2003 Sport Nautique 216 Limited - Project

[Boilermakers]

I’ve been meaning to post this for while - we had a baby several weeks back and haven't made it to the lake yet, so I figured I'd use the time we would have been on the lake today to share.


Boat: 2003 Sport Nautique 216 Limited

Project Start: March 2019


Backstory:

My wife and I had been looking for a stock Sport Nautique from the 90’s, like the one she had growing up, for a while. After several months of looking, nothing came available that met our criteria. One of my coworkers, who has restored a number of DD ski boats, talked me into looking for the cheapest/roughest boat I could find with a good compression test...which led me to a 216 in east Texas.


The boat was purchased by a family in the Northeast and then turned back into Nautique within a year, and Nautique sent it to Sea World-San Antonio until 2007-2008 (I heard the show was either canceled or downsized at this point). The boat was then sent to a summer camp in east Texas, where it pulled wakeboarders and tubes for a number of years in a fleet of nautique camp boats.


I’m a sucker for a deal and a story-and this had both, so I drove to east Texas to take a look at it. What everyone said about camp boats was true, it was ROUGH. Everything was loose and had play/rattled. The vinyl and carpet had large holes throughout, lots of damage to the gel coat, and there was red mud everywhere. But, mechanically, it appeared to be sound.


So I bought it - here’s why:

• Good Compression Test
• Maintenance HIstory- The camp had about a dozen inboard DD’s and had a Mastercraft trained mechanic on staff, who was meticulous about maintaining the motors - in the 10+ years he had been there, they had never replaced a motor in any of their boats and all of them had over 1000 hours.
• And...it was cheap - about 20% of the current market for these boats.

Work that was done to restore:

• Gel Coat was patched where needed
• Wet Sand, polish, wax
• New Rub rail
• New Carpet throughout and on vertical surfaces
• Replaced Vinyl with OEM pattern
• Replaced broken component in Faria Gateway Box - which went from 2-3 gauges working to 5 gauges working after the repair.
• Plugged speedo line and added Perfect Pass.
• Cleaned interior hard vinyl surfaces
• New Speakers - existing Clarion head unit works well
• Replaced Packing on rudder and drive shaft(and aligned), replaced mounts.
• Replaced all lights and re-wired bilge and other accessories that weren’t working.
• Repair/refinish swim platform
• Re-fiberglassed wrapped muffler
• Had Aluminum walk through support re-welded
• Small fortune in misc hardware from NautiqueParts, Mniboats, and Skidim

Before Pictures





During Pictures





After Pictures








The boat is still a work in progress - needs decals (can’t decide on what to go with) and trailer needs either repaired or replaced (would like a tandem axle), but due to having a baby, minimal work will happen this year. Anyway, we did spend a number of days on it late last year and even took it to Table Rock Lake for a long weekend, and have loved it. Runs very well and we’re making some good memories on it.


I have a lot more pictures, if there are specific questions. Let me know!

Enjoy!

[Timr71]

Nice job! Great turnaround. Enjoy!

[Boilermakers]

Thank you - We have enjoyed it!

[SilentSeven]

Looks great! That's quite the transformation.....

Can you share more about the Faria box fix?

[Bud]

Awesome job. Good for you for having the courage and vision to attack that one. Love that model too. Would love to see more pics. Or link to an online photo album.

[SilentSeven]

PS: How do you like your Nautic laugic addition to the PP? (hint: I noticed the square GPS antenna)

[Neptune442]

Wow, those after pics are absolutely unbelievable! Looks right off the showroom floor. That boat is sure lucky to have found you

[Boilermakers]

Looks great! That's quite the transformation.....

Can you share more about the Faria box fix?

Thanks for the kind words - lots of good information on this site helped make it happen!

Let me see if I can answer your questions-

• Faria Box - Several of the gauges were dead when I bought it and was going to do the conversion available through nautiqueparts. I decided to open the box first and see if there was anything noticeably wrong. What I found was there was no sign of water in the box and one of the capacitors on the board was loose. Ordered a like-for-like replacement from digikey and had it installed and circuit board cleaned. The only gauge that doesn't work now is the voltmeter, and since that info is available through the tach, I'm guessing it's the gauge that's bad, and the box is fine.

• Nautic Logic - My PP currently needs a new servo, so haven't been able use it with PP for speed control yet. I have been using Nautic Logic/PP for the speedometer after plugging the speedometer pitot lines and it has been very responsive. Not had any issues with it's connectivity and it finds signal quickly when turning the boat on. So I've been happy with my limited use of it so far.

[Boilermakers]

Awesome job. Good for you for having the courage and vision to attack that one. Love that model too. Would love to see more pics. Or link to an online photo album.

I'll look through what I have this weekend and try to add some more of the better photo's. Lots of what I have are the "I'm never going to figure out how to rewire this if I don't take a picture" photo's, so I'll see if I can find more of the different stages that show progress.

[SilentSeven]

Faria Box - Several of the gauges were dead when I bought it and was going to do the conversion available through nautiqueparts. I decided to open the box first and see if there was anything noticeably wrong. What I found was there was no sign of water in the box and one of the capacitors on the board was loose. Ordered a like-for-like replacement from digikey and had it installed and circuit board cleaned. The only gauge that doesn't work now is the voltmeter, and since that info is available through the tach, I'm guessing it's the gauge that's bad, and the box is fine.

Thanks! If you have pics of this, I'm sure there will be some interest. I'm guessing you've read the faria box bloodbath thread.... You might save someone!

