OK, if I did the correctly, you folks should see the photo above.
I acquired this boat and trailer in September 2008.
It has some issues which I will go into further below as I have some questions to pose to you folks.
The boat and trailer were given to us by friends who have owned it since new. It has been well cared for. Always parked in a boat house and serviced by marinas. The hull appears to be good and the interior is in good condition and usable as is.
The trailer needs new wheels and tires, and in my opinon brakes, as it has none.
The engine has issues. The story as told to me, and I know no more than this at the moment but might be able to find out more information come spring when I can go to the marina that was involved, is essentially as follows. The motor was removed and "rebuilt" about 3 summers back at a cost of about $3K. It then appeared to be alright. 2 summers back it suffered problems. The owners were 15 or 20 miles from home when it started losing power and then oil pressure. They shut down and came in on the auxiliary engine. It has been looked at by a couple of marinas that have suggested a bad connecting rod but have not dismantled the engine.
It does have a bad sound when one cranks it over. We did so this fall to distribute anti-freeze that we poured in through the hoses in an effort to prevent any further trouble. I am not sure I can describe the sound but it is a deep noise and not a click.
In any event, I consider myself to be a fairly decent amateur mechanic. My brother in law is a mechanic and my 20 year old son is part way through training to be a mechanic so between us, we have no qualms about removing and dismantling the engine. Obviously, what we find may well dictate whether this engine is repaired or we look for a replacement.
I guess I did not say, but it is a 225 HP so the book says that will be a Chevy or GMC 307 cid. The hour meter in the dash says the boat has close to 800 hours on it.
I guess my bigger concern is the stringer outdrive. I have not been told that it currently has any issues but my reading indicates it is quite obsolete and parts may be getting harder to comeby.
I do not want to put a whole lot of money into the engine and then end up having to swap the whole setup in a year or two. I don't mind spending some money on it given that it is a nice boat and my initial investment is zero. I do not want to put lots more into it than it would be worth in good running shape.
Selling it and buying something else is not an option. The folks who gave it to us did so on the understanding that we would repair it and I have every intention of doing so.
I am aware that changing out the drive to something more modern likely means swapping to a Merc and that means repairing the transom for a smaller mounting hole. The only thing about that that concerns me is the gel coat as I don't know as though I want to paint the hull. I assume someone could color match reasonably.
I also assume there might be significant issues to redo steering, shifter controls and electrical for the panel etc. So a fair amount of time invested to do it.
So, what would you do? Would you fix and hope to keep the stringer running for a few years? Would you abandon that and swap to something else now?
I have no experience to amount to anything with stern drives. Pretty much all of my experience is with outboard motors.
Are the older Mercs obsolete too? For example, right now, I can buy a 1975 24 foot boat with a V8 Ford and Merc drive on a trailer advertised locally for about $1500. Unfortunately, given the time of year, I cannot test it first but it appears to be intact. I could junk the boat, sell the tandom trailer and essentially have the whole drive train with the steering and controls, etc. for very little ultimate outlay.
So tell me what you think.
Randy
