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View Full Version : Was My Minx Built On Monday?



gcarter
03-13-2004, 07:50 PM
Now don't misunderstand this post, I love my Donzi. I've waited ever since 1968 to own one.
However, the quality (or lack of it) exhibited in my Minx makes me wonder about the much vaunted build quality of Donzis, or maybe just '86 Donzis.
As soon as I pulled the engine in January, I noticed the fwd. transverse frame, or offshore mount was cracked in several places in the joints with the stringers and the hull. After cutting it out, I noticed it was glassed in with only two layers of light cloth, not roving. The cloth had peeled from the hull and stringers, just like you would expect. There were also many voids with the hull, not only under the frame material, but also the cloth to the hull.
More recently, while trying to improve the aesthetics of the engine compartment (grinding it smooth), I noticed the stringers are glassed in with only two layers of cloth. Also the stringer core material (wooden board) is actually more than 1/2" off the hull with the glass cloth wrapped up under the stinger. There is no filler under the stringers, no built up radii along the stringer/ hull joint, so instead of a 1" thick stringer, at the joint with the hull the stringer is only 1/2" thick (see photo 1). Outboard of the port stringer the glass is cracked in front of the engine mount (see photo 2).
Guys, this isn't good building practices, particularly in a relatively high performance boat.
We all probably have favorite reference materials on construction and repair of 'glass boats, I have several I like and photo 3 shows typical stringer and bulkhead practices, nothing unusual here, but my Minx is nothing like this. Not only is there no putty or foam under the stringers to spread the load, but there are also no built up radii or tabbing along the stringer/ hull joint to stiffen the stringers.
Needless to say, at least in the area of the engine mounts and frame, things will be much improved when I finish.
OK, I've stirred it up :lightning :lightning , defend or criticize, what's your boat like?

Cuda
03-13-2004, 08:20 PM
Hmm, methinks perhaps I should take a closer look at that area before I install the engine. Hopefully, they improved in 87!

Cuda
03-13-2004, 08:28 PM
Here are some pictures of the engine compartment when I brought the Minx home.

JimG205
03-13-2004, 08:55 PM
George- My 86 does not have the voids you described and illustrated,then again my boat is a low hour boat.What's it look like forward under the rear seat?? Could this have separated from stress?Good luck-Jim :eek!:

gcarter
03-13-2004, 09:00 PM
Jim, these voids aren't from separation, the boat was built up this way. The cracks in the port stringer and in the frame were from lack of material and poor practices.

George

BUIZILLA
03-13-2004, 09:19 PM
George, whats your hull #

mine is #DMRCB119B787

J

gcarter
03-13-2004, 09:24 PM
George, whats your hull #

mine is #DMRCB119B787

J
My hull # is DMR20056C686. Does this mean it is hull #56 built in June of '86?

George

1996Z15
03-13-2004, 09:35 PM
My hull # is DMR20056C686. Does this mean it is hull #56 built in June of '86?

George

Mine would be #60 if that is the case, only four boats after yours. I hope that they were just having a bad day when they built your Minx. I'm sure that you'll get it all straightened out. :crossfing

BUIZILLA
03-13-2004, 09:44 PM
my 18 LE is 941C787
my 20 LE is 119B787
my Crit is 28O480

who can decipher this?? I know the Crit was built and sold in April, 1980

gcarter
03-13-2004, 09:54 PM
my 18 LE is 941C787
my 20 LE is 119B787
my Crit is 28O480

who can decipher this?? I know the Crit was built and sold in April, 1980
Jim the hull numbers and dates seem to work pretty well. But I sure don't know what all the letters mean. What I mean is Crit=#28, April, 80, 18=#941, July,87, and Minx=#119, July,87.
George

BUIZILLA
03-13-2004, 10:13 PM
George, I think my B & C letters are Feb and March of '87, and your C is March of '86.

Donzigo
03-14-2004, 02:18 AM
Buizilla, I was goig to say it; but, you got it right.

A=Jan
B=Feb
C=March

meaning it came out fo the mold in these monthes; but would still be a 85,86,87 moel year, which changes in June.

gcarter
03-14-2004, 03:13 AM
So Richard, does this mean mine is the sixth Minx built in March of '86?

