First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginning

[Struc]

Been searching for a "real" boat for about a month. Got back from our family vacation in Eagle River, WI with my Tuffy 17' fishing boat with 30hp outboard, and realized my kids are too old for just a fishing boat. They are all teenagers now and I needed something to teach them to water ski and perhaps just tube behind - anything for a bit more "fun" for them.

Thus started the craigslist search for something I could fix up and use. It actually, eventually led me to Ebay, and this vehicle I ended up buying:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...0629080298&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK:MEWAX:IT

A 20', 1988 Sea Ray Seville for $1675, which started, ran, and went into gear (according to the YouTube video posted), and looked pretty darn good in the pictures, other than the carpet, which looked just laid in place.

Earlier that day (of the winning Ebay bid), I found a nearly identical 1989 Sea Ray Seville 20' boat with trailer for $600. The entire outboard unit had supposedly been rebuilt, and came with a nice EZ Loader trailer (no trailer was included in the Ebay Boat's auction.), but had a junk engine and pretty trashed interior. Oh, and as I found out, about 100 gallons of rain water in it too. It was a no-brainer. I purchased the junk boat, emptied the water on a hill on the way home (to make the 1.5hr trip easier on the Durango), and counted myself lucky to find a "parts boat" for less than the price of a trailer.

I had been following Friscoboater's adventures with restoring his '81 Glastron and his 95 Sea Ray, so I have a good idea of what I may be in for. I also just repaired the Tuffy's transom with SeaCast, and some fiberglass repair around that area, which will now become a good selling point.

So, I built (today) some wood supports (thanks to Friscoboater's pictures) for the "parts boat", and unloaded it on the driveway onto those supports, so I can go and pick up my Ebay, running boat tomorrow (Friday). I have no idea of the real condition of the boat, so I'm somewhat anxious about it. Either way, I have an entire boat of parts waiting for whatever it needs.

My end goal is to strip the "parts boat" of everything that will unbolt, and keep the parts as a spare for the actual boat I'm keeping. The fiberglass shell will most likely be cut up and dumped.

I have some pictures of the "unloading" process that I will post soon. Tomorrow after I get home I'll try and take and post some pictures as well. It's a 2 hour ride to the boat, and 2 hours back. so I'm not sure I'll be up to it, but we'll see.

And the boating adveture begins...

Curt

 

[Friscoboater]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

I am looking forward to this one. Welcome to iboats!

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Hopefully these pictures attach and look OK. These are of me pulling the "parts boat" off of the trailer on Thursday.

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Here are the last few:



All in all, everything went PERFECT in getting it off the trailer. I was REALLY nervous about doing it, but it all went off without a hitch.

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Well, once I got the boat home on Friday, the weather started turning bad (storms were going to be rolling through), and the rain continued off and on during Saturday as well. As such, I didn't get too much done, but the weather broke long enough to hook up the muffs and start her up and let it run for a while. Probably had the engine running for 20 minutes or so. I wanted to be sure the water was circulating properly, and I didn't have any leaks or any other issues that showed up after it warmed up. I did find a few issues.

For one, the port exhaust manifold is cracked and leaking. It's a small leak, but will need to be replaced. I also have a water leak at the power steering cooler. Not sure if it's the cooler itself or just the hose. Probably the hose or clamp. I have a spare either way. I also don't appear to be getting any charging out of my alternator. It's staying at a steady voltage running or not (actually a little lower when running due to battery being used). Also, my coolant gauge doesn't work. The wiring appears to be simply missing. The warning buzzer wiring for oil pressure and coolant temp is disconnected and just sitting on the motor. The wiring in general on this boat looks pretty suspect. I'm tempted to take the whole harness off the parts boat and use it instead - it's in much better condition. Probably this winter that will be one of the things I do.

So, today, the work has begun. Pulled the alternator from the good boat and pulled the spare one from the parts boat (looks brand new and there is a 9/2010 date sticker on it). In fact, since this motor was rebuilt (story is that it seized first time out after the rebuild - probably a good reason why it was sold - cutting his losses), many of the parts look very new, and I can forsee many of them being transferred over.

The gauge cluster (and the enclosure) from the parts boat was in much better condition than mine, so I pulled that off the parts boat and will swap as well.

I haven't taken any new pictures of the "keeper" boat, but I did post up the ones from the Ebay Ad on Photobucket.

