Need a few honest opinions on buying a boat.

[axlr8]

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Ok hopefully these load. The first four are the pictures that the seller gave me, based on these, I came up with the price I offered. The last two suggest what the hull looked like after demolition. In my defense, we found about a 4' long crack on the bottom of the boat that was non repairable. Otherwise I intended to strip it for donation or resale.

I picked up metal today to build an engine stand for the outboard and plan to have that mounted by the end of this upcoming weekend. Couldnt find any plans that I really liked, so I created my own. If it turns out, I'll share them here as well.

 

[Watermann]

You had a rotten glasser roast and didn't send out invites :lol:

 

[axlr8]

No Title

Apologies for the lack of invites, it was a spur of the moment deal! On a more scary note, as soon as it finally took, police lights showed up out of nowhere on the local road (VERY RARE) and I assumed that they were headed towards our blaze... but apparently there was a wreck down the road a mile!...I was sure worried that I was going to get fined.

On a different note, I have some rough sketches of the motor stand that i plan to built. all of the legs are being framed out of 2"x2" 14ga square tube and the false transom will be made of laminated plywood to 2.25 inches or so. Which will be bolted to the metal frame of the stand. I have the angle set to about 15* to simulate an average boat. Anyway, here are some snapshots.

 

[ondarvr]

You don't need to make the plywood 2.5" thick, even 3/4" would be fine

 

[trailking82]

Have you seen plans for this stand? It seems similar to what you have posted but made of wood. I have built 3 of them and they really standup well.

http://forums.iboats.com/forum/engi...327-building-an-o-b-motor-stand-instructional.

 

[Watermann]

1.5" thickness for the motor mounting board would be plenty. I never have understood why the angle like a transom for a motor stand. It would make it more difficult to attach and remove the motor when lifting straight up and serve zero purpose.

 

[axlr8]

Initially I intended to completely recreate the back of the boat that I took it off of (in terms of transom thickness and angle) just so it was similar to what it came off of and it would simulate the original running position.

Instead of the laminated plywood, i might just bolt up some 2X6s and call that good. I guess there is no reason to angling the stand other than to transfer some of the load towards the middle of the stand. All of the wooden plans that I have seen were angled and I modeled mine after those. I guess I will do some more looking and see what I come up with.

trailking82, that is one of the stands that I came across in my search and really liked how it was built. I opted for the steel because I am better suited at the current time to do metal work than I am to do woodwork.

 

[DeepBlue2010]

2 by 6 will do the job just fine. If you go with an angled stand, I would add a cross brace between the horizontal base and the vertical frame and I would also reveres where the motor is installed on the stand. Like this

 

[axlr8]

DeepBlue, I understand why you added the gussets on the vertical and horizontal bars, but why would you put the motor on the front of the stand?? Just curious why you are suggesting that.

 

[savetexomabeaches]

how are you liking the pile of melted fiberglass? that stuff really doesn't burn well lol

 

[axlr8]

Well the local dump wanted $150 to recycle the boat as a whole. I was not going to pay that... so we put it on the burn pile and condensed the fiberglass. And after it all burnt down, the dump accepted it free of charge... I could have just left it and buried it for the next 50 years, but that didnt seem like something I planned to do...

And you are definitely correct on the fact that it doesnt burn well... neither does waterlogged foam! We eventually got it to take and the boat magically dissappeared!



On a brighter note, I have the motor stand completed and the outboard on it. Upon checking over the motor, there is a few corroded wires that supply power to the individual coils. BUT it does still have spark. The motor turns over nicely and has compression. I picked up a battery uesterday and hopefully will have the carbs cleaned and the motor fired this afternoon.

One question I do have, when the motor is in reverse, am I supposed to be able to rotate the prop by hand? or will it be locked in gear? I know in forward it will spin and ratchet, just curious if it is supposed to do the same in reverse.

 

[Watermann]

Try having someone spin the prop for you while you run the gear shift. The prop should lock up. It sounds to me like your not getting it to go all the way into gear the way your doing it.

Sounds like you might have gotten lucky with a good power head. Those corroded wires are a common problem with the older Mercs.

 

[DeepBlue2010]

DeepBlue, I understand why you added the gussets on the vertical and horizontal bars, but why would you put the motor on the front of the stand?? Just curious why you are suggesting that.

Sorry for the delay, was a little under the weather for few days. Basically two reasons that I personally would do it this way...

A) It will be - for me at least - easier to get on and off the stand since in one direction gravity will help me and the other gravity will work against me.

B) It looks to me - I did not analyze the forces or tried to model them mathematically - that if you put it the way I suggested, most of the forces will act as compression forces on the arms while if you put it on the other side, most of the forces will be torque forces acting to torque the arms of the stand clockwise.

Of course, this is just the way I would approach it but feel free to go with whatever makes you comfortable.

 

[axlr8]

Well I have some good news and some more good news.

I built my motor stand this weekend, mounted the motor, and tore it down to check it out and inspect things the best I could. After about 2 hours of noting issues that were visible, I tore the carbs apart and cleaned them the best I could without putting carb kits in. (will be doing down the road shortly), after cleaning the carbs and re installing them, I did a compression test on the three of the four cylinders that I could get to with my tester and came up with a 115-110-110-??? reading. And to say the least, I was really ready to put some fresh mix to it and see if I could fire it. Knowing that I would need to rebuild my water pump before hitting the lake, I primed the fuel system and it held awesome pressure, so I put the motor in neutral and turned the key in the shop.

After a few more minutes of tinkering with it, she popped off and had a bad attitude, which I blame on some penetrating oil and old fuel in the case/cylinders. After coaxing it to life a few more times and getting the fresh mix in the motor, I decided to cut a barrel and take it to the water spigot. I ran the motor for about 15 minutes, got water pumping through the motor, and let it run. Now it will definitely need some more tuning and adjustments, but it runs and it idles, and it did a few short revs with no problems at all.

So, that is very good news on the outboard! So I packaged it all back up until I get a chance to order the carb kits, fuel lines, WP kit, and a few more odds and ends that it will need to be 100% water ready.

After that was done, I headed to work for the evening and went to bed after my shift. This morning, browsing craigslist while waiting for breakfast to be done, I found something that my motor would be a great fit for. And at the right price, I will buy it. I'm going to look at it this evening and hoping I can bring it home with me as well.
I'm not going to give many details, but I will update you guys tonight on what happens.

 

[axlr8]

DeepBlue2010, I ended up making the verticals 90* with the horizontals, and just added a brace on the side that the motor would be hanging off of. It is plenty sturdy, but if I were to make another, there are some things I would definitely do differently. After thinking about it, I saw no reason to angle them back and figured that it was just a waste of time.

 

[axlr8]

Well I picked up a boat last night, I will be starting a new thread to go into detail on it. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I can have something written up.

Ordering a bunch of parts tonight for the motor, where is a good place to order them from??

 

[Watermann]

Yeah so iboats sells parts and I shop here first with the 5% forum discount.

 

[axlr8]

Thanks a bunch Watermann! Ill try and check it out!

 

[Watermann]

You bet and the nice thing about iboats parts buying is for example I needed a water pump repair kits for my Merc 140 and it's Canadian made so I asked them if I had found the correct kit. The next day in my email I had a reply with a link to the correct parts.