George

BUIZILLA
03-14-2004, 06:40 AM
George, yours is hull #56. That means they cranked out at least 1 per week in the Minx line.

gcarter
03-14-2004, 07:13 AM
Here are some pictures of the engine compartment when I brought the Minx home.
Cuda, notice in photo #2, where the piece of plywood is 'glassed into the bottom for bilge pump base mounting? This area has a large concave radius with the piece of flat plywood bonded along the edges, i.e. there is a void under it. Water gets into this void via the pump base mounting screws. Mine had more than a pint of water encapsulated in it. It's very easy to grind out the edges and remove. my plans are to replace it with a much smaller piece of Starboard, it only has to be large enough to mount a pump base on. I will install the Starboard and fill the void under it with 5200.

George

Marlin275
03-14-2004, 11:00 AM
My 1973 X-18 had glassed stringers that had saw cut notches
taken out and never sealed in any way.
I found out on this site they came that way from the factory!
The boat landed on her starboard side after brief air time and broke
the motor mount to stringer connections.
Unsealed stingers? Doesn't get much worse?
Now there's more glass in there than you would ever need!

gcarter
03-14-2004, 02:14 PM
Do you have any photos of it before your repair?

George

smoothie
03-14-2004, 03:21 PM
George,for what its worth a friend of mine has a !986 Minx,the one stringer was busted loose by the motor mounts and the floor sagged,there are cracks on each corner of the floor,he bought it at a good price like you did so its not that big a deal,but I agree...you would think it would have been put together a little better than that,I guess its hard to find good help sometimes :yes: have fun and keep up the good work!

Donzigo
03-14-2004, 06:31 PM
George,

Yes, C = March, remember?

That 56 means that your boat was the 56th boat out of that mold. Molds get damaged or old and have to be rebuilt from time to time. The number 56 gives the manufacturer the number of times the mold has been used. This number goes across model years, etc. Maybe it took three years to build this many, who knows.

gcarter
03-14-2004, 07:27 PM
George,for what its worth a friend of mine has a !986 Minx,the one stringer was busted loose by the motor mounts and the floor sagged,there are cracks on each corner of the floor,he bought it at a good price like you did so its not that big a deal,but I agree...you would think it would have been put together a little better than that,I guess its hard to find good help sometimes :yes: have fun and keep up the good work!
Thanks for your encourgement, Smoothie.
Yeah, it's just frustrating.
If you read this site long enough you think Donzis move above the water, not just displace just like every other boat.

George

BUIZILLA
03-14-2004, 08:01 PM
After reading about your Minx *tab* issues, and my hearing new strange creaks from my 1980 Criterion while bouncing around the bay yesterday.... I decided last night and today to investigate these unusual noises that emanate from somewhere. I have had to tighten 20 to 30 rubrail screws every trip. Yesterday was the worst by far... Crawling around under the front deck and engine hole, and removing a couple under front seat access panels, exposed 12 areas that had been *tabbed* to support the inner liner. Of the 12 I found so far, 11 have seperated from either the hull, and/or the inner liner :eek!: Not one loose tab was cracked, they are perfectly intact in shape, they simply lost adhesion from the attached surface. One lost adhesion from both the hull AND the liner and was laying off to the side. The other 10 lost adhesion from the inner liner itself. I found small square 1 1/2" thick blocks of heavy black rubber/foam that was wedged between the stringer tops and the inner liner itself. I also found thick resin globs and resin saturated balls of roving in other spacer areas. Apparently, the whole deck and inner liner is loose from the stringers/hull now, as the rear 5/8" plywood vertical supports aft of the rear seat support off the hull bottom, have broken away yesterday from the rear seat bottom itself, and pulled the machine fasteners through. Just for grins today, I took a hose after I tightened the rubrail, and I could easily spray water under the rail and it would come right through inside at the hull/deck joint, virtually everywhere. Absolutely no hull to deck seal whatsoever. I could now, literally, very easily remove the rubrail screws, and remove the deck/inner liner with no effort. I am going to remove the complete rubrail and all of the hull screws and seal everything up there, and use machine screws/nuts going back together everywhere I can reach inside. What sealant would be good? 4200?

Needless to say, some repairs/strengthening are immediately needed. The boat is parked, which REALLY pisses me off just 2 weeks from the Mt. Dora Show. I don't see a big deal fixing it at all, just that i'm not a resin and cloth kinda guy. And i'm not that ambidexterous to crawl where need be.

