Flipping couches for fun and profit

[WFO Speedracer]

I am going to concentrate on free skis this Winter , these are skis I have zero money in that , some just need basic repairs . There are also skis here that need complete engines but I already have all the parts here to repair them with.

I am going to build several GTS -GTX 587 based skis because I have all the parts to do it here , I have been wanting to build another 93-94 GTX pink lady ski that I may just keep or keep one and sell one , I always loved those pink skis ., nothing screams I am still living in the 90's like a pink Seadoo lol .

I need stuff that I can sell for cheap next year , that seems to be where the market is headed right now .

I am doing a major shop cleanup this Winter and I should have the room to put all the skis that are completed inside of my shop till next year , I also plan to do some 4 strokers and finish up a couple of 4 man skis I have here .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I got the VX cruiser seat done, there is some stuff I am not happy with , he didn't want to pay me to fix the foam so I didn't , it's more of a feel thing than a sight thing if you know what I mean , most likely it doesn't show up in the photo , a few days out in the sun and it will mostly disappear , I am being nitpicky , he will probably think it is just wonderful , when you fold vinyl up and stuff it into a bag BAD stuff happens that I cannot fix but time heals all wounds .

I will start on the other seat tomorrow , this one will be a cakewalk compared to the cruiser seat I assure you , I am moving in slow motion , the carpal tunnel in my right wrist is acting up and it feels like a wet noodle ATM , stapling this seat up didn't help matters any , it's almost beer thirty down here in these parts and a cold beer is calling my name .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I cleaned up the rub rails with cleaner and #0000 steel wool then hit them with Penetrol , they are nice and black now , I also removed the nasty stock footwell pads , the best way I can describe them is like an old dried out asphalt shingle and they are about the same roughness , they no longer bend they break apart.

Underneath pure nastiness , I cleaned it with deck cleaner and a broom, then more cleaner and #0000 steel wool and finally with Muratic acid , they still are not perfectly clean but they are good enough .

I have pretty much decided if I am recycling some stock footwell pads I removed off that RFI a few weeks back , they are a little wavy but I can always drill more holes and add more rivets , they are just a little wavy not a roller coaster like most of them are by now , I just ordered 500 1/8 x 3/8 black pop rivets so that looks to be where this is headed .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

This is the set I have , I am missing the two rear pads , those two have a bend in them at the very back and they cracked at the bend , but I probably have them on a hull here somewhere , if not there are some on Ebay .

 

[Myself]

This is the set I have , I am missing the two rear pads , those two have a bend in them at the very back and they cracked at the bend , but I probably have them on a hull here somewhere , if not there are some on Ebay .

...........or some in my yard LOL! So,.....have you used enough of the Penetrol now that I made a believer out of you?

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I was sold the first time I used it , thanks for the tip !

It's a little bit of work but the results speak for themselves .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I started another seat off of a 2016 Seadoo GTI , it's raining here for the past few days so this is good time to do some inside work .

This one is a PITA , that yellowish green color on the back is not available anywhere that I can find , my suppliers don't have anything even close to it , so I am having to reuse what's there and restitch it , in that last pic the yellow -green material has already been removed from the seat.

The seat is not seamed where the inner part curves around , it was heat formed over a mold , there are clips in there and the vinyl that holds them was heat soldered to the seat vinyl .

Now quite obviously I can't duplicate the stock construction at all so I have to create some seams there , I hand draw in the lines with a pen on just one side , then you fold the vinyl in the middle , mark the other side and cut it, this way both sides are symmetrical , where the cut lines are you have to add in 1/4" of material on the pieces you cut for the seam allowance and you add in inches of materail at the front and sides because I cut it with a razor knife, you have to have enough materail there that you can grab it and stretch it back into place tpo spatple it, I usually just hand draw the 1/4' it in following the curvature of the stock piece and just extend out 1/4" , like I said to start with it's a PITA .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The box of rivets came in and I thought I would rivet one of the pads down to see how it looked , these pucker up between the rivets so I added more rivets, I bought a box of 500 so why the hell not , I think these will work just fine.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I piddled around and got one side done, seat covers have to wait , I had a customer dropping off two skis here for repair today from over two hours away .

I hit these footwell pads with about 4 coats of Penetrol before putting them back on , they literally look like new I have used up over half a can of that stuff in a few months time .

