I guess you can call it a resto.

I picked up this boat off eBay from a boat dealer for $2100. It is a 01 Tahoe Q7. It had a 350 mercruiser in it. When I bought it 3 years ago it only had 55 hours on it. The bar code sticker on the outdrive was still like new. The only problem was that the origional owner left it sit in their back yard for years then got it repoed. The seats were destroyed, the gelcoat was faded, the stripes were faded. All of the rear of the engine was rusted. It did not run. The ebay ad said it ran perfect.

OK well we settled on the price of an extra $800 off the origional ebay price of $2900. Then we had problems with getting the trailer registered, so he finally agreed to do it himself. OK on to getting it running. I had to rewire the electric fuel pump. Then it had a bad miss. I thought the worst, but it turned out to be 2 broken spark plugs. I gave it a complete tune up and it ran perfect. The water pump was leaking. Replaced it. About 3 weeks later after taking the boat out, on the way home, the whole rig got squirrelly behind the truck. Turned out the trailer rotted in the middle and split apart. OK bought a used trailer cheap. From all the rust on the engine the oil pressure sending unit broke off. Blew oil all over. Easy cheap fix.

OK last season we had to replace the power steering pump. Again rust related. Replaced both tilt relays. This year one of the fittings on my tilt went out. Replaced it.

All in all, 3 seasons without any major issues. I have since redone the upholstery, cut out a storage area under the driver console.

All this season we have had a tapping/pinging noise from the engine. It finally got really bad, so I tore down the engine. It looks like a factory blem in one of the head gaskets, but it caused damage to both of those cylinders. I bought an engine, thought I was getting a great deal and it turned out to have a dead cylinder. So I bought a rebuilt bottom end, and that is where it sits. Hopefully we will have it back together this weekend and back in the week after July 4th.

Here are some pics. Here are some before type pics. I will upload some more as time permits.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

Here are a couple as the project, which never ends, is going. Luckily as the project has moved along, we have been able to enjoy the boat. I will upload pics of the engine work soon. Some of these pics show how faded the boat was and what it looks like now. I have removed the stripes and am almost done polishing the gelcoat. We did it last year but it has faded a bit, and this year I wanted to eliminate the decals.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

Engine pics. I will get some interior pics when I get the grease all cleaned off from the engine install. LOL That last pic is of the engine I was told only had 18 hours on it, but ended up having a dead cylinder. Pretty isnt it?

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

Hell of a boat for that price. Nice work so far.

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I think we have most of the bugs worked out. Now to get some of the small things left to finish the interior etc done. More pics to follow.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

Well we replaced the front speakers this past weekend. The start solenoid mounted on top of the engine started acting up, so it got a new one too. I bought some tow toys, so we have been doing more playing than fixing, but with school starting and cheer/football season starting, so boating will be less often the rest of the year.

I think we are gonna start cleaning up and refinishing the consoles in the next week or so. I am going to use a light grey to replace the tan currently on there. The wood grain will be black. I am also gonna work on getting all the guages working properly. The important ones work now, but the speedo and depth meter seem to have stopped working since I bought it. The gas guage is not reading correctly and the trim guage is off by about a 1/8". I will get some before and after pics.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

Sounds like the story for any used boat... sometimes you get lucky, other times not so much.

I think one of the best reasons for having this web community is so people take better care of their boats in general... so when they sell them used to the rest of us they aren't so beat up

Feel good about the prices... my friend just bought a 46 foot boat that, even though a surveyor went through it, is costing him $8000 in repairs so far, and he hasn't even driven it.

Erik

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

Well the advance in the distributor seems to be acting up. It will ping like crazy, then all of the sudden run like a scalded dog. Then when running on plane it starts bogging out, then runs perfect. I picked up a MSD distributor and coil. Hopefully we can get through the rest of the year. Then in January, I think I am going to rebuild the carb. I am wondering if we didnt get some water in the gas. I know the distributor has an issue because when I had it out it had a ton of corrosion inside. So thats a start.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

OK we put the MSD system in and it ran great. Only problem was that it just shuts off without warning. I could be idling, or full throttle, and it just died. We didnt have the boat out much over the winter, but once we decided to take it out again, the batteries were both dead. I charged them up and fired the engine up on the water ears. It ran beautiful. Dropped it in the water and it cranks but wont start. URGH!!!

Brought it home and started checking wires. Turns out the previously mentioned stalling was due to a bad wire in the harness. I knew that harness was in rough shape, and so far I have had to replace a ton of wires, namely the fuel pump wiring when I first got it. So now the only wire left in the origional harness that is working is the tach, and I bypassed the plug on that one.

So now we have had it out several times and it is running great. It has some weird chirping noise coming from the engine though. Replaced the belt already, so it must be, or is hopefully, one of the idler pulleys. The P/S pump and alternator have been swapped out with spares I had from a parts engine. So its not them. The idler pulleys are differant though, so I cant swap them. I think I will live with it for a while.

Next thing is finishing the rest of the interior and then looking into having the outside re-gelcoated.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

Having in it gelcoated is expensive and not needed from the pictures you've posted. I've seen exteriors look MUCH worse than yours and they buff out nicely. Do a search on buffing gelcoat, you'll find plenty of good information on it.