Pictures can be found here: Photobucket Pictures

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Parts boat alternator installed and working. I have 14.4V at idle at the battery. Not sure if it was the alternator that was bad, or the wiring. I ended up making new connections on 3 of the 4 wires. Either way, one of two "must fixes" are done before I hit the water for a test drive.

The second is the coolant gauge. Apparently I have some bad wiring between the gauge and the sensor in the engine bay. Testing the gauge by jumping the sensor post to ground pegs it HOT, so the gauge works. Grounding the wire in the engine bay does nothing. Ran out of daylight to trace the wiring to find the bad spot.

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Had a few hours after work today to work on the boat and fixed the coolant gauge problem. The disconnect between the wiring in the engine bay and the gauge was the main engine harness connector. It looks pretty suspect, and when I pushed on it to make a better connection, the gauge pegged hot (with the wire grounded out of course). The sensor was bad (whole post turned when I tried to take the nut off), so I grabbed the one off the parts boat and installed it and patched in some extension wire and a new ring connector on the tan sensor wire, and fired it up with the muffs. Everything works as it should now. The engine went up to around 145-150 degrees on the gauge and no higher. Ready for a splash and test run to see how it goes.

I did a few other things tonight. Tested out the new gauge cluster, which worked fine. I need to fix (re-glue) the vinyl on the inside of the enclosure for the gauges before I finish that part up.

I did find a bad spot in one of the stringers on the starboard side today after some inspection. It seems like a small area, but will probably need to be fixed at some point. The good news is that the stringers from the tank area forward seem solid, sealed, and ready for boating. The bad spot is in the rear next to the back of the tank right in front of the engine. I'll need to take some core samples from various areas to be 100% sure, but it appears from visual and "knocking" inspection that at least the front half of the boat is solid. Since the floor is also solid pretty much everywhere, I'm guessing its accurate, but we'll see after a little drilling. My big concern will be the transom, and we'll see how that goes.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my purchase. It appears it will be a pretty solid boat after some repairs, which could be expected for a boat of its age. I'm contemplating pulling the engine this winter just to freshen it up. We'll see if that happens or not.

 

[gozierdt]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

I'll be following your adventure with much interest...I've got the identical boat in blue. I've only had it since last fall,
but I'm very happy with it- great size, good power AND relatively low gas consumption. I've replaced the gages
with a set of E-bay (no donor boat- what a great find!!), and fixed some wiring issues. Had the primary starter
relay go out- this boat has two relays in the starter circuit- one up by the big circuit breaker on the port side of the
engine, plus the one directly on the starter. I also did the impeller right after I got the boat. The bellows all look
very good, but I'm keeping a close watch on them.

Enjoy!!



Gene

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Nice looking boat! [big grin] Thanks for jumping in the thread. Glad to hear you've been happy with yours. When looking, I would have settled for a 18', but I really wanted a 19'-20' for the space factor. I would like to be able to entertain a few guests once in a while, plus I have a big family of 6 people.

The donor boat has been a huge help thus far. It is almost a shame to pull it apart, because you can tell it was taken care of for much of its life. It has obviously been abused and left out to the elements for its last few years of life, though. I agree it was a great find, and at exactly the right time. It has every single part, minus the distributor, which was grabbed by the last guy. He even threw in the heads off his boat, which is why he bought this parts boat in the first place. Somebody told him his heads were getting near the end of their life?!? Not sure what that meant. They look pretty perfect to me. I'd have them checked out before using them, but they sure look like spares to me.

I'll keep posting my progress. I plan on getting it in the water sometime this weekend!

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Had a few hours after work again, and got the dash replaced. Here are some pictures of the old and new gauge cluster, along with the new boat on the trailer.



As you can see, the old gauge cluster was in pretty sad shape. The new one isn't perfect, but is 10x better than the old one. The enclosure it mounts to was also trashed, and I replaced it with the one from the parts boat.

I also tied in a new 10ga power feed and a ground feed from the cluster (Accessories toggle switch) to below. I've got THIS on the way for powering accessories. I looked at a lot of different ones and the costs, including some switch panels with fuses, but got this for the price and ease of use, and ATC fuses instead of glass ones. The boat has a marine radio (haven't confirmed it actually works yet), a regular "car stereo" radio (ditto), and I want to do some extra lighting as well. Won't use nearly as many spots as it has, but the smaller ones were only a couple dollars less, and didn't have the integrated ground bar on them.

Also have a new prop waiting in the box, as both this one, and the parts boat one were pretty beat up. I got a brand new Solas 14.5x19 off Ebay for $50+shipping. Figured it was a good place to start (more interested in pulling / plaining than top speed), but will be willing to buy a new one if I don't like it.

