Making a List- Checking it Twice

In the opening post I stated that Suzanne and I had made a list of things that we felt were really important to repair on the boat. Scanning that list ,nothing jumps out and screams pull the boat out of the water until you get to the part about the headliner and walls .
Yes I said "headliner and walls " !!! 
Now for all of you non-Excalibur owners, the headliner and walls in an Excalibur are it's weakest point. I found out from people who actually work for Riviera ( the parent company) that the headliner and wall coverings were provided by the company who  made the folding cabin doors. The factory coverings are very nice and extremely durable, the weak link is the foam that is laminated to the back of the fabric , after a period of time the foam reacts with the glue and just separates. 
A good friend of mine who brokers boats and is very knowledgeable about all things boating once said to me that he looked at an Excalibur  with a drooping headliner to purchase,he said he passed, But I remember him distinctly referring to the headliner problem as the " Kiss of Death".  

So I'm not taking this part lightly at all. In fact as bad as I want it fixed that whole " Kiss of Death" thing is really bugging me. Suzanne and I agree that we are going to have to find someone who's definitely done this before. The search is on!!

The whole "list" thing at first seemed like no big deal, we even joked about it " Making a list -- Checking it twice"  But when we committed it all to paper and started budgeting money for each operation that's when we began to realize the real magnitude of  the project. I had mentioned in the beginning about an unpleasant surprise when we pulled the boat. After pressure washing the crud off the bottom of the boat and the drives this what I found.  These drives were installed new in the fall of 2008 and discovering this was a real game changer .
I called a good friend who is Mercury Certified  and had a long talk with him concerning the repair or replacement of these units. When the conversation was over I knew the season of 2012  would not include the "Fuelishness" .


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