2004 250 Project Thread

[Cobalt262]

Your rebuild is the best summer reading I've had in a long time. It had intrigue, suspense, mystery and a happy ending. I may have to read it again.

What an absolutely amazing job you did. I do feel wholly inadequate now, though, after only installing a windshield latch. But you have to start somewhere.

I am also on Lake Winnipesaukee. I'd love to see your project in person someday if you're in the Moultonboro area.

Thanks for your inspiring posts.🛥

[Driller]

Your rebuild is the best summer reading I've had in a long time. It had intrigue, suspense, mystery and a happy ending. I may have to read it again.

What an absolutely amazing job you did. I do feel wholly inadequate now, though, after only installing a windshield latch. But you have to start somewhere.

I am also on Lake Winnipesaukee. I'd love to see your project in person someday if you're in the Moultonboro area.

Thanks for your inspiring posts.🛥

+1 - I really appreciate a craftsman. Great work and a lot of good knowledge shared in this thread.

[slideruleracer]

I am also on Lake Winnipesaukee. I'd love to see your project in person someday if you're in the Moultonboro area.

Thanks for your inspiring posts.🛥

Thank you so much for the kind words! I'd love to show it to you in person.

Last Sunday we actually tried to go to Braun Bay, which is out your way, but got chased east by the rain on our way there. Serendipitously, we stumbled upon Ragged Island. In my 30 years of boating on Winnipesaukee, I'd never been there! The kids enjoyed it and we found a new spot to go to.

I'll PM you with my cell later. Maybe one of these weekends we can connect and say Hi.

[slideruleracer]

+1 - I really appreciate a craftsman. Great work and a lot of good knowledge shared in this thread.

Thank you!

[cmattj]

The idle is a little lumpier than I expected and she still is running pretty rich - especially at idle (mid 11's on the AFR). So, I haven't broken out the iPad or vacuum guage to check vacuum the last few times out on the boat to see if vacuum is coming in, but with the idle richness I suspect it isn't (fuel pressure regulator is probably not getting pulled down at idle like it is supposed to).

I'm planning to give it the first oil change on Friday, so I'll inspect the oil visually and when I fire it up I'll see if the vacuum is any better than before. Maybe I'll try making some adjustments to the tune to see if I can lean out idle a little manually. At cruise, the AFR is right around mid 13's and leans to around 14.0 at throttle close. Don't really see it get a whole lot leaner than that when I'm watching the AFR gauge. So, the good news is that I'm not worried about burning any holes in pistons, but fouling plugs could be a potential problem. I did gap the plugs at .045 instead of .060 based on some success with that in the truck world, so that *should* stave off plug fouling a little.

It did hit 55 (gps) again during a short full throttle jaunt with my son last weekend (maybe 15 seconds or so at full throttle), so I think in the right conditions and with 'full' trim, it's a solid 60mph boat as-is, so most likely nothing major is wrong with the engine... but as you can probably tell, I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist as well as a worry wart.

Ha I worry too. it’s my Nature. Lol. Considering you Changed over to a cam that has a different lobe center ( GXI) that idle is a result of how we say low speed inefficiency as a result. Yep those nasty rumpta idles I love is actually a engine with low idle speed vacuum due to exhaust valve closing timing and running poorly.

I had a whipple remap in my merc for idle rich soot as it was very rich. Cleaned the transom every outing! Seems the merc stuff is secret squirrel in their programming and only a few companies have code to modify them.

I’m impressed that you can do your remapping on the Volvo ecu as that in itself could be a huge improvement now that you have sensors installed.

Geeze we make take you to remapping Volvo EcuAnd I’m sure we’d love a video of her in GXI form!!

[skno]

Thanks for sharing, awesome restore.

[skno]

could you share the process in which you polished/sanded your gelcoat?

[Ytmsn]

could you share the process in which you polished/sanded your gelcoat?

Wax on, wax off grahshoppah. Wax on, wax off

Seriously, unless the oxidation is really bad you can get good results from an orbital buffer. Buff in three stages, first with a fairly heavy abrasive compound, then a correcting compound, the a finishing compound or swirl remover. Follow with a good wax, and it can be applied with a blue foam pad on your buffer.

Start with a 100% wool pad. Clean it regularly as you go. On the second pass you can use a yellow foam pad, and finish up with a blue foam pad.

If you use sandpaper do a wet sand with 1500 or 2000 grit. Use a sanding block and keep it even. Remember the colored gelcoat isn't that thick, so dont try to sand a deep scratch or gouge out or you may go through. It's better to use a gelcoat repair kit, which is another topic completely, but lots of sanding.

Take your time and do it in sections over several days, or one side at a time. That way you wont burn out or wear out!

[Islander208]

I hope I did this right. This is a pretty good explanation on how to wet sand: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rjCFcIULh2g&t=346s

[slideruleracer]

So, I used a pneumatic dewalt palm orbital sander and wetsanded using 600 then 800 then 1000 then trizact 1500. Then with a dewalt buffer I used 3m heavy duty gel coat compound on a white wool pad then macguiars polishing compound on a yellow wool pad, then I waxed. With the wax, I used macguiars on one side and 3m on the other side.. The 3m was ok with the power buffer, but the macguiars went on smoother and buffed out easier by hand.

At least on the 250, the gel coat is pretty thick. In a couple of areas where I had scratches, I used 400 to get the scratches smoothed out. With the 6" orbital, you're not actually taking off much material because the pressure is spread out over a pretty big area, so I wasn't worried at all about going too deep.. I was also using a 3/4" thick sanding pad on the sander, which helps make sure that the paper doesn't bite in when going over edges or around corners. But if you were hand sanding with a really small sanding block on one small scratch, I could see how it could happen. I think *my* gel coat could easily handle what *I* did a half dozen more times.

Basically, I made 7 passes up each side of the boat. Each pass took me 1-2 hours average. It was a lot of work, for sure. For the top side white gel coat, I didn't do any wetsanding - only the buffing /polishing & waxing. I experimented using smaller pads on the buffer or using my griots random orbiter polisher with foam pads, but the dewalt with the 3m wool pads still worked the best.

[skno]

Thanks All!

SRR your gelcoat almost looks liquid in the photo, great job!

[Start_Driver]

What a great job you did!
Chapeau!

I just bought the Mefiburn software myself, and wanted to download the Data from the ECU, but of course the controler is locked ...
(Forgot to mention: I also have a 8,1Gi-A Engine)

=> Did anyone by now obtain the code to unlock that controler?

[Big Block Power]

What year is yours. Matt and I both got into ours. Obd has my ecu now. It's been awhile since I used mine. It didn't work at first then after a bit of playing around I got it to work. 8.1gxi-b

[slideruleracer]

I didn't get the unlock code. He just sent me a new tune file that was supposed to be the same as the factory tune that was unlocked. So, I wiped the ecu and burned his version that I then tweaked. This winter I was planning on adding a second o2 sensor to the other side and try to tie them back into the mefi computer so that I'd have true closed loop... We'll see if I can get to that project. Lots going on - hopefully I'll be adding to this thread soon. Minimum plans are : new upholstery, electric/auto trim tabs, cruise control as well as some trailer mods.

[Start_Driver]

What year is yours. Matt and I both got into ours. Obd has my ecu now. It's been awhile since I used mine. It didn't work at first then after a bit of playing around I got it to work. 8.1gxi-b

Mine is a 8,1 Gi-A from 2001