 

[Twinchalada]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Yo I am a new boater too - and can't figure out how to post on here. How did you even make a post? I am tired of trying to find the dang button to post my question on here. Any advice to a fellow [poster hopeful?

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Took the boat out for her maiden voyage today. Overall, things went very well. I have a few more things to work out, but we didn't get stranded (well, almost), and nothing broke.

The shifting is VERY problematic. With the engine off, it works like butter. Even at home with the muffs on while running it was fine. Got it to the lake and it didn't want to come out of gear in forward OR reverse, but it was MUCH worse in reverse. I'd pretty much have to jump right from reverse to forward. I'm sure that's not doing any good on the gears. So, since I'm pretty sure it's not the cables, since they are fine when the engine isn't running, it must be something in the Alpha1. If anyone wants to jump in with advice, let me know. Otherwise, I'll just search. It was really dicey when I launched and didn't know what the heck was going on. Very hard to manuver around the piers and launch area, but I managed.

The thing picks up and goes like crazy out of the hole. I'm extremely happy with that. The downside is that I think I chose the wrong prop pitch - 14.5 x 19. It was pretty choppy out, but I was at times hitting 40mph (GPS) at 5200rpm and still climbing before I would back it down off WOT. I'm thinking I need a 21 pitch to keep the RPM's down a bit. Given that this thing REALLY jumps out of the hole with the 19 pitch, I'll probably still be fine with a 21 pitch. I may make a post over in the appropriate "prop" area for other advice.

Speedo pressure tube was cut, and laying in the back, giving me a nice water spray while moving. Kinda comical actually. I have the spare tubing already pulled from the parts boat - I just didn't have time to install it. It did seem that I was taking on more water than that, but didn't really investigate too much. It didn't seem severe. Another time.

One interesting moment was that we went back to the launch to drop off my daughter who needed to leave early for work. The engine wouldn't restart after that. Not even a click or turning over or anything. Thought maybe it was the neutral cutout or something. Nope. Remember that temp gauge that didn't want to work and I found the main engine connector, when wiggled would bring it back to life. Yup. Same thing here. Pushed on the main connector, and it fired right up. At least I was at the boat launch if I couldn't figure it out.

One more problem I found... The lake seems a WHOLE lot smaller with a big fast boat. Cruising around at 30mph was so much different than my old Tuffy. I gotta say, the tri-hull on the Tuffy made waves a whole lot easier to deal with - totally different with the deep V hull.

In all, we spent about 5 hours on the water today. Wanted to stay out and enjoy it longer, but didn't want my first trailer landing to be at dusk - especially with the way the shifting was. Oh, and about that - I brought it up with the trailer somewhat shallow and used the winch to bring it up. It walked right up the rollers with no problems.

 

[gozierdt]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Curt,

Glad the boat ran well, no big problems. It's a nice package, IMHO.

I'm too new to the I/O world to have good suggestions about your shifting. I'd suggest you post a separate thread over on the Mercruiser section of the "Engine repair and maintenance" motor/outdrive section iBoats to get some expert suggestions on how to fix your problem. One thing I did notice on your boat is that the I/O is black. The one on mine is white, with a Sea-Ray badge on it. I believe Sea-Ray used only white in the 1988 year. So it looks like yours is not the original- it's been replaced at some time. That's not necessarily bad, and could be good. And the fact you haven't noticed any gear whine sounds good to me. So try and get some adjustment advice over on the other sub-forum, and I think you'll be good to go.

Second thing, you might see if your new prop is "cupped". Cupping a prop gives you sort of a "half-step" in between the 2" steps in pitch. Like you said, post over it the "Props" area to see what the experts say...

Gene

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

One thing I did notice on your boat is that the I/O is black. The one on mine is white, with a Sea-Ray badge on it. I believe Sea-Ray used only white in the 1988 year. So it looks like yours is not the original- it's been replaced at some time. That's not necessarily bad, and could be good. And the fact you haven't noticed any gear whine sounds good to me. So try and get some adjustment advice over on the other sub-forum, and I think you'll be good to go.

I've often wondered that too, but the whole darn thing must have been replaced then, because it's black on the inside, outside, and lower unit. My 1989 parts boat is the same way, so I'm not sure if it was factory or not. My engine's serial number doesn't match the one in the owners manual either, so maybe the whole thing was swapped at some point. Probably no way to know.

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Some small updates.

