I got this boat for free and I am not sure what I should do. The boat sank about 2 years ago and the previous owner was in jail so he never got it running again. Frist thing i did was to check the lower end unit. The reason I did this is the trim was never lifted and it looks like in the towing process it hit the ground. The one fin on the prop was broke off and on the housing the fin was ground prettty hard. I took the plug out of the lower unit and the oil was nice clear goldish brown. So I think it was fine. Is there any way to check if i have a broken gears or some thing else?<br />Now for the engine compartment. The first thing I did was take all the spark plugs out and drain the oil. As you might guess there was water in every thing. But with a little effort the engine turned over. Then next thing I discovered was two freeze plugs where pushed out of the block. I just took a socket and pouned them in again. Then I hooked up the battery and discoverd that the starter was froze up and the tilt moter was too but the gauges still worked and the relays. So took the starter and tilt motor apart cleaned the amatures, put used springs on the brushes and just greased everything back up. When I put every thing back togeter the tilt and trim worked and motor cranked good. <br />So the next thing I did was put new plugs in, oil filter, gas filter, and new gas. In the process of trying to fire it up I found that the carb linkage was frozen. So I took the wd-40 got everything free and tried to start it. Guess what nothing would happen just crank and crank. So I took the wd-40 sprayed it in the carb and the motor ran for a few seconds. Well that is when I took the carb off and tried to rebuild it. That was a big mistake every thing was so rusted up that leaving in carb cleaner for week did not clean the passages. So I took the a drill bit and cleaned the passages and put the carb together out of parts I had laying around. I put the carb back on the engine and tryed it. After I gave it a shot of ether it started. It did not run super good but I ran it long enough to get the engine hot. This is when I found the cracks in the block and exhaust manifold. I took a die grinder ground the cracks and filled them with Jb weld. <br />Now here are my questions. After I did all this how do I check if the mainifolds are cracked in side? I am planning to throw the carb out and put on a efi setup of a blazer with 4.3 but if the maifolds are cracked I do not think it is worth all this work. Because the manifold are about 400 dollars from the dealer and have a 305 out of a 1994 truck that runs good and the mainfolds for them are about 250. If you guys were in the same situation as I am what would you do? Rip the 4.3 out put a 305 or just fix that 4.3.
