Hello all and help me out!

[89Convert]

Coastie did a good job of describing what needs to be done. I've taken mine off twice so far this year. I get 2 other guys to help, lift it straight up and go straight back and put the deck on the dock (which pisses off other boat owners, but I give them beer to cool down). When I've done it, I have a list of things to do, not just one project, to make it worth the effort!

[Gag_Halfront]

Mine is a 3297 so the specifics may be slightly different, but it has a similar arrangement. Our basic process is:

1. Remove bridge ladders
2. Look at holes where perimeter screws used to be and wish the previous owner had left you the screws
3. Raise carefully so as to not bash the snot out of the courtesy lights.

We’ve gotten pretty good at it. Two tips that help me are to first lift the foreword edge of the deck while standing in the open engine room hatch with feet on the stringers and once lifted, jam a length of 2x4 under the edge. This way, when you lift the deck from the aft edge, it’s up out of the groove and can actually pivot like you’ll want it to. If you don’t do this, you will almost immediately regret it. The 2x4 doesn’t have to run the whole length of the foreword edge. It just has to be long enough to hold the deck up out of the groove.

Second, after getting the 2x4 in place, lift the aft edge a bit and loop a 25’ dock line (the eye splice end) under deck through the hatch and back up from behind the aft edge. Then feed the bitter end back through the eye, go up over the support for the bridge ladder, around the side deck hand hold, and back to a second person who can apply force and help support the weight as you realize that what you’re doing is impossible without standing on the generator which isn’t made to support your weight.

In my opinion, the ability to fairly quickly and easily (in boat repair terms) open up the entire engine room this way is one of the major selling points of these models. Your model may have a support to unscrew underneath or some other minor difference, but don’t be put off. The effort that goes into raising the deck like this is nothing compared to the effort of trying to do certain things with it down. You could spend a half hour getting the deck up or several hours trying to figure out how to get to the part you’re trying to repair while folding yourself into a pretzel or laying on the deck with your head in the hole wishing your arms were 3 feet longer and had six more elbows.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

4AD3728E-6F5F-44A0-9BE2-9D8F067D8B0C.jpeg

[km1125]

Qr Bbpost Mine is a 3297 so the specifics may be slightly different, but it has a similar arrangement. Our basic process is:

1. Remove bridge ladders
2. Look at holes where perimeter screws used to be and wish the previous owner had left you the screws
3. Raise carefully so as to not bash the snot out of the courtesy lights.

We’ve gotten pretty good at it. Two tips that help me are to first lift the foreword edge of the deck while standing in the open engine room hatch with feet on the stringers and once lifted, jam a length of 2x4 under the edge. This way, when you lift the deck from the aft edge, it’s up out of the groove and can actually pivot like you’ll want it to. If you don’t do this, you will almost immediately regret it. The 2x4 doesn’t have to run the whole length of the foreword edge. It just has to be long enough to hold the deck up out of the groove.

Second, after getting the 2x4 in place, lift the aft edge a bit and loop a 25’ dock line (the eye splice end) under deck through the hatch and back up from behind the aft edge. Then feed the bitter end back through the eye, go up over the support for the bridge ladder, around the side deck hand hold, and back to a second person who can apply force and help support the weight as you realize that what you’re doing is impossible without standing on the generator which isn’t made to support your weight.

In my opinion, the ability to fairly quickly and easily (in boat repair terms) open up the entire engine room this way is one of the major selling points of these models. Your model may have a support to unscrew underneath or some other minor difference, but don’t be put off. The effort that goes into raising the deck like this is nothing compared to the effort of trying to do certain things with it down. You could spend a half hour getting the deck up or several hours trying to figure out how to get to the part you’re trying to repair while folding yourself into a pretzel or laying on the deck with your head in the hole wishing your arms were 3 feet longer and had six more elbows.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

4AD3728E-6F5F-44A0-9BE2-9D8F067D8B0C.jpeg

It's posts like this that make this site so valuable. None of that would be in a "service manual"!!

[Yoeman]

Hi
Can you tell me if the 1988 3297 will have wood stringers
I got this boat as a project and really don’t want to start doing stingers
No survey or seatrial as the owner passed on and the estate gave it to me!
You seem to know these boats
Not going to be my 39 Bayliner but might get me on the water again