Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Well, my wife was out of town for 2-weeks and was hanging out with the guys looks at pontoon boats. I found a diamond in the rough and brought it home. It was a 29' Crest III pontoon (1987) with a 100hp Johnson OB Motor w/ trailer. Motor had good compression and the tunes were it very good shape. Got it home and power washed the 2-3 years of dirt and debris off it. It was located in the woods so you can image how bad it looked.

Had water in the gas, junk in the carbs.....$250 later in parts and fuel we had rebuilt carbs, fuel pump, water pump, and fresh gas in the tanks.

Took it out with the guys and it bucked and had water splashing up around the engine like something crazy.

Found this....transom must have froze and was splitting out badly. Was torn almost all the way around.

Gave me a reason to purchase a new tig welder for my project.

Forgot to take a picture of the finished before we put it back on the boat...but here is some of the welding.

Now its running good!

So here is the plan, but before I do...I'm a hands on engineer who designs and fabricated mechanical equipment on a daily basis. So most of this is right up my alley and can be done at my shop except this is my first pontoon.

I want to:
1. widen the pontoon to 10' wide
2. add a 2nd deck for kids with a slide
3. Install a 140hp Mercruiser 3.0L I/O (I have a couple I can get for free)
4. Dropping the Outboard will keep the rear of the boat open for swimming and a slide.
5. Make a center pontoon for the engine and maybe fuel tank plus additional flotation.
6. add auto pilot so we can cruise (12-15 mph) for hours without me having to drive 100% of the time.
7. Furniture on the lower level setup for the ultimate party barge with a small bar setup. No furniture on the 2nd deck to keep wait down as well as the CG.

Sounds like a lot but don't want to spend $75k+ for my wish list. Figure I can do this for $8-10k by doing it myself.

I'm looking for help to locate some items because I want this project to look very professional like everything else I normally od. Something like this.

29', wow! Sounds like the perfect candidate for a project like this. And 10' wide would be awesome (provided you won't be towing it often). What's the diameter of the current pontoons?

I'll be following this thread for sure. I'm anxious to see it progress.

LC.

Check your local laws about towing I think at teen get you would have to get a special permit every time you have that thing on any road

Sounds great can't wait to see future pics. Good luck and safe boating.

Current diameter of the pontoons is 22.5" which is smaller than I wanted but for the price and condition it was a steal. I'm going to make a larger center pontoon anyway so it will be fine.

KY has an annual permit for like $100 to trailer a boat upto 10' wide. I used to have a 30' searay that was 9.5'. I took it on the road all the time.

The pontoon will be in the water 98% of he time. I don't plan on trailering it much at all.

Where can you find the extruded aluminum they use to make railing. It has an extra flange to hold the aluminum sheeting in place.

Your local metal supply company can usually come up with 1 1/4" square anodized aluminum tubing. How good are you at TIG welding? Bending the stuff is not easy, either.

To go to a 10' wide toon will require coming up with 10' long marine plywood. You'll have to find a specialized plywood dealership to find that size. It should be available, but may be a special order.

The biggest problem will be coming up with a 29' center toon in your required diameter. A 10' wide boat will require one. I dare say you'll have one custom made. U-fabboats.com can custom make anything pontoon, including the 10' crossmembers you'll need. They're located up in Ontario. Another great source of parts, including vinyl flooring and seating is PontoonStuff.com.

I just love it when someone takes on such a project--and succeeds at executing their plan. You now have a blank piece of paper.

Bamaman wrote:The biggest problem will be coming up with a 29' center toon in your required diameter. A 10' wide boat will require one. I dare say you'll have one custom made...

I hear of people having a pontoon shortened, so why not just lob the front and the back off a pair of matching pontoons and make a long one?



LC.

Fire and Marine in Ohio can and will make any kind of center toon.

I too found a steal in my 24' x 8' Sweetwater. I put new carpet on it, piknik table/bench and a flip-flop bench. I too had dreams of widening it to 10' and adding a third toon. Tme Yammy 40 is a '97 and runs really great. Not very fast but sips fuel like a baby. I have a spare 85 115 HP Merc that would really wake it up but the added weight and decrease in fuel mileage is prohibitive. It took all of a month to get my toon to 90% of how I wanted it at very little cost plus I am enjoying it NOW.

I realize that an extra 2 feet wide in my beam is would hardly be missed. As far as asthetics, my boat looks fine to me. I know that I cannot keep up with "The Jones's" as far as throwing cash into a boat. I live on the great James River in Virginia. Hell, nobody can even see my boat from the shore when I'm out tooning with a big ole grin om my face. I will save my $$ for something more important than a pontoon boat. My joy was getting the boat it up a going from its hibernetic state...and enjoying it right from the start with very little outlay in cash and TIME. I am a mechanical engineer and restore antique tractors and airplanes for fun. If you are like me, you enjoy the restoration process just as much as I do. But having crunched the numbers and included the manhours involved with such a project as yours, I know it would be cheaper and more cost effective to buy a bare bones tritoon (with the size toons you want) and build up from there. If you really like the deconstruction/construction process, I would rebuild that beauty with all of her original parts (which look pertty good in the pic) sell it and get that tritoon how you want and go from there.

Well gotta go, just came back from fishing with dad and my son. We caught 35 good size croaker this morning. I hope to catch that many more this afternoon for a fish fry tomorrow. Good luck with you rebuild.