# 1978 Starcraft Super Sport rebuild



## lugoismad (Apr 19, 2018)

I purchased this 1978 Starcraft Super Sport for $600 last month.












The previous owner had recarpeted the interior, but besides that, it was in pretty rough shape.






Luckily, I had some help






My headlight for getting back to do the dock after night fishing






Bought a switch panel, voltemeter and USB charger on amazon for $25.






The previous owner swore up and down the transom was in great shape. Lies. It has a termite infestation.






Cut a new transom out of birch plywood.






Coated it in resin.






And installed with all new stainless hardware.






Decided to go ahead and paint the whole boat while I was at it.
















And figured a stripe couldn't hurt.






My wife sacrificed a cutting board for me.






Went ahead and installed a new dashboard too with some of the left over birch. The old one was pretty dry rotten.






Installed new back rests around the bow too






It floats!






But the 25hp motor was comically underpowered. We topped out at 8.9mph according to the GPS on my fishfinder.

Picked up a new powerplant to go on it, last night.






1971 OMC 50E with controls and everything I need for $500. I just had to buy a couple adapters to get my steering cable to work with it.

My vinyl graphics for the hull registration and boat name came in this morning.


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## Weldorthemagnificent (Apr 19, 2018)

Nice! You stole it at that price!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## BillPlayfoot (Apr 19, 2018)

You did a nice job. Looks great.
I liked the one I had.
The 16 foot Starcraft I had was a 1976. With the 30 Johnson it had a top speed of 26 mph.


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## LDUBS (Apr 19, 2018)

You have a very nice boat. Lugo should be happy now!

You bought the boat last month? Seriously, you moved this along really fast. Nicely done.


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## lugoismad (Apr 19, 2018)

This evenings project - Cabin lighting.






Probably going to do some in the bow too.

Its just LED strip lighting with 3M sticky tape on the back. I'll probably have to drill a hole along the inside rail on the gunnel every foot or so and use a zip tie to hold it up, it doesn't seem like that sticky tape is that strong.


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## lugoismad (Apr 19, 2018)

LDUBS said:


> You bought the boat last month? Seriously, you moved this along really fast. Nicely done.



I keeps me out of trouble in the evenings. I work a few hours on it from around 4pm till dinner.


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## lckstckn2smknbrls (Apr 21, 2018)

Birch plywood is usually an interior grade meaning it's not made with waterproof glue and will delaminate quickly when wet.
When you say you coated you transom with resin do you mean epoxy resin or polyester resin? If you used polyester resin did you use fiber glass cloth? The outer transom board looks to be OSB? OSB will not stand up to constant moisture.


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## lugoismad (Apr 22, 2018)

lckstckn2smknbrls said:


> Birch plywood is usually an interior grade meaning it's not made with waterproof glue and will delaminate quickly when wet.
> When you say you coated you transom with resin do you mean epoxy resin or polyester resin? If you used polyester resin did you use fiber glass cloth? The outer transom board looks to be OSB? OSB will not stand up to constant moisture.



Birch Plywood was used because it doesn't have any voids in it, compared to regular plywood. It was coated with epoxy resin.

Yes, I used a piece of OSB on the outside. Its easy to replace if I ever need to, but it got soaked in about 4 coats of oil based paint, so I'm not too worried about it absorbing water.


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## LDUBS (Apr 22, 2018)

lugoismad said:


> lckstckn2smknbrls said:
> 
> 
> > Birch plywood is usually an interior grade meaning it's not made with waterproof glue and will delaminate quickly when wet.
> ...



Well maybe kinda sorta not considered best practices by many. Hopefully your effort to protect the interior ply and OSB will work. It would be interesting to hear back with a long term review of how these held up.


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## lugoismad (Apr 22, 2018)

LDUBS said:


> lugoismad said:
> 
> 
> > lckstckn2smknbrls said:
> ...



I did a lot of reading online and a lot of people suggested the birch plywood if you didn't have marine plywood available.


