Rick Stephens
Admiral
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2013
- Messages
- 6,118
So, I will either need the assistance of folks on this forum or of a psychiatrist over the next year. I find it had to believe I went out of my way to BUY a project boat. My one saving grace with this is I have a 14 year old son who needs a lot of supervised shop work and desperately wants this boat for his wakeboard habit. I paid what I thought was a decent purchase price of $1500, I figured I could recoup that fairly easy with sale of engine and sterndrive and even make money off the trailer, should the project be less than satisfactory.
I drove a few hours to pick up a '92 Bluewater Riviera with an Alpha 1 Gen 2 and a 4.3L upgraded to a Vortec top end with an Edelbrock manifold. That's the good stuff. Along with a decent trailer and a nice looking exterior hull, the bad side is every bit of wood is either ripped out or toast. And the rear seats are hosed as well. Looks to me like the previous to the previous owner left the plug in and wasted the cover while leaving it out for a couple winters. Front end is fine, back end of the boat is trash. I think I could demo the transom out with a dull penknife. Also, there is no canvas worth the name. It is all a 100% loss.
Next step for me is to pull the motor, do some checks on it. The hour meter has 720 hours on it. And the motor was redone by previous-previous owner. The actual PO I bought from bought it thinking it was an easy fix and quickly got in over his facilities. He had no where to work with a full rebuild. So actual knowledge of motor and outdrive history is at best spotty. The engine looks nice from what I could check with it 3/4 detached from the boat and no electrical system attached to it. And the outdrive also feels very smooth working it by hand. And I pulled the top cover off the upper gearcase, it has never had water in it that I can see. (that said, I just last week bought a SEI Alpha1 for my fishing boat - I have spent more time inside an outdrive than is healthy)
Looks like a great first boat project to do with a healthy wakeboard damaged teenage kid. And if all goes well, just might give it to him (don't tell him I said that - yet)
Anyway, as I come up with shortcomings in my knowledge base, I'll be asking for wisdoms. I hate recreating the wheel, and I'll accept all assistance with gratitude.
RIck
I drove a few hours to pick up a '92 Bluewater Riviera with an Alpha 1 Gen 2 and a 4.3L upgraded to a Vortec top end with an Edelbrock manifold. That's the good stuff. Along with a decent trailer and a nice looking exterior hull, the bad side is every bit of wood is either ripped out or toast. And the rear seats are hosed as well. Looks to me like the previous to the previous owner left the plug in and wasted the cover while leaving it out for a couple winters. Front end is fine, back end of the boat is trash. I think I could demo the transom out with a dull penknife. Also, there is no canvas worth the name. It is all a 100% loss.
Next step for me is to pull the motor, do some checks on it. The hour meter has 720 hours on it. And the motor was redone by previous-previous owner. The actual PO I bought from bought it thinking it was an easy fix and quickly got in over his facilities. He had no where to work with a full rebuild. So actual knowledge of motor and outdrive history is at best spotty. The engine looks nice from what I could check with it 3/4 detached from the boat and no electrical system attached to it. And the outdrive also feels very smooth working it by hand. And I pulled the top cover off the upper gearcase, it has never had water in it that I can see. (that said, I just last week bought a SEI Alpha1 for my fishing boat - I have spent more time inside an outdrive than is healthy)
Looks like a great first boat project to do with a healthy wakeboard damaged teenage kid. And if all goes well, just might give it to him (don't tell him I said that - yet)
Anyway, as I come up with shortcomings in my knowledge base, I'll be asking for wisdoms. I hate recreating the wheel, and I'll accept all assistance with gratitude.
RIck