I have run both my Minx and my 18 in rougher waters than yesterday, very hard, and neither boat has as much as made a groan. They are both extremely SOLID built boats. One of those 2 will go to Dora, prolly the 18.

Another day, another 50 cents...

J

gcarter
03-14-2004, 08:52 PM
Sorry to read this Jim.
If you read my post on the seat to angle installation, I've been thinking about something similar for the floor to stringer mounting.
Donzi originally mounted the Minx (and I suppose other models ) on spacers, wood wrapped in glass (I posted a picture). These spacers took the positive load. The tabs were used to locate the tub to the stringers and take the negative load. It's obvious these materials were used because they were rediculously inexpensive in their plant. There's nothing sacred about useing some other method of attachment.
Now, with the deck off, if an angle similar to the one I used, were bolted longitudenally along the outside of both stringers, maybe 1/2" proud of the stringer tops, it would give an extremely flat area many times the area of the original mounting system to connect the tub to the stringers. A strip of hard neoprene or some other cushion material could be used as a spacer to allow for irregularities in the tub bottom. The top, flat leg of the angles could be drilled and tapped and screwed to the tub bottom. The expense would be minimal, and the attachment much improved. Not to mention ease of tub/ deck removal.
What do you think?

George

Rodger
03-14-2004, 09:33 PM
I have had to repair much of the "tab fastening " on my '78' F22 also. I had the same experience of the screws around the rubrail coming loose very often. I replaced every screw both under and thru the rubrail with machine screws and nyloc nuts. Not one has come loose yet, and that was done about 14 years ago.

Marlin275
03-15-2004, 12:30 PM
My 1973 X-18 had glassed stringers that had saw cut notches
taken out and never sealed in any way.
I found out on this site they came that way from the factory!
The boat landed on her starboard side after brief air time and broke
the motor mount to stringer connections.
Unsealed stingers? Doesn't get much worse?
Now there's more glass in there than you would ever need!

George
Here is the photo of the damage
You can see the notched stringers
from the factory!

1996Z15
03-15-2004, 01:49 PM
George
Here is the photo of the damage
You can see the notched stringers
from the factory!

:eek!: :eek!: WOW that's scary!

Fish boy
03-15-2004, 04:05 PM
originally from George

Now, with the deck off, if an angle similar to the one I used, were bolted longitudenally along the outside of both stringers, maybe 1/2" proud of the stringer tops, it would give an extremely flat area many times the area of the original mounting system to connect the tub to the stringers. A strip of hard neoprene or some other cushion material could be used as a spacer to allow for irregularities in the tub bottom. The top, flat leg of the angles could be drilled and tapped and screwed to the tub bottom. The expense would be minimal, and the attachment much improved. Not to mention ease of tub/ deck removal.

I am definitely not an expert, but seems like hindsight is 20/20. I am sure the method you described will be much better, but perhaps in 1986 no one realized that 15-20 years later, this would become a fail point, especially if the cost to do it differently would have been minimal.

I know my 87 is overbuilt. There are things that I would do differently that if I could go back in time when they were first designing it and tell them "I have been running this boat for over 15 years straight, and you should do XXX instead" I would. I am sure they would also like to look at yours or my boat to make necessary changes. They are no longer building the minx, and my boat is completely different so the hindsight will not help.

I am content knowing I have one of the best built (however not perfect) boats on the water. Things are going to go wrong with any boat, and I for one am not the usual boater- I know many of you are not either judging by the huge smiles I see everytime you come up on a set of rollers and the throttle goes forward rather than backward ;) I am just glad I have a boat that I can talk about things like this with people whose boats are 20,30, 40 years old and still daily drivers. How many people you think will be in the bayliner classic registry 30 years from now LOL

Cuda
03-15-2004, 04:25 PM
Okay, I took the Minx down today to get a two new covers made, and while I had it uncovered, I took the numbers from the hull. It is DMRC B12 C787. Can someone decipher the code for me?

gcarter
03-15-2004, 06:46 PM
You know Fish, you hit it on the head, no one ever intended for these boats to last 20 to 40 years. Now, the bigger the knowledge base we can accumulate, the better it is for all the members.
I'm really grateful my boat wasn't running when I bought it and that I didn't pay much for it. It has given me the opportunity to thoroughly investigate the hull and fix these issues before they ever became a problem. One of the greatest advantages of this site is the accumulated abilities of all the members. Every one here has been extremely helpful, and I appreciate it.
Thanks everyone!