Speedometer tubing run - We'll see how it goes on the next trip, but always have my GPS too for accurate speed. At least it won't be dumping water in the boat. :facepalm:
New Fuse panel installed under the dash, and the depth/fish finder is wired, as well as the radio and VHF Marine radio.
Horn Fixed (replaced with one from the parts boat)

Tonight I hopefully found the shifting problem. The "shift switch" was bad (not sure what it's called - the thing that momentarily stumbles the engine when you shift). Pulled the one from the parts boat, which tested good, and once again, we'll see how it goes at the lake.

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Took the boat out for the 2nd tour last night after work - hit the water about 4:15pm. Shifting was MUCH better, but I'm thinking the cables need to be adjusted more yet. Reverse still didn't totally want to come out of gear at the neutral point, but didn't "Stick" in gear like it did before. I could tell the new shifting switch was stumbling the engine correctly, and everything was tolerable in that catagory.

Speedometer works, and is actually quite accurate once you get up to speed. Doesn't really read very well at any low speed at all. I guess I really don't care about it too much anyway.

As to the advice about getting a shop tachometer - I'm absolutely doing that. Yesterday I could tell the tach was just not anywhere near correct at lower speeds. Sometimes it seemed dead on, and other times it seemed real high. So I ordered a multimeter with dwell and tach built in, and will use that to test when it comes in. It could very well be that my revs are not going as high as I thought they were. I want to be sure before I drop money for a new prop.

Boat ran great again. Lots of power, smooth cruising, etc.

Oh, and with the speedometer tubing fixed, very little water got into the boat.

 

[gozierdt]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Glad everything continues to go well, with only minor issues. That's all I had on mine
also. These are really nice family boats.

It's not hard to find a replacement tach on the web, but hard to find one with a
matching face. All my instrument faces had had something gooey sprayed on the
lenses, so I ended up replacing all of them.

That parts boat has been a gold-mine for you. Really smart of you to find & buy it.

Good Luck,
Gene

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

I posted this over in Dockside Chat, but thought I would share here too. Got around to pulling the parts boat apart further, and got the engine out and tore it down. Found out why it seized...

Not much salvagable from the rotating assy, except pistons. 4 out of 6 rod bearings were toast (probably oil starved). Pulled off everything and put the block up on Craigslist for $25 as a rebuildable core (would have to be bored and decked). I'll see if anyone wants it before I toss it.

Here are some pictures of the parts boat, if anyone is interested

 

[Struc]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

Took today and tomorrow off. Spent today doing misc things on the boat, including giving her a good washing. At some point, oil was getting into the bilge, so there was an oily residue all over the engine bay bilge, and it also got up into the ski locker a bit. So, I brought the hose out and did some spraying. Got most of it cleaned up pretty good. I'll need to get some simple green out to finish it up at some point, but at least the black residue is gone and the bilge is a nice grey color again.

Also spent some time with the staple gun doing some temporary upholstery repairs to the engine cover and the back piece across the engine compartment which has the head bolsters for the back seats. Both are rotted pretty good and will need to be replaced, but I want to do that in the off season.

Tomorrow I'll be working on stripping the parts boat further. I need to get it gone. Really don't like my driveway looking like a marina junk yard, but at least I don't have to deal with a HOA or anything.

It's going to be a shame to cut it up to get rid of it, but then I found the rotten (actually, pretty much missing) transom, along with everything else that is wrong (some rotten floor & stringers, trashed interior, etc), so I guess I don't feel *too* bad.

My (step)daughter is leaving for college on Saturday, so tonight we took the whole family out on the boat for a cruise (3rd voyage) and dinner (stopped at the place she worked so she could be served by the people she worked with)

Everything went flawless as before. Very little water was in the bilge at the end of the night, and I'm guessing most of that was from the splashing from a few big waves we hit (my daugher got soaked sitting in the back by the engine for one of them).

I do get an awful lot of "wandering" at no-wake speeds. I'm constantly adjusting back and forth. I'll have to search and see what that's about, or how normal it is.

That's all to report for now.

 

[gozierdt]

Re: First Post: My adventure in boating. 1988 Sea Ray Seville 200 from the beginn

I had a lot of low speed wander also. Apparently most deep-V hulls are subject to the problem. I read many posts that trim tabs
fix the problem. I put on a set of Bennett manual control tabs, and they almost completely eliminated the wander when I put them
full down at low speeds. A lot of people state that the "Smart-tabs" also fix the problem, at a significantly lower cost. I just liked the
manual control ability.