11 I've owned it back in 2010 when I removed the bridge. That job took all summer. I have well over 2000 hours on her since I bought it. Love this boat !!

Here's where she's at as of today.

lucky enuff one month to go.jpg


Here's how I bought it in 07
lucky enuff original.jpg
 
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Nice to see a restoration that goes beyond and is a true custom build. Not losing out on enjoying is a real plus I'm sure that aspect allowed you to keep motivated and rework plans as you went along great job I'd love to see more pics
 
I'd like to share some pics with you guys of my classic Ray.

I purchased my 1976 SRV 240 sport bridge back in 2007, and in 2010 I began to customize and restore it to suit my needs. I'd work on it in the spring and fall, while using it a lot during the summer while salmon fishing on Lake Ontario. It originally had a flybridge and twin mercruiser 165's. I cut off the bridge and raised the custom top 6" so normal size people can stand up without hitting their head.

I then added walls to make it an enclosed pilot house. Next big job was pulling the I/O's, doing a lot of fabrication to close up the outdrive holes in the transom, rebuilding the floor and installing an Armstrong outboard bracket and a Mercury optimax 250 outboard.

My last phase began 5 weeks ago. I am finally dressing it up, which is the most enjoyable and aesthetically rewarding project I've done to it. I've chosen a combination of Fighting Lady Yellow and Snow White with a black pinstripe.

One month to go and my long restoration journey will be finished !! It's taken a long time, but she only missed one season out of the 11 I've owned it back in 2010 when I removed the bridge. That job took all summer. I have well over 2000 hours on her since I bought it. Love this boat !!

Here's where she's at as of today.

View attachment 60839

Here's how I bought it in 07
View attachment 60840

I can see a lot of love and passion went into her! Where did your vision come from to set it up like that? She's a
beauty. Love to see more photo's
 
Thanks Guys !!! I appreciate the kind words. I'd love to share the projects, stories and photos with you all. It might take me a little while, so I'll start from current and go backwards project as the "major" upgrades happened over the span of 8 years.

I own a furniture restoration business, so creating visions for items in shabby condition is a pretty day to day routine here. The current phase is my last I hope, and I felt the lipstick was the least important. I'm so happy to be doing it finally though, because it feels like a whole new boat to me.

We mostly use the boat on the great lakes salmon fishing. However, I took it to The Florida Keys for my 50th birthday (we live in Pa) and that started a whole new chain of events which led the the outboard conversion and the recent modifications. On Dec 15th, she heads back to Key West for a month.

Anyway....the paint project started 5 weeks ago. This is how she looked. I had painted it white back in 2008, so after 10 years it was getting pretty beat up.

lucky enuff paint restoration 1.jpg


The paint from 10 years ago was starting to chip, so unfortunately I had to remove it with stripper which took way too long. It got the job done though. I was determined not to do all this work only to have it fail because I painted over a bad foundation.
lucky enuff paint restoration 3.jpg


I struggled over the color scheme for two years lol! I finally opted for Fighting Lady Yellow ( and I don't even like yellow) over Sea Foam Green and white blue. Partially because I just thought the hull would take yellow better than the others, and partially because it payed homage to an original color this hull was offered in.

My plan was to use Awlgrip, but in the final moments I opted for a one part paint Wet Edge from Total Boat instead of the two system paint like awlgrip. While I do like the Total Boat Wet Edge products a lot, I wish I'd stayed with a two part system because the single stage paint dries and cures way too slow in fall Pa conditions. But from an application and look standpoint, I've been nothing but impressed.

lucky enuff paint restoration 2.jpg


I started out by spraying on the Wet Edge, but found it difficult to spray. It was either too thin and ran or too thick and wasn't smooth enough. I learned the the rolling and tipping actually gave me the best smoothest finish. It's so smooth and flawless, very little buffing and rubbing out will be needed.

lucky enuff paint restoration 4.jpg



Thanks for reading. I will continue this story in a few days after I finish up the hull today and tomorrow.
 
Did you confirm that the weight of the outboards that far aft will not be an issue? Has this been done successfully by others?
 
Did you confirm that the weight of the outboards that far aft will not be an issue? Has this been done successfully by others?

Did I confirm, as in have an engineer work through the mathematics ? No,, but I didn't go through that extensive project without doing my research. Many boats have had such conversions, though I can't confirm any similar Sea Rays have.