[Boilermakers]

Thanks! If you have pics of this, I'm sure there will be some interest. I'm guessing you've read the faria box bloodbath thread.... You might save someone!

Definitely read that thread - and guessing it's a matter of time before a combo of dead gauges and box issues will push me to reconsider the conversion.

Happy to share my experience though, based on what I found, I think it's partially luck of the draw. When I pulled the box out of the boat, there was an audible rattle. With plans to scrap the box and complete the conversion, figured there was nothing to lose by opening the box.

Using a razor blade, 1 inch putty knife, some shims, and a small flat head screwdriver, I separated the adhesive at the case seam. During the process, I did end up cracking the case in several spots on the flange. Apparently, good adhesive from the manufacturer combined with old plastic were a recipe for this, but was able to repair when I reassembled.

Found a capacitor loose in the bottom of the box and after inspection of the board, identified the spot where it belonged. Based on the other components on the board and the outline of where it should go, it seemed like it should have been secured with adhesive and banded to the board. There was nothing else in the box, so it doesn't appear that the capacitor was secured to the board in any way, other than the soldered leads, from the factory. Which would make sense that the leads would fatigue over time, since this area of the boat probably sees vibration resonate from the exhaust, driveline and movement while being trailered.

Replaced the capacitor with an equivalent from digikey.com, lots of good options on that site. I have a friend that does electronic repair and fabrication and he repaired the board and cleaned it. As a part of the repair, the capacitor was also secured to the board, so the failure wouldn't occur again. I'd call either a ham radio repair shop or an electronics repair shop if I didn't already have someone I knew to fix it.

One other thing to note, there was no water intrusion from the pitot tubes into the box. I plugged tubes and started using PP for speed.

Here's a picture of the board with the empty slot and holding the capacitor up to it for reference. Note the other components have some sort of adhesive/sealant on them. I didn't find any other pictures of this repair- but it was pretty straight forward to inspect once the box was open.

[SilentSeven]

Thanks for this...helpful! Are you saying you did or did not have water intrusion? I think no...but wasn't sure from the wording.

And since we're doing Q&A...

Did you have the upholstery done locally or are the skins via C&M? I really like the contrasting piping you selected!
You did a nice job of cleaning up the grab rail/speaker boards. How did you do that?
Does Nautic logic box run the factory dash speedo with pitot tubes unplugged? Or are you getting the speed from the PP display?

[Boilermakers]

Thanks for this...helpful! Are you saying you did or did not have water intrusion? I think no...but wasn't sure from the wording.

And since we're doing Q&A...

Did you have the upholstery done locally or are the skins via C&M? I really like the contrasting piping you selected!
You did a nice job of cleaning up the grab rail/speaker boards. How did you do that?
Does Nautic logic box run the factory dash speedo with pitot tubes unplugged? Or are you getting the speed from the PP display?

Good catch - no water intrusion in the box.

Happy to share. I spent a lot of time reading threads on this forum to get the boat to where it is today - so I'm glad to share some of my experience.

Before I get into it, I recognize what the boat is and what it isn't. It'll never be worth what a low hour, one owner, meticulously maintained boat would be(although it's priceless to us!). So, I spent more on good carpet and vinyl, and in less noticeable places, I was more cost effective (panels and spot gel coat repair instead of re-spray).

• Vinyl - I really like the contrasting piping as well! I used Custom Marine Covers located in Fremont, Indiana. They were recommended in a round about way by Nautique (found out they do some warranty work and repairs for Nautique), so loaded seats up in a box trailer and drove to Indiana. Custom Marine Covers had the original patterns, used oem vinyl where they could, and were able to do the logos as well, which was important since what was left of the original vinyl was incomplete. I had them change all the 'Nautique' lettering in the boat to logos and remove the gold vinyl(hence the blue piping). The job took about 5 months and cost ~$5k for the interior, which seemed fair based on quotes from local shops and C and S. The work was great, they were very meticulous/detailed and it showed in the finished product.
• Panels - The panels had been worn down in spots to the vinyl backing and the plastic frames were cracked in a number of places. I used Kydex and epoxy to repair the cracks and reinforce the panels. I plan on having them recovered with vinyl at some point in the future and am still looking for a shop to do it. Until then, I used SEM vinyl paint system. Followed the directions, for prep, application and sealing, and haven't had any issues with them yet. If you sit down next to it, you can tell that they aren't perfect, but look much better than what they were.
• As far as Nautic Logic, I haven't figured out how to get speed to the box to run the factory gauge...so it's just the PP gauge for now.

[SilentSeven]

Thanks for the answers. The sweat equity is in this rebuild is so huge...the work to do the carpet alone is massive! And kudos to your upholstry shop...it really does look nice. Finally, I was wondering if you might not have used some automotive type spray or similar on the dash and speaker panels - it sure looks better than what came of out of the boat.

Lots of neat tricks you used....I think you win the award for the biggest cosmetic turnaround.

[bturner]

Very impressive restoration. I've done portions of this on several project boats over the years but never all of them on one boat. Lots of hours and dedication to get to this point, my hat's off to you sir!

I'm getting ready to do the Nautic Logic upgrade to my 2016 200 Sport. My biggest apprehension is mounting the GPS receiver. I did a StarGazer installation on my previous boat and mounted the receiver under the dash in an area with a clear path above and directly under the thin plastic of the dash pad. I plan on trying this again to see if lightening will strike twice. If not hitting the seam to route the cable like you did will be my second preference. The thought of drilling a 1/2" hole through the deck to routed the PS/2 type connector is just something I want to avoid if at all possible.