As far as the engine problems I'd start a thread in the Mercuiser Section as those guys will have much more help for you there. Your interior is certainly in dire straits, but quite doable. There have been several upholstery threads here too. Unforunatly I can't offer much help there as my upholstery skills suck, I have a pro do them for me on all my restores.

Good Luck....all in all its a great looking boat.

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Actually, the seats are already done. I thought that was in an earlier post, but I am not going back to read now. LOL. Been down the Mercruiser forum road and nothing was said that I didnt already intend to check into. That is on this particular issue. I have had many good suggestions, dont think because this one time that I didnt get any new suggestions that I have not benefited from being here.

As for the Gelcoat. What you see is after buffing, polishing, etc etc, and in order to keep it even that nice requires me to polish and wax it once a weekl, and I am not doing that. There are marks on the outside from when we got caught in a bad storm and the anchor banged against it too, plus a couple cracked spots where it looks like the previous owner hit something. I removed the origional stripes because they were so bad, and now there is darker spots on the hull where they used to be. All in all, I have done all I can to bring it back to life. To buy a new Q7 with what mine has is close to $40k. Average retail on my boat is still over $10k, and I bet I dont have $5000 in it total, including trailer repairs, and new engine etc. It is a solid, well layed out boat. Lots of storage, great out of the way, but easy access storage for coolers etc. I have yet to find another boat this size with this. I have it set up exactly the way I like it now, so I dont mind spending a bit to make mine look nice again. If it is too much I will just have it painted in regular paint shop stuff, or maybe have it wrapped.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

I understand, let me strongly suggest painting it rather than gel. Imron will look GREAT, easier to do and will last as long as you want the boat.

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I will look into that. I have a good friend that is a car painter too, so it will be really cheap. Just the cost of the paint and some beer. If I re gelcoat it then I have to pay a pro. I dont like to have to do that. It is always way more expensive, and never comes out the way I want it.

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I intended to go back to earlier posts, just not right then. Now that I have, I see that I never mentioned the upholstery.. That is strange, because, the upholstery was done when I started the thread. I will get more pics soon. Hopefully this year will bring more improvements.

One thing I did do this week was replace one of the seat pedestals. It was broken when we got the boat, and I threw a $10 one from West Marine in there temporarily til I had more money. Well it started rusting pretty bad, so I finally got off my wallet and bought a new aluminum one. I also got a taller one. I hate how low the seats sit in this thing. Now I have to fix the stripped holes, and I have to get the side panels redone, or something next, because the shifter is sitting way too low and is hitting the side of the seat.

I will get some pics of the current progress and how it looks now. Maybe get some suggestions from the experts on where to go next. Although I dont always take everyone's advice, I do appreciate ideas being thrown my way. I certainly cant take everyone's advice, and usually the most sensable choice is where I go. That is how I have kept this boat on the water for nearly 4 years. I do like the flashy, nice boats, but I especially like not having a payment, and knowing that mine will get me where I am going and back, no matter what.

I am getting a bit long winded.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

One more small issue taken care of. I have had a cold start issue since we got it. Well we found the problem. It seems that at some point, somebody put the choke levers in backwards. So the choke was stuck open all the time. OK so problem solved. Pretty excited to get that handled. I should get some pics this weekend of the seats and all.

Oh and we replaced the rear speakers.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

hey mnypitboat..I feel the same way about boating and now what I know about the issues boats have from this great forum. Alot of them were never built right from day one in reference to being water tight. I can see why people keep their boats for 10 years and upgrade...so they don't have to do anything to it and the next guy will find all the problems and he can fix them. Myself I just took mine apart in time. I am actually happy with what I found. I look at it like you I can buy a boat running for 2000 and put a little into it and have just as much fun as if i went out and paid 20 grand. After a man does all the work he can feel good about it knowing he knows what he has under his feet. There are alot of nice looking boats out there but really what are they like overall. Like a mechanic says your car looks good , but wait until we get it on the hoist. I found the same thing when i got into buying travel trailers , you can only check so much stuff out until you get it home and take it apart. They do the same thing buy a new trailer run it 10 years and get rid of it before the problems start appearing.
The thing is with anything if you look after it and maintain it from day one it should last you a life time but alot people just want to buy new and sell before they have to do any maintence at all .
I know I would not have the issues to fix with a new one but the new one is going to have issues if we don't rip stuff apart to see if it has been built right to keep water out. Who wants to bring their new boat home and rip the carpet out etc. You got a nice boat there and you can make it look the way you want it to look...have fun and enjoy it

OutBackJack

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

Here are a couple pics I snapped of the interior as it currently looks. It has gotten a bit dirty since we have been under the engine hatch so much lately, but this gives a pretty good idea of how it looks now.

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Well we sold the boat. SO I guess the resto is done. We are buying something new this time around, or almost new.

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

mnypitboat said:

Well we sold the boat. SO I guess the resto is done. We are buying something new this time around, or almost new.

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Just curious, if you don't mind me asking, what did you get out of it after all the work you put in???

Re: I guess you can call it a resto.

ingalp01 said:

Just curious, if you don't mind me asking, what did you get out of it after all the work you put in???

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We sold it for $5650. NADA low was $8600, so he got a good deal. We had this deal on another boat so it had to go. We probably could have gotten more had we did, but it was time to upgrade to a new boat. Now I can start looking for a large cruiser to restore and not have to work on this one all the time. I would rather spend that time on the water or restoring something I love.