23v prop question

[SONIC]

Hey guys,
I can't find any info on the prop that's on this boat so I figured you guys might know.

Stamped in it is:

Johnson 602 OJ 14 16 CUP

Input on this prop?
Its on a 23v that will be heavily loaded for surfing.

Just trying to figure out if I should send it off to be cleaned up or go ahead and replace with an upgrade.

[chpthril]

Id gather its a 14" dia x 16 pitch. Certainly needs repairing, but id first determine if its even a worthwhile prop for that boat and application. Step 1 is whats the v-drive ration?

[SONIC]

That's what I'm trying to figure out Mike i appreciate the help.
Vdrive is the blue Walter 1.46 to 1 I believe.

[chpthril]

Ok, in that case, a 4 blade is the right prop, now to choose the right dia and pitch. On most of the other v-drivers, 14 is about as large as you want to go. 14.5 gets a little close, risking prop burn. 16 pitch is a bit tall for a 14 and would likely show signs of reaching its limits with moderate ballast. Id suggest down in the 14" or below pitch range. lake elevation, engine, ballast, crew size, etc, all play into the options. ACME 1433 would be a mild upgrade and the 1617 would be more aggressive.

[freeheel4life]

ACME 1617 is what wakemakers recommend for heavily weighted/high altitude prop. Would be same diameter prop just less pitch. Im sure others will throw some into the mix. Elevation where boating is worth taking into account. How's the rebuild going??

[SONIC]

Thanks guys.
Elevation is 800 ft so none basically.

Rebuild is getting more and more Intense.
I'm basically down to gutted at this point, the graphics pulled some of the damn gelcoat so it looks like I'm going to strip down and redo everything from the bottom up. Ended up being a much bigger project than expected but I don't mind should be fun.

[freeheel4life]

Well at least it sounds like you are doing it right and not just throwing a wrap over it. Looking forward to some pics. Looks like your family will have a great boat where you are done.

[SONIC]

That is the plan!
I've decided to just go all out. Adding extra seating like the newer models, reshaping the dash area, moving hatches, all kinds of stupid labor intensive things haha!
Seems like when I start a project it gets more and more labor intensive until it's just ridiculous then I'm satisfied. I just finished a 2 year GMC motorhome project that took over 2000 man hours.

[freeheel4life]

Seems like you are a pretty industrious guy. Noticed in your engine removal pics that your lady was running the forklift. Always nice to have a good set of hands around .
Just out of curiosity are you keeping carpet or re-doing floors?? Many guys go different ways, but seems like the consensus is ditch the carpet especially going as far as you are.
Do you have previous experience spraying gel coat??

[SONIC]

Yep it's always good to have the wife willing to help. She like a project most of the time haha she's groaning a bit about this one, as she thought it was fine to behind with.
Her comment today was "why didn't you just buy a hull instead of the whole boat "

For flooring I am going to reglass the whole floor, already ripped out the old. Gelcoat or awlgrip haven't decided yet. Then I'll be doing the faux teak seadek stuff (from their supplier in china). I'll be doing the pattern on my cnc router so I can make it unique to the boat.

I have not doesn't gelcoat before, but have painted many vehicles , and spray almost daily at work. That has me leaning toward awlgrip instead of gelcoat. Still weighing options.

I'm going to start a build thread to post all this crap in instead of having so many different ones.

I'll have a bunch of photos of the progress tomorrow.
My comment for the moment is damn this thing was either beaten absolutely to death, or tige did an ultra shitty job on the gelcoat. After removing the upholstery the gelcoat is an absolute disaster. I have a Grady white with three times the hours of the same vintage that is in the air more than it is in the water and it has none of these problems. I hope they have stepped up their game since this vintage because build quality is far from impressive once you tear into it. Bubbles everywhere that when touched flake off all the way to the fiberglass underneath.every surface is crazed and cracked.

All the glass over the wood floor was shot, I scraped it all out with a scraper, totally delaminated. The wood is OK but the glass work was shitty. I've got one area where the guy doing it clearly just dumped the rest of the resin bucket on the floor and walked away, it's 1/2" thick just glooped up mess. The transitions from floor to top cap dont even have any glass in them, just dumped on resin.

[SONIC]

Posted from my phone, apologies for the typos!

[freeheel4life]

Don't know much about awlgrip, but definitely interested after some Googling. Thing about gel coat is there's a lot of variables. I'm no expert at all but, first and foremost it requires a catalyst just like glass resins to start to kick it off. So you can buy the exact formulation you need from Spectrum but you need to know what you are doing as far as catalyst mix ratios, especially if you are going to try and get rid of gel coat then spray back over and get anything to match. Then theres also a ton of wet sanding, environmental variables such as temp, humidity while spraying, cure time, etc... so especially trying to match colors in an older boat with uv/oxidation you can really open a can of worms if you don't do ENTIRE panels or whole sections of color. Just what I've seen and worth considering

[surfidaho]

Can't wait to see what you do with that boat! FWIW I run a 2001 2300v @ 5000' w/ over 3k ballast and the 1617 works great.

[freeheel4life]

Can't wait to see what you do with that boat! FWIW I run a 2001 2300v @ 5000' w/ over 3k ballast and the 1617 works great.

Just curious, what are your average rpms??

[SONIC]

Curious as well!
Also would like to see how you have the ballast laid out