I can't tell you I wasn't nervous. The transom was dry and very solid, but there was always that thought of the unknown in the back of my mind. The boat wasn't designed for an outboard, so can it handle it??
I felt it could, especially once I really got into the transom. My biggest worry BY FAR was trailering it. If anything fails, i would expect it to be on the trailer. At least that's how it works in my head lol

I was a nervous wreck towing it the 350 miles to her summer home. It was fine though. We put 200 hours on the boat that summer, and trailered it from NY to Key West Florida....and back (3000 miles). She was fine. Since then, she's done two more seasons of harsh lake Ontario conditions with another 300 hours and another 1500 road miles on the trailer.

It's been absolutely perfect, and I use it hard !! I still worry a little. It's just my nature, but I worry a lot less and only when It's on the trailer.

So i'm going to say it;s been confirmed. One of these days soon I will put up pics of the outboard conversion project.

Here's a pic from two summers ago taking off during a shotgun start in a fishing tournament on Lake Ontario.

lucky enuff shotgun start oswego.jpg
 
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One more thing about the outboard conversion. It's a 30" btacket to allow the motor to trim all the way up. It was built specifically for this boat by Armstrong. I had one designed for twin outboards and it's rated up to 600 hp, but I decided that putting the weight of two outboards on this transom required bigger kahunas than I have so I went with a single. Could it handle twins, I don't know ? I do know it's overbuilt for a single so I'm happy with that. She does mid 30's right now, but a new 300 is in the works within the next two years and that would be the perfect hp for this boat.
 
Ah....I missed the fact that you have actually run the boat with this set up. That is confirmation that the concept works. I wonder if SR would have engineered some added strength into the hull sides and aft hull in general to deal with the cycles of stress that occur with hours of running with the longer arm that you have added. Not trying to rain on your parade. I'm just naturally curious about things in general. It's a very nice looking conversion. Wish you the best with it.
 
I think its a totally legit question sbw1, I'm glad you asked. I love Tiara's btw. Many of my lake O friends have them.
Some guys add knee braces and tie them into the stringers. Triangulation definitely works. My boat doesn't have stringers that run back to the transom, so I didn't see them as being an option and honestly on a well built boat they are not always needed IMO
A lot of brackets have a wide platform which can distribute the tensile loads over a lot of bolts. Each bolt has a bearing capacity on the transom, so the more bolts the more the total capacity (even though each one's capacity reduces with more bolts). As long as your bolts spread its load over a large enough area it should be good.
More importantly, you have to examine the transom as a single unit. A lot less theory involved, a lot more fact based on the condition and strength of your transom.
 
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Since the subject came up, let me show you guys the I/O to outboard conversion. The boat originally had twin inline 6 cyl 165's. I had replaced both with rebuild motors and replaced both outdrives with SDE outdrives. Then I fell in love with the Florida keys. I decided this hull is perfect for me, I don't need another boat. I just needed to make some changes.
lucky enuff 2.0  7.jpg


I decided to pull the motors and convert to outboard after I returned from having it in Key Largo for a month. I had a warm weather window in December and pulled both motors.

lucky enuff 2.0  6jpg.jpg
 
Since the subject came up, let me show you guys the I/O to outboard conversion. The boat originally had twin inline 6 cyl 165's. I had replaced both with rebuild motors and replaced both outdrives with SDE outdrives. Then I fell in love with the Florida keys. I decided this hull is perfect for me, I don't need another boat. I just needed to make some changes.
View attachment 61030

I decided to pull the motors and convert to outboard after I returned from having it in Key Largo for a month. I had a warm weather window in December and pulled both motors.

View attachment 61031
That was a pretty nice set up as well. I owned a 1979 26 foot Express cruiser that I ran for nearly 4000 hours. It had a 350 V8 making 260 HP. The boat also came with twin 350s as an option although it sat very low in the water with that power arrangement. If I had known about the twin sixes I might have done that instead of a single 350.
 
Sorry about that one being sideways....lol

I ordered my bracket based on the specs of my hull. It was around $3500 I think because I went with a twin engine bracket. I think singles were only like a grand or so, but I really wanted the larger bracket for a multitude of reasons.

Here's the bracket once I got it.
lucky enuff 2.0  13.jpg

I didn't take pictures of filling in the outdrive holes or any of that process. Essentially, I routed a shiplap grove on the inside of the transom. I then cut a piece of ply to fit in the hole and glued it in place using 3M 5200. The transom was 2" thick. I still had to add another piece of ply, this time to the exterior side of the transom cut to the shape of the hole. No shiplap edge on the outside. I used 5200 between the two pieces of ply and screwed them together. The shiplap edge on the interior locks the two together, and the 5200 sealed the deal. With two holes because I had twin I/O's, I had to do this process twice.

I then used bondo to smooth out the transom and then several coats of epoxy resin and cloth. I then had to mock up where the bracket would be mounted and pre drill the holes. That was harder than it sounds lol
lucky enuff 2.0  3.jpg
 
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