1992 Ranger 481v

[Bigfish92084]

Carpet and Upholstery lasted nearly 30 years. Decided to undertake replacing the carpet as it had started to pull up in a couple areas. My research for the best carpet pointed me to Bass Cat.
They were terrific to work with and only charged $1.00 for shipping. 25 feet did my entire boat with extended deck and also had enough for the two rod lockers. I carefully placed all my old carpet pieces onto the new carpet and traced the shapes. 22 pieces in all. Also called Ranger Parts and ordered rivets and screws where needed. Ordered new pedestals and seats and picked out the fabrics and color for everything. They were great to work with. Had new vinyl skins made for the bench seat and had a professional shop re-wrap my existing bench with the original foam. They used all stainless steel staples and hardware. I will continue to post pics and a video or two of the project. It was a lot of work but the pride in doing it was so rewarding.


I asked ranger for a picture of bench so I could color it the way I wanted my new skins to look.
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These are the Before and After of the actual Bench
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The new Pedestal and Sitting Chair with the matching color scheme. Took couple months but worth the wait. I was removing carpet and scraping glue.
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Took my time and started at the bow of boat removing carpet. Getting Old Glue off was the hardest part and took the most time. Anvil Brand scraper from Home Depot worked the best.
Had to Remove the edge carpet trim first. Needed to pull out the center rubber that fit into channel then drill off the heads of the rivets. I reused the strip and insert, But ordered the special sized rivets from Ranger.
carpet strip drilling out rivets.jpgFrontDeckBefore.jpgFrontDeckCarpetLift.jpgLid before scraping.jpgFrontDeckGlue.jpgFrontDeckCleanedUpBeforeCarpet.jpg

to be continued... only 15 images per post -

[TerrysRanger374V]

Looks fantastic so far seats are a good choice

[Bigfish92084]

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[txdyna65]

Great job, enjoyed all the pics, lots of work but well worth it Im sure.
I just started my 02 BassCat Cougar.

[Bigfish92084]

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[rojoguio]

Very Nice facelift!

[yandeltx]

Looks fantastic. The new seat skins look amazing. I like the silver carbon fiber look on part of the seats.

[Bigfish92084]

Best tools I found for the job of replacing carpet
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Shows the difference from original Ranger Carpet (was a vertical piece that was never stepped on) to the new Bass Cat Carpet. I'm guessing back in 1992 Ranger was using 18oz Carpet. Bass Cat sells 24oz carpet that is more like 28oz if you compared the same size piece from another 24oz carpet. Regulations only allow them to state it as 24oz. Worth every penny IMO.
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[Roadracer10]

Beautiful job on a classic rig. I have a 492, any advice for removing the bench seat. Thanks

[AdamB]

Great job!!

[Bigfish92084]

Roadracer, the bench seat has a really slick design. the back of the seats are velco-ed down. really hard to get started and use something plastic and thin like a panel remover tool. addind pics of what you will see when lifting up the back panels. Only 6 screws are holing that bench down.

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I ordered the newest style Ranger Badging and riveted those onto the backs to give it a very updated look.

BenchSeatBadging.jpg

[Bigfish92084]

The plan was to just re-carpet and re-upholster but as the process went on I started noticing every little detail and tried to figure out a way to fix or replace. I've always had issues with the Lid gaskets tearing.
In the past I ordered new ones and had to cut them down and press back into the channel. I found that just separating the Hard U channel and the Soft (hollow) top and drizzle a small continuous bead of "BARGES" cement... and be sure to do both pieces, the connection is maybe 10x or maybe 100x stronger. This contact cement is used for putting soles on shoes and is completely waterproof. Originally bought the product to resole my wading boots. Now I've found more uses. I redid all my gaskets and now don't need to worry about them separating anymore.

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[Kwasham]

Great Job - I will eventually need to replace the carpet on my 1992 482V. How difficult was it to get the black "armrest" pieces off of the topcap? I have heard they are glued on.

[Bigfish92084]

Kwasham,
From the outside of boat, slowly push a putty knife between the armrest and the gelcoat. Once it gets started just slowly pound the palm of your hand on the end of knife... take your time and it will work its way through. Hard to clean off old blue from bottom of armrest but acetone got all the old glue of of gelcoat. I used Barge Cement to put back on and it not going to com off. Good luck.

[Bigfish92084]

Did I mention I started to notice every detail...
Found an Online Company "discontinueddecals.com" and they had this to me in a couple days. An exact match.
This sticker is dear to my heart as I vividly remember driving this "New to Me" boat home and kept looking in my rear view mirror and couldn't believe I was actually towing a Ranger Comanche ( my dream since I was 13 year old was to fish from a Ranger boat one day... But to buy one and own one has beyond my expectations.) So it was very cool to make this look new again.

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[Bigfish92084]

Did I mention I started to notice every detail...
Found an Online Company "discontinueddecals.com" and they had this to me in a couple days. An exact match.
This sticker is dear to my heart as I vividly remember driving this "New to Me" boat home and kept looking in my rear view mirror and couldn't believe I was actually towing a Ranger Comanche ( my dream since I was 13 year old was to fish from a Ranger boat one day... But to buy one and own one has beyond my expectations.) So it was very cool to make this look new again.

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[Bigfish92084]

The original Owner had cut a hole in the face of the extended deck to have a radio installed. I wanted to shore this hole up before re-carpeting. So I bought a small fiberglass repair kit from local boat shop. I sourced a couple samples of waterproof flooring samples (free) from local home depot. Traced the exact hole opening and used a vibrating saw to cut out the shape to fit perfectly into hole before fiberglassing on top. Worked like a charm and you cannot tell there was ever a hole once the carpet was placed over it. And it is strong too.

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Saved the Extended deck to do last as it was the most challenging because of the inner hole opening. Again, I used the old carpet as a template and just trusted it would work and it did.

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[Bigfish92084]

At this point... many buckets of sweat have been made from mainly scraping glue but now we get into giving up some blood. Noticing my fuel filler cap tether had finally broken after 28 years... I thought I would just replace this easy little piece. Took me 2 to 3 hours and got a massive blister in the palm of my hand trying to disconnect the Fuel hose from the fuel tank. Surprised my neighbors didn't call the authorities to come tell me to calm down the language that was echoing from the garage. I didn't feel the pain until I freakin got it done. What was worse is I had to still do the other side and the location of the gas hose has even harder to grab. I called my local boat repair facility to get a quote for them to do the Port side and after telling them it was a 1992... their response was they don't work on boats that old. I went down to the boat repair place and just talked with a mechanic and he gave me a great tip. Heat up the rubber hose with a blow drier to soften. Worked like a charm but I still jacked up my other hand in the process and it probably too 2 hours to get the new port filler cap installed. Now both filler caps have the tether built inside the part. Mush better design.

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[plbass]

Looks awesome. Nice work

[Bigfish92084]

Boat photographs better than ever. I know the picture of person and fish look great but look beyond that and see all the nice colors and textures of the boat. Pretty cool I think. This fish was caught on 5/15/2021

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