1999 Triton TR-20 Overhaul Project

[Kyholm]

Cross posting from the Triton forums as I figure there is probably more interest here:

Hey Everyone,

I'm Kyle and I am a new Triton owner, let me introduce you to myself, and my new money pit. Last fall my father and I had been hunting around for an upgrade to our Hyrasports 171 as it wasn't really a very functional tournament fishing boat. After looking at many severely abused and overpriced boats a 1999 TR20 popped up for a reasonable price. The photos looked great, and with boats getting posted and sold same day, we didn't hesitate to jump in the truck and make the 200 mile road trip to go have a look at it in person. It was certainly better than most other offerings in our price range, so we decided on the spot to take it home.

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Once we got it home my father - a very meticulous man, fastidious worrier, and a BBC reader (hi dad!) started combing over the boat, trailer and motor. Boy, did the 23 years of wear-and-tear start showing up once the "new boat" rose color glasses came off... At this point I decided we should document the process of rejuvenating the old girl. While I don't consider what we've going on our hands to be a full "restoration", there is certainly a substantial amount of work in front of us. It seems like the further we look, the more we find wrong.

The top cap was nicely polished (aside from the typical gelcoat cracking), the carpet in relatively great shape for the year and most of the skeg intact, but the lipstick was starting to come off the pig... The first order of business was to do a compression test on the motor. Everything looked great, a nice even spread right around 120psi, until we hit cylinder 6... a devastating 87psi... Put that on the list... Weird oil leaking around the flywheel... put that on the list... Corrosion inside the cylinder walls.. put that on the list...

Next, lets get a better look at the hull, the minor chips we noticed rolling around in the gravel seemed to grow larger and more widespread in the shop, removing the transom transducer revealed multiple holes drilled straight through the hull with little to no sealer underneath. The top cap is separating from the bottom, can you say "water ingress"? What does the gel look like under the bunks? surprise, surprise, our old friend osmosis! and lots of it! The electrical on the boat looks like it was done by Red Green (Any fellow Canadians here?) and none of the lines, hoses or pumps have ever been changed since new. The gear clamps for the fuel lines weren't even on at the tank anymore! It's a wonder this thing isn't on the bottom of Lake St Clair.

The trailer has not faired well through outdoor storage in our Canadian winters either. Lots of corrosion, the hubs are all shot, just about every fastener is rusted, and the wiring is a mess - at least the tires are good, right? So total strip and rebuild there as well.

But, not all is lost... We are in Ontario, so with the lakes frozen, there is nothing to do but drink beer and work on the boat. Fortunately I have an extremely skilled/knowledgeable father with decades of trades know-how and a heated shop, so we are about to get after it, and I thought maybe there would be some people here interested in coming along for that ride with us - heck, maybe even help us out with some information. With that said, here is the first video in the series that we have going so far in the TR20 project series, and I've posted another since. There will be many more to come, I can guarantee it. We'd love it if you check it out, maybe you'll enjoy it if you're into Tritons and/or boat projects.



All the best,

Kyle & Chris

[Kyholm]

Here is part 2 for any interested parties that haven't found it yet via YT navigation:



We manage to get the VMax off the back and on to a stand, clear all the batteries and oil reservoir out to get our first look at the blige (it's... not terrible?) and pull the fuel cell. All this is in a effort to get the boat lightened up so we can try to get it off the trailer and up on the cribbing inside the shop while I sandblast and refinish the trailer.

Cheers!

Kyle & Chris

[Kyholm]

Alright folks, another few weeks have gone by and we're still grinding away. Managed to devise some stands/cribbing and a means to lift it to get it off the trailer while still being inside the shop, was a pretty fun adventure having never removed a boat this large from a trailer before:



Now that we've got the hull off the trailer, I'm going to take the trailer to shop shop, sandblast it, repaint it and we've going to put in new bunks, lighting, springs, rebuild the hubs, ect, just completely go through it.

We are going to get the hull on to a rotisserie so we can flip it on its side, or complete over to fix the severe hull osmosis we found, fun fun At least that will make it easier to reseal the top cap joint at the same time.

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[wgammill]

Kyle,
Super job enjoyed all three videos. I liked watching you & your Dad taking on the project and working together, brings back memories of me & my Dad. Really enjoyed all the treasures you guys found under the fuel cell. I have subscribed to your you tube channel, I want to follow this Triton until the end, I think you guys are going to have a really nice rig when your done to get on those big Canadian smallmouth!!. Good luck and keep on posting more.

[Kyholm]

Kyle,
Super job enjoyed all three videos. I liked watching you & your Dad taking on the project and working together, brings back memories of me & my Dad. Really enjoyed all the treasures you guys found under the fuel cell. I have subscribed to your you tube channel, I want to follow this Triton until the end, I think you guys are going to have a really nice rig when your done to get on those big Canadian smallmouth!!. Good luck and keep on posting more.

Thankyou so much for such a kind comment! We really appreciate the support and will keep more videos/pictures coming!! I really can't wait to get this boat out on Lake St Clair to go snatch some footballs.

[Kyholm]

Hey y'all,

Back with another update. It's been quite a while, but life get busy and in between all that BS we've just been trying to fish instead of work on boats. With that being said, winter has returned to Ontario and we're not ice fishing guys, so into the shop we go... lets get you up to speed as to where we're at.

