Help Identifying my boat

[An Old Starcraft]

I picked this boat up yesterday for 1,000 dollars. It's a 1982 Starcraft with a 3.8 OMC. Needs new carpet and flooring, as far as I know. The glove box says "WV 171," which I assume is the model of the boat, only problem is I can't find a single thing about it! I can't find a picture of one that looks like it, I can't find a forum post about that model, the only thing I can find is the NADA values. I'd really appreciate some help figuring out what I have! Thank you in advance.

 

[An Old Starcraft]

Here's a front view.

 

[tpenfield]

:welcome: to iBoats . . .

Rarely does a boat just need a floor. Usually the stuff below the floor has rotted out as well.

 

[matt167]

Starcraft puts the model of the boat on the ID tag which should be near the helm..

However my best advice is to offload it for whatever you can get.. It needs a floor, so it also needs everything else ( stringers/ transom/ foam. $~2,500ish on something like that ), and then it's got a 3.8L OMC which is the Chevy 229, predecessor to the 4.3L which is ok sort of, but not really because it's been NLA for a long time.. And the OMC stringer drive itself has been obsolete for a decade at least. Parts went out of production around 2000

 

[An Old Starcraft]

Thank you for the welcome Myself! Myself and a couple buddies were looking for a cheap boat we could fix up ourselves, so I'm not too worried about the floor being shot all the way through. The only soft spots are right around the storage hatch in the middle of the deck. As far as it having an Stringer outdrive, the whole point was to get a fixer upper and learn how to fix boats, if parts become too hard to come by maybe a repower is in the boats future. I even looked up the serial number on the stern and quite literally nothing popped up lol. I will go and take some pictures of of the back end here in a bit.

 

[GA_Boater]

Welcome aboard.

You do indeed have a WV 171;



Blew up the top of the page so it can be read. Can't tell in your pics if she's an open or closed bow. WV 171 is closed bow with an I/O and WV 171B is an open bow I/O

 

[An Old Starcraft]

Welcome aboard.

You do indeed have a WV 171;



Blew up the top of the page so it can be read. Can't tell in your pics if she's an open or closed bow. WV 171 is closed bow with an I/O and WV 171B is an open bow I/O

Thank you so much! She's an open bow. I really, really do appreciate that. Why was it so hard to find any information on it? I assume it was a pretty common boat.

 

[tpenfield]

Based on the HIN (serial number) the boat is a 1981 (built in October 1981)

 

[An Old Starcraft]

Based on the HIN (serial number) the boat is a 1981 (built in October 1981)

Thats more good information, thank you.

 

[GA_Boater]

Thanks, Ted. I meant to mention the year but got sidetracks finding the brochure pics.

Common is a relative term. It may have been a top seller for Starcraft in 1981, but the number produced was probably small compared to all the boats built by all the manufacturers.

 

[Scott Danforth]

a few things to point out

the floor is the last thing to rot on a fiberglass boat. that will get soft only after the stringers and transom go bad. plan on a complete hull restoration.

the 3.8 with the stringer 800 will eventually need a new 3-piece vertical driveshaft. you will need to buy custom tools and the factory service manual. very few people work on these drives.

the stringers went out of production in 1985 and the company went out of business in 1999

if you want a cheap boat, this isnt it. plan on spending $3000 to get the hull back into shape. plan on about $1000 worth of drive work. if the motor ever needs work, you will need to rebuild the 229, as only the 1985 4.3 will ever connect to the stringer intermediate housing.

what ever you do, do not damage the lower shift cable. that cable is $750 alone.

 

[An Old Starcraft]

a few things to point out

the floor is the last thing to rot on a fiberglass boat. that will get soft only after the stringers and transom go bad. plan on a complete hull restoration.

the 3.8 with the stringer 800 will eventually need a new 3-piece vertical driveshaft. you will need to buy custom tools and the factory service manual. very few people work on these drives.

the stringers went out of production in 1985 and the company went out of business in 1999

if you want a cheap boat, this isnt it. plan on spending $3000 to get the hull back into shape. plan on about $1000 worth of drive work. if the motor ever needs work, you will need to rebuild the 229, as only the 1985 4.3 will ever connect to the stringer intermediate housing.

what ever you do, do not damage the lower shift cable. that cable is $750 alone.

Thanks for the info! If push comes to shove and it starts getting too expensive ill sell it off to someone with more money lol. I only paid 1000 for it, and I have no illusions of getting my money back out of it, if I do sell it, because I really like the idea of knowing exactly whats under my feet, and I love how the boat looks.. Hypothetically if I wanted to put like a Mercruiser Alpha in there, engine and 9utdrive, how difficult would that be? As of now the outdrive and engine work fine so I'm not worried yet.

 

[matt167]

The OMC stringer mounts entirely different than anything else. The hole the Stringer needs in the transom is huge.. So you would typically do that conversion at the same time as rebuilding the floor/ stringers/ transom..

Your best bet is to find a donor boat that is Mercruiser powered and do the swap when you do all the repairs. You may like the donor boat better.

 

[Scott Danforth]

. Hypothetically if I wanted to put like a Mercruiser Alpha in there, engine and 9utdrive, how difficult would that be? As of now the outdrive and engine work fine so I'm not worried yet.

well, since you have to rebuild the transom anyway, not much more work than fixing what you have..... just rebuild the transom, glass in the exterior and cut a smaller hole

the old OMC stringers had a hole in the transom you could drive thru vs the small key-hole of the Mercruiser which is now industry standard.

 

[An Old Starcraft]

I'm seeing a lot of people talking about doing OMC to SEI conversions. Is that with cobra outdrives only, or is it possible with a Stringer? And thanks again guys, its great to find a community that provides actual useful information.

 

[GA_Boater]

Not much you can do with Stringers. If it's working, you're lucky. But since they haven't been made for many decades, when something wears out, you're up the creek.

SEI is for Cobras, not Stringers.

 

[An Old Starcraft]

Hmm, I think I'm going to clean this one up and let it go. If it didn't have the OMC