I put a rivet in between all the stock rivets , they laid down nicely after that , one thing is for sure whoever the poor sucker is that has to drill all these out and fill the holes next time is not gonna be a happy camper !

 

[Myself]

......Penetrol, magic restoration liquid!!

 

[WFO Speedracer]

......Penetrol, magic restoration liquid!!

Mhhhhhhhh techinoligia !

 

[WFO Speedracer]

This pic doesn't look like much , that is if you didn't know what it looked like before , there were massive craters in the foam , massive sun damage to the foam , yes you can glue on more foam and reshape it but on a stretch and staple job like this I prefer to grind it down to a decent shape , what you are looking at took about 30 minutes with an angle grinder and a flap disc , I was covered from head to toe in foam dust .

That is the seat that's been on here in the pics , you can see the damage in the second picture , it came off of that RFI I am working on , so the heavily damaged seat goes on not so great ski and the nice seat goes on the really clean RFI .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I had to wait a bit for the foam to dry and I had to get the ant nest out of the seat but here you go, to me this is the point where it all starts to come together and look like a ski , I am probably a bit biased though .

I am not sure on the rear seat color just yet , either green like the front or possibly grey - silver to give it some pop .

 

[orangefinger]

got offer to pick up a parts Polaris Genises 1200 injected .... i dont know if i should ? Where could I drop that engine in ? Polaris 750 /780 or ?

 

[Myself]

got offer to pick up a parts Polaris Genises 1200 injected .... i dont know if i should ? Where could I drop that engine in ? Polaris 750 /780 or ?

That's Ficht injection. They're good when they're good. Generally have EMM issues or stator magnets coming loose. I recently aquired one myself.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

got offer to pick up a parts Polaris Genises 1200 injected .... i dont know if i should ? Where could I drop that engine in ? Polaris 750 /780 or ?

You must just like Polaris stuff , I can't even give one away here , my friend Doug just gave four of them away to get them out of his yard , I have maybe four or five here I would like to do the same with , I hate working on them especially the SL two man units with half the front cylinder under the deck .

 

[orangefinger]

i dont like working on them too much but we had a guy play god here in our area buying up all the rehab skis , basically everything drying up the market especially for Yamaha and Kawasaki , so i got forced to start playing with sea doo and Polaris , and polaris i can pick up for litterly nothing ...

He is hoarding over 1000 skis, trailers and other equipment, there are 16 SXR's sitting out in the sun just fading away , 10 + superjets , and tons of sit downs all brands and makes

 

[Myself]

What the..............is he parting them or what?

Honestly, the Polaris machines with the blue Fuji triples are easy to work on, don't have many issues, and make real good runners.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

What the..............is he parting them or what?

Honestly, the Polaris machines with the blue Fuji triples are easy to work on, don't have many issues, and make real good runners.

I agree the Fuji engines were way more reliable than the Domestic engines , as long as it's in a three man SLT, SLTX they were not that bad and nothing ran much better than a well tuned Fugi triple , the Domestic engines were easy to work on but the electronics were total crap , I had one I put four Stator update kits on, they warrantied three of them , the Gen II stator kits were junk right out of the box , when I finally got a hold of a Gen lll stator kit it fixed the ski.

I don't fool with Polaris skis anymore because the guys that own them don't want to pay to have them fixed, the parts are expensive if you can still get them and I can't give one away if I was to fix one to sell , same thing with Tigersharks although the Tigershark engine are fairly reliable , if it's not a Seadoo, Kawasaki or Yamaha here no one wants to buy it..

I guess each particular market is totally different , if I had the kind of money that it took to buy all those skis I damn sure could find a better investment than a lot full of jet skis getting baked out in the sun to park my money in.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I was having trouble visualizing what the ski would look like with a silver rear seat , I have a set of seats that maybe someone DIY recovered , at least I hope no one charged someone for this work because it's crap , anyway they have to be recovered anyway so I just hit it with some silver spray paint on one side so I could have a look see , I have to say I kinda like it and I think silver or light gray is going to be the hot ticket on this one.

A lot of Seadoos came from the factory with two tone seats , usually body color on the front seat and grey on the rear seat so it's nothing new , I am almost through applying lipstick on this pig .

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