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## lckstckn2smknbrls (Apr 22, 2018)

You don't need Marine grade plywood. Exterior grade works fine. ABX, BCX, CCX even CDX will work.
Just never use Pressure treated wood on an aluminum boat.


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## LDUBS (Apr 22, 2018)

lugoismad said:


> I did a lot of reading online and a lot of people suggested the birch plywood if you didn't have marine plywood available.




10-4, though I'm not sure why that would be suggested over exterior grade ply. Hopefully it will work well for you. Main thing is to get that boat out and get some fish slime all over it!


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## Colorado1135 (Apr 25, 2018)

I'll be doing a very similar project here soon. 
I have a couple of questions
1. for the switches on amazon, do you have a link to the ones you got?
2. how did you do the backrests? mine are about shot and will need to be redone.
3. for the wiring you did, do you have fuses to protect it? I'm not sure if I want to do a panel or inline fuses for each thing I want to do.
4. does it have a livewell? what did you have to do (if anything) for that? on my boat it was removed before I got it so I have to start from scratch. I'm curious where they had it originally.
5. did you redo the deck? if so what did the underside/bilge look like? any concerns you had to address that I should be prepared for?

sorry for the multitude of questions but any info I can have before tearing into mine would be a huge help. TIA


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## eshaw (Apr 25, 2018)

"Its just LED strip lighting with 3M sticky tape on the back. I'll probably have to drill a hole along the inside rail on the gunnel every foot or so and use a zip tie to hold it up, it doesn't seem like that sticky tape is that strong."

They make those strip lights with holders for it so you don't have to worry about the tape staying sticky.


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## lugoismad (Apr 25, 2018)

eshaw said:


> "Its just LED strip lighting with 3M sticky tape on the back. I'll probably have to drill a hole along the inside rail on the gunnel every foot or so and use a zip tie to hold it up, it doesn't seem like that sticky tape is that strong."
> 
> They make those strip lights with holders for it so you don't have to worry about the tape staying sticky.



I bought some of the holders and they suck. Super flimsy and a real pain in the butt to install. Zipties are easier.


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## lugoismad (Apr 25, 2018)

Colorado1135 said:


> I'll be doing a very similar project here soon.
> I have a couple of questions
> 1. for the switches on amazon, do you have a link to the ones you got?
> 2. how did you do the backrests? mine are about shot and will need to be redone.
> ...




1. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073VBTBF6

2. I went to JoAnn Fabric and picked out some marine grade vinyl ($20 a yard, ouch!) and used a staple gun to wrap some 1x4s.

3. The item I linked you in #1 comes with inline fuses for each switch. but I hated the way they had it setup. All switches shared a single 14 gauge positive wire. Thats just..dumb. So I rewired it so each switch is on its own feeder wire from my fusebox.

I used this fuse box https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QMTAZ1W I really like it because the LED lights up if you have a blown fuse, making troubleshooting really easy.

So, I had most of a 100ft roll of 6 gauge wire laying around from a previous project. For the ground, I went to the hardware store and got a ground bus bar like this one https://www.amazon.com/Square-Schneider-Electric-PK15GTACP-Terminal/dp/B0052DMFU8 Thats screwed in under my dash and has a 6 gauge wire running from it directly to the ground on my battery. Another 6 gauge wire feeds the main input on the fuse box that I linked. Then, from each spade terminal on the fuse box, it goes to the input on the switch, then from the switch to my device.

I didn't switch my fish finder, I didn't think that was necessary since it has its own off switch.

Also, in the back of the boat near my battery the positive feeder wire has a 40amp DC breaker, just in case it somehow shorts between the back of the boat and under the dashboard.

4. I don't have a livewell. I'm planning on modifying a cooler to act as one, but I don't typically use a lot of live bait, nor do I fish tournaments where I need to keep fish alive.

5. The previous owner redid the deck. I didn't like how he hadn't left much open in the back so you could see down into the bilge, so I cut a larger hole. I like to be able to look back and verify there is no water in the bilge.


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