tlzimmerman
Petty Officer 3rd Class
- Joined
- May 21, 2010
- Messages
- 82
I'll go through all the steps of the journey.... Sorry its wordy, but I gotta have someone to share it with so you guys just have to deal with me.
We started looking for a fishing boat last year, because I was raised on weekends at the lake (still go fishing with my dad alot), and with our first daughter born in June of last year, we wanted our kids to have that as an experience as well. My dad will take them fishing on his nice lund when they are older, but lets just say as 1,2,3 year olds, my dad might be a little too die hard. We wanted to take them ourselves, and if situations arose that we needed to go in while the fish were biting, hey that was ok. Our original budget was about $1000...... I was hopeful to find something with enough power to ski with as well, but that was secondary.
Well, what we found was that we couldn't find anything that wasn't rotted junk in our price range. All we wanted was something to go fish (I like bowriders though....don't like closed front starcrafts and such), wanted more than a john boat though, something with enough freeboard for little kids. I ended up finding a completely rotted out boat with a supposedly good engine for $300. I tore it out last year, and we were hoping to rebuild it this spring. Here is the thread.
I got the engine running last year, and this spring we decided to look for other hulls with a bad engine, hoping to find something solid that our engine would work on instead of taking the time to rebuild what we have. Once again, everything we found was rotted out, or well on its way. Apparently its impossible for most people with fiberglass boats to realize that there is wood in there. We looked at about 10 boats with "Solid Transoms" and every one of them had soft floors and rotted stringers. Finally we found a boat in wichita (3 hours away) that was a single owner, always stored inside, glastron, with a running engine that was stuck in reverse. He wanted $1800 for it. I called him, asked him if my engine would fit, and he was pretty sure it had a 115 max, so we made the trip down.
Long story short, for this old of a boat, this thing is CHERRY. It has foam, its all bone bone dry, stringers are good, transom is dry (I have core tested it). Original upholstery is in great shape minus about 2 tears. Has an 85 merc that runs, but is stuck in reverse. I did a comp test, and a spark test (both passed) I offered him $1000 cash because of the unknown of the engine, and after some arguing and jawing, he took it. This was a single owner boat, and it was his dads, and man they took care of it.
Here she is. Has the factory top for it, it came with a trolling motor and mount (no separate battery). They don't have the center windshield on it, but he says its at their old lakehouse and he is going to call me when he gets it. I will take better pictures of it soon, kinda kicking myself for not doing it sooner.
Took the lower end to a mechanic, and he replaced the shift follower and cam (I think thats what he called it) and it shifts in and out of gear now. However, I think I still have a problem in the control. I can get forward, or reverse, but not both. I can adjust the linkage at the barrel nut in the back on the engine, but I just can't get it to have enough travel to have both. The control pieces are pretty wore inside, and I bought another mercontrol on ebay, but its wore the same ,and doesn't fix the problem. We are headed back to the mechanic tomorrow, he says he has the pieces to fix it (if that is the problem).
We have had it on the lake once, and it runs great after I got the engine opened up with some sea foamed gas. Hope to be back on the lake this weekend after we get the reverse/forward problem figured out.
So now, I have to get rid of the other boat and trailer, and sell the engine (which is proving hard out here).
Just wanted to share the story so far, hopefully I will have forwards and reverse soon. How do you guys think I did? I will try to post some more photographs soon. We named her "Don't Panic" and here is a photograph of the decal going on the side. I am not going to put em on til all of the kinds are worked out though.
We started looking for a fishing boat last year, because I was raised on weekends at the lake (still go fishing with my dad alot), and with our first daughter born in June of last year, we wanted our kids to have that as an experience as well. My dad will take them fishing on his nice lund when they are older, but lets just say as 1,2,3 year olds, my dad might be a little too die hard. We wanted to take them ourselves, and if situations arose that we needed to go in while the fish were biting, hey that was ok. Our original budget was about $1000...... I was hopeful to find something with enough power to ski with as well, but that was secondary.
Well, what we found was that we couldn't find anything that wasn't rotted junk in our price range. All we wanted was something to go fish (I like bowriders though....don't like closed front starcrafts and such), wanted more than a john boat though, something with enough freeboard for little kids. I ended up finding a completely rotted out boat with a supposedly good engine for $300. I tore it out last year, and we were hoping to rebuild it this spring. Here is the thread.
I got the engine running last year, and this spring we decided to look for other hulls with a bad engine, hoping to find something solid that our engine would work on instead of taking the time to rebuild what we have. Once again, everything we found was rotted out, or well on its way. Apparently its impossible for most people with fiberglass boats to realize that there is wood in there. We looked at about 10 boats with "Solid Transoms" and every one of them had soft floors and rotted stringers. Finally we found a boat in wichita (3 hours away) that was a single owner, always stored inside, glastron, with a running engine that was stuck in reverse. He wanted $1800 for it. I called him, asked him if my engine would fit, and he was pretty sure it had a 115 max, so we made the trip down.
Long story short, for this old of a boat, this thing is CHERRY. It has foam, its all bone bone dry, stringers are good, transom is dry (I have core tested it). Original upholstery is in great shape minus about 2 tears. Has an 85 merc that runs, but is stuck in reverse. I did a comp test, and a spark test (both passed) I offered him $1000 cash because of the unknown of the engine, and after some arguing and jawing, he took it. This was a single owner boat, and it was his dads, and man they took care of it.
Here she is. Has the factory top for it, it came with a trolling motor and mount (no separate battery). They don't have the center windshield on it, but he says its at their old lakehouse and he is going to call me when he gets it. I will take better pictures of it soon, kinda kicking myself for not doing it sooner.
Took the lower end to a mechanic, and he replaced the shift follower and cam (I think thats what he called it) and it shifts in and out of gear now. However, I think I still have a problem in the control. I can get forward, or reverse, but not both. I can adjust the linkage at the barrel nut in the back on the engine, but I just can't get it to have enough travel to have both. The control pieces are pretty wore inside, and I bought another mercontrol on ebay, but its wore the same ,and doesn't fix the problem. We are headed back to the mechanic tomorrow, he says he has the pieces to fix it (if that is the problem).
We have had it on the lake once, and it runs great after I got the engine opened up with some sea foamed gas. Hope to be back on the lake this weekend after we get the reverse/forward problem figured out.
So now, I have to get rid of the other boat and trailer, and sell the engine (which is proving hard out here).
Just wanted to share the story so far, hopefully I will have forwards and reverse soon. How do you guys think I did? I will try to post some more photographs soon. We named her "Don't Panic" and here is a photograph of the decal going on the side. I am not going to put em on til all of the kinds are worked out though.
