Well, here goes the story of how I wanted to get on the lake this summer.
I decided I really wanted to spend my weekends on the lake this summer and purchased two PWCs off of Craigslist for my wife, 2 yr old, brother, sister-in-law, and I to enjoy. We live in Oklahoma and enjoyed them every weekend even before the water was warm enough up until the lake ranger impounded them as Oklahoma doesn't recognize the temporary registration that Kansas gives you. After plenty of money and an expensive lesson learned we were back to enjoying them again UNTIL.....
I decided that I would rather have a ski boat for everyone to enjoy all at once. I started advertising the PWCs, double trailer, and all the work that we had done to them for sale or trade for a ski boat. I knew what I wanted in my mind and some of the junk people offered me was insulting. I knew I wasn't going to get a brand new super nice boat for what I had but I wanted something close to what was in my mind.
Memorial Day rolled around and I still hadn't gotten an unrefusable offer so we took the skis out and camped for the weekend. One of them quit us ON Memorial Day. The very next day I received a call from someone who sent me pictures of their boat that they were willing to trade. It was PERFECT for what I wanted. I told them I would tear into the broken ski and figure out what was wrong and fix it. After hours of work and replacing a completely chewed up rotary valve it was running a week later.
Luckily they still wanted to trade after a lake test. That was fine by me. Met up, dropped both skis in the water and the boat, and tested both skis for a couple of hours while the boat would not fire up even though I seen and heard it fire up in the driveway on muffs. I still wanted to trade so off to the house we went with our new boat.
A full week of carb rebuild, fuel filter/water seperator replacement, fuel line cleaning, hull washing/waxing, window cleaning, carpet cleaning, and vinyl scrubbing we were ready to drop my new '92 Sunbird Corsair 205SL 20' w/OMC 5.0 IO into the water. Ran like a dream minus a slight fuel issue which turned out to be a carburetor adjustment.
A couple of weeks of enjoying the boat and BAM, it died and would NOT restart. My brother and I pulled the fuel bowl (empty) and found a piece of "window tint" blocking the screen. Where had this come from? Pulled the fuel filter, nothing there. Pulled the fuel pick-up line, nothing there. Towed it home.
Once home and in the garage, we pulled the only part in the fuel system that we hadn't yet, the fuel pump. Tore it down and what do you know, a full layer of "window tint"/varnish from setting, untreated fuel. I'm almost done cleaning it up and will have it on the water by this weekend hopefully without any major hick-ups.
I really just wantthe thing to run decent to enjoy the summer with. This winter we will be pulling and rebuilding the engine and replacing the junk Holley 2BL carb. During this time we also plan on redoing the whole interior, deck, hull paint, and stringers(if needed). I will create a restore thread and hopefully get a bit of advice and help on things then. The transom is completely solid and the hull doesn't have one leak although the thing does have a few stress cracks. We will find out more when it's teardown time and take samples of everything. I'm really hoping to not have to get into the transom or stringers as that kind of worries me as I'm a complete restore n00b although not new to boats.
I have plans to build in an ice chest, make the ski deck more accesible, change the entire color scheme to neon green and black, and beef up the motor just a bit. I really just wanted to wave at the community for now and introduce myself. I have been reading for about two months straight to try and teach myself the things I need to know to create my dream boat.
My name is Justin. I live in Tulsa, OK and I look forward to getting to know you guys on here as you seem very intelligent, helpful, and friendly!
I decided I really wanted to spend my weekends on the lake this summer and purchased two PWCs off of Craigslist for my wife, 2 yr old, brother, sister-in-law, and I to enjoy. We live in Oklahoma and enjoyed them every weekend even before the water was warm enough up until the lake ranger impounded them as Oklahoma doesn't recognize the temporary registration that Kansas gives you. After plenty of money and an expensive lesson learned we were back to enjoying them again UNTIL.....
I decided that I would rather have a ski boat for everyone to enjoy all at once. I started advertising the PWCs, double trailer, and all the work that we had done to them for sale or trade for a ski boat. I knew what I wanted in my mind and some of the junk people offered me was insulting. I knew I wasn't going to get a brand new super nice boat for what I had but I wanted something close to what was in my mind.
Memorial Day rolled around and I still hadn't gotten an unrefusable offer so we took the skis out and camped for the weekend. One of them quit us ON Memorial Day. The very next day I received a call from someone who sent me pictures of their boat that they were willing to trade. It was PERFECT for what I wanted. I told them I would tear into the broken ski and figure out what was wrong and fix it. After hours of work and replacing a completely chewed up rotary valve it was running a week later.
Luckily they still wanted to trade after a lake test. That was fine by me. Met up, dropped both skis in the water and the boat, and tested both skis for a couple of hours while the boat would not fire up even though I seen and heard it fire up in the driveway on muffs. I still wanted to trade so off to the house we went with our new boat.
A full week of carb rebuild, fuel filter/water seperator replacement, fuel line cleaning, hull washing/waxing, window cleaning, carpet cleaning, and vinyl scrubbing we were ready to drop my new '92 Sunbird Corsair 205SL 20' w/OMC 5.0 IO into the water. Ran like a dream minus a slight fuel issue which turned out to be a carburetor adjustment.
A couple of weeks of enjoying the boat and BAM, it died and would NOT restart. My brother and I pulled the fuel bowl (empty) and found a piece of "window tint" blocking the screen. Where had this come from? Pulled the fuel filter, nothing there. Pulled the fuel pick-up line, nothing there. Towed it home.
Once home and in the garage, we pulled the only part in the fuel system that we hadn't yet, the fuel pump. Tore it down and what do you know, a full layer of "window tint"/varnish from setting, untreated fuel. I'm almost done cleaning it up and will have it on the water by this weekend hopefully without any major hick-ups.
I really just wantthe thing to run decent to enjoy the summer with. This winter we will be pulling and rebuilding the engine and replacing the junk Holley 2BL carb. During this time we also plan on redoing the whole interior, deck, hull paint, and stringers(if needed). I will create a restore thread and hopefully get a bit of advice and help on things then. The transom is completely solid and the hull doesn't have one leak although the thing does have a few stress cracks. We will find out more when it's teardown time and take samples of everything. I'm really hoping to not have to get into the transom or stringers as that kind of worries me as I'm a complete restore n00b although not new to boats.
I have plans to build in an ice chest, make the ski deck more accesible, change the entire color scheme to neon green and black, and beef up the motor just a bit. I really just wanted to wave at the community for now and introduce myself. I have been reading for about two months straight to try and teach myself the things I need to know to create my dream boat.
My name is Justin. I live in Tulsa, OK and I look forward to getting to know you guys on here as you seem very intelligent, helpful, and friendly!
