Drove 300 miles to look at this boat. It is spotless. The guy even had original paperwork for everything. 600 hours on the boat. Very little time on the motor since rebuild in 95. Within 30 secs of looking at this thing I found core plug in bilge. It made me want to puke. Somewhere in his battle with illness, he forgot to winterize. Last time the boat was started was 2001. Sooo, I put the core plug back in and hooked the thing to the hose. After fresh gas and priming it started right up. No smoking, no coughing just smooth idle at 600 rpms. Watching temp it stayed right around 140, let it run, check shifting. Let it run for a half hour. Shutdown checked for leaks, oil, plugs. Restarted several times with one crank. No problems. Took her to the lake ran it for an hour. Ran like a top. Checked for leaks, oil, etc. OK. Here's the problem while running on the water the temp was fluctuating. Seemed like when idling it'd get hotter up to 190 and when running rpms up it'd cool back down to 140. I'm hopin this is just a worn impellar and nothing else. Did I dodge a bullet on this one? I figured for a $2000 boat in this condition I could afford to buy a block and still come out alright.
