- Joined
- Jul 31, 2020
- Messages
- 57
Howdy all. I'm new here at the iBoats forum. Have read many, many pages here relating to restorations. Knowing that mass-produced boats are built with mass-produced results, I took a good, close look at all of the boats I went to look at. Every single one of them showed some level of water damage, most were fairly extensive. Showing the owners of said boats what I was seeing made some wide eyes and disheartened sellers. Sadly, some of the boats weren't what I'd consider old, per se. I made a conscious decision to just redo a boat, so I know what I've got when it's over. Financially speaking, a new boat is not in the cards, so I figured throwing thousands of dollars and man-hours at an older boat would be a good trade :facepalm:
I did someone else a favor and took a boat off of their hands, along with several years worth of leaves, branches, and trash. It's a wreck, and it even looks the part. 1989 Four Winns Freedom 170, and it needs it all. Much because the wood eroded from water, and partially because a previous owner tried to patch it up by screwing wood down over the rotten floors and covering it with carpet. All of the pads have been redone at some point as well, but not well. No marine vinyl or marine plywood, so everything was soaked through and rotten, even up that high. Haven't found dry wood anywhere in the boat yet. Trailer's rotten, and the old 2.3 engine is no bueno as well. Timing belt broken. Lower end turns, but the cam in the head is seized. Maybe a 3.0 or 4.3 upgrade? Who knows at this point. No experience with the OMC Cobra either. Maybe a Mercruiser swap. I don't know yet. First thing is removing all of the rotted wood. Smells like low tide in there as it is now.
At least when you go this route, you get to bypass the denial stage. That's about the only benefit I can think of at this point. I'll post here as I make progress. Unfortunately, it can't be a daily thing. I wish I had the time to work on it every day, but I don't. Here's a couple pics after the 25 minute ride home. I'm sure we lost quite a bit of leaves; it was worse when I looked at it. I'm glad the trailer made it. It's as neglected as the boat.
I did someone else a favor and took a boat off of their hands, along with several years worth of leaves, branches, and trash. It's a wreck, and it even looks the part. 1989 Four Winns Freedom 170, and it needs it all. Much because the wood eroded from water, and partially because a previous owner tried to patch it up by screwing wood down over the rotten floors and covering it with carpet. All of the pads have been redone at some point as well, but not well. No marine vinyl or marine plywood, so everything was soaked through and rotten, even up that high. Haven't found dry wood anywhere in the boat yet. Trailer's rotten, and the old 2.3 engine is no bueno as well. Timing belt broken. Lower end turns, but the cam in the head is seized. Maybe a 3.0 or 4.3 upgrade? Who knows at this point. No experience with the OMC Cobra either. Maybe a Mercruiser swap. I don't know yet. First thing is removing all of the rotted wood. Smells like low tide in there as it is now.
At least when you go this route, you get to bypass the denial stage. That's about the only benefit I can think of at this point. I'll post here as I make progress. Unfortunately, it can't be a daily thing. I wish I had the time to work on it every day, but I don't. Here's a couple pics after the 25 minute ride home. I'm sure we lost quite a bit of leaves; it was worse when I looked at it. I'm glad the trailer made it. It's as neglected as the boat.