After getting the boat off the trailer and on to cribbing, our next step was to mount the boat up on a rotisserie so we could flip it over for much better working ergonomics, here are some photos and a video of "how and why"

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With the boat off the trailer and flipped over, we could get to work on the bottom of he hull. To protect the shop from the mess of sanding gelcoat and fiberglass we erected a temporary "booth" to get messy in

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Now that we could make some mess, it's time to get down to the business at hand, grinding out the bad gelcoat and compromised glass on the bottom of the hull





We played around with that for a bit in the spring, and eventually moved the project to the side so we could more easily access the Hydrasports to fish all summer and ignore our responsibilities of getting the Triton done in a timely fashion before we eventually sold off the Hydrasports to a family member who had been waiting for us to give it up to them for 2 season now... lol.

With an open bay in the garage, we decided it might be a good idea to have the trailer refurbished before the hull as we'd need to set it back down on the trailer to rig it own pretty promptly after we finish the bottom of the hull, so we drug the trailer home from my shop, tore it apart and started attacking all the weak spots on it (which there were many). Time and corrosion had not been kind to this 24 year old MFI, with many of the crossmember welds cracking and failing at the main rails, and the bottoms of the crossmember nearly rotting in half from rust. Needless to say, it was time to give it some serious beefing up if we were going to be hauling this rig hundreds of miles at highway speeds.

Here you can see some cracked welds taht need to be vee'd out and re-welded
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And you know us, we're all about ergonomics at Holmes Marine, so up on it's side the trailer goes to patch and reinforce the crossmembers
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Here is a section of rot cut from the rear crossmember that we patched in and then plated over

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The forward cross members got a similar treatment, although slightly less over-built (but only slightly)

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The joints at the crossmember to the main rails get large square tube gussets to prevent any future stress cracking at the rails.
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SO that is pretty much where we're at currently. We'll likely have the trailer fab work finished this week and I should have a new video up on the channel on that whole process within the week, then it's back on to glasswork on the bottom of the hull.

Stay tuned...

Merry Christmas Y'all,

Kyle

[wgammill]

Kyle,
I'm really enjoying your YouTube channel and the restoration of the Triton. With the blisters on the hull will you be going to a product such as Gatorbaks or some other synthetic bunk boards? Looking forward to your next installment.

[Kyholm]

Kyle,
I'm really enjoying your YouTube channel and the restoration of the Triton. With the blisters on the hull will you be going to a product such as Gatorbaks or some other synthetic bunk boards? Looking forward to your next installment.

I don’t believe we will - from my research, synthetic bunks unfortunately are quite abrasive on gelcoat. Maybe if we weren’t loading/unloading the boat with such high frequency we would, but for now I think we’ll stick with conventional carpet until something proves otherwise.

[1Holeshot]

Your boat certainly passes the eye candy test a person sees when shopping for a boat.

I would have never guessed the issues you would find.

Congratulations on working with your dad to restore a beautiful rig that both of you will enjoy for years.

[wareagle24]

I love threads like this. They show the determination it takes to do a project like this. I'll be watching your videos to keep up with the progress of your work. Hats off to you and your Dad!

[Kyholm]

Your boat certainly passes the eye candy test a person sees when shopping for a boat.

I would have never guessed the issues you would find.

Congratulations on working with your dad to restore a beautiful rig that both of you will enjoy for years.

It certainly had our eyes glazed over! Oh well, we're a sucker for a good project anyways lol. Thanks for the kind words!

I love threads like this. They show the determination it takes to do a project like this. I'll be watching your videos to keep up with the progress of your work. Hats off to you and your Dad!

Appreciate you taking the time to watch! it's what keeps me making the vids :)

[Kyholm]

Here is a question I'd like to pose to all interested parties here: There seems to be some built in hook at the rear of the hull - Do we feel this is intentionally designed into the hull? and if so, should we keep it or fair it out? Common "go fast" sense says to fair it out, but we're curious as to what everyone else's input is...


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[rojoguio]

Here is a question I'd like to pose to all interested parties here: There seems to be some built in hook at the rear of the hull - Do we feel this is intentionally designed into the hull? and if so, should we keep it or fair it out? Common "go fast" sense says to fair it out, but we're curious as to what everyone else's input is...


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Do not cut that out. Builders add that to to the transom / hull point to help the boat be controllable at high speeds. My Blazer will not go fast enough so I removed mine alone with all the other irregularities. Triton put that in the hull so it will be stable at high speeds. Great work BTW.

[rojoguio]

If you have any wedges in the aft corners make sure you leave them also.

[Kyholm]

If you have any wedges in the aft corners make sure you leave them also.

Thanks for the input!

[Slicefixer]

Wonderful job....😉👍 Warning: I've put 400 hours into mine..... it never ends... hehehe

[Kyholm]

Wonderful job.... Warning: I've put 400 hours into mine..... it never ends... hehehe

Thanks for the kind words! Man, 400hrs, that's amazing! You must be really proud of all the hard work you've put in.

[Kyholm]

Hey Y'all,

Here is the video to accompany the previous images of the trailer repairs. I would call this "part 1" of the trailer stuff, as we're nowhere near done, but I didn't think most people would want to sit through an hour video about fixing a crusty trailer, lol.

[twitch]

I love watching these videos ,nice shop you have to work in also and Dad helping out .Keep them coming

[Slicefixer]

Thanks for the kind words! Man, 400hrs, that's amazing! You must be really proud of all the hard work you've put in.

Hehehe.....we call it the "Covid boat." When Covid broke out in '20 it really affected my business. I'm not one to sit around so I figured now was the time to get my planned renovation done.....so I did. The thing is I had it fishable within probably 200, but, I just kept finding things to add. Also, I did 99.9% of it all by myself.....and I was flying by the seat of my pants as I had limited experience specific to boats, etc. A true pro probably could have done it in less than half the time. I also kept finding things to add, modifications to make, etc etc etc.......it's addicting... hehe