George Carter...Still a proud Donzi (lawn sculpture) owner! ;)

JoeW
03-15-2004, 07:38 PM
I have an '86 Minx, DMR20064D686. It was delivered to Lake Winni in May of '86. It currently has about 250 hours on it. Crawling inside, things look OK structure wise, but the workmanship does not look very pretty. With an original invoice of 33K (Tempest Motor), which was a lot of money back then, maybe I would have expected a little more. That said, it's a Donzi...I love it!

BUIZILLA
03-15-2004, 08:00 PM
Eddie, the owner of SOLID Powerboats and a business neighbor came by today and I showed him the issues for an opinion. He promptly found 4 more issues, including a detached from the hull knee support, on a port rear engine support stringer. There was, in fact, previous repairs done under the inner liner, that the previous owner HAD to have known about, and were NOT disclosed at sale time. :splat: Nonetheless, Eddie builds a tank of a sport boat, and starting tomorrow his top 2 glass guys are going to start fixing things. Shouldn't take but a few days with 2 guys working fulltime. He freaked out on the condition and originality. He told me it would be MUCH stronger than before, when he got done with it, and NOT to worry, especially after I told him it was getting an additional 300 hp added to it soon... ;)

feeling MUCH better now...

J

Surfer
03-16-2004, 04:11 PM
According to the archives our boats were built in the Genth / Houser days, at the Lauderdale lakes factory (at least that is where my 18 was built, via the Coast Guard tag). Whats the general feeling about construction in this era. I believe Mike Collins was associated with the company at that time, maybe a source. My 18 is built like a tank, solid all over. Whats the take on Genth Houser?

Fish boy
03-16-2004, 10:02 PM
Surfer,
Mike Collins was associated with the company during this period, and the boats were built like tanks, solid all over. As far as the take on the "genth/houser era", perhaps the registry could use a little updating; IMHO.

donzi marine history (http://www.donzimarine.com/DonziWebsite/Site/History/History2.html)

Respectfully,

Fish

Donzigo
03-16-2004, 10:49 PM
My family has owned a 1987 Z-25, a 1989 Z-33, and a 1986 Classic 22, all from the "Genth/Staples era". These 3 are the only Donzis I have ever owned. While any piece of machinery built by a human being will, occasionally have it's flaws, all of my Donzis were designed with elegance & superbly built. I have constantly put the three up against the waters here in St. Petersburg & they have proved to be able to take a lot more than me. Just this past weekend, I launched the Z-33 off of the wake of a 48 Hatteras. She went out of he water and re-entered with that resounding "whoosh" and continued on her path, strong & true, as if to say to me: "Is that all you got?" Donzigo Jr. launched the Classic 22 a while back, with his pal and Jerry Eisele's daughter aboard. I was behind them and I winced at the sight. But, they, all under 25 yrs of age, didn't seem to mind a bit.

Yes, Fishboy, they were built like tanks! :yes:

Fish boy
03-17-2004, 10:39 AM
Donzigo Jr. launched the Classic 22 a while back, with his pal and Jerry Eisele's daughter aboard. I was behind them and I winced at the sight. But, they, all under 25 yrs of age, didn't seem to mind a bit.

I remeber that. Tammy, john (team hula girl) and I were also behind him. Saw the waves and saw Jr. gun it, launch it, and eventually bring it back down to the water. I think the only thing hurt on that launch was a little spill from the boat sodas- easily replaced.

Cuda
03-17-2004, 08:32 PM
[QUOTE=Donzigo] Donzigo Jr. launched the Classic 22 a while back, with his pal and Jerry Eisele's daughter aboard. I was behind them and I winced at the sight. But, they, all under 25 yrs of age, didn't seem to mind a bit.
QUOTE]

But the battery minded a bit! :biggrin:

Donzigo
03-18-2004, 06:48 AM
Donzigo Jr. was having problems with his battery, yes...............but; last weekend he bought a new one and the world is a beautiful place, suddenly........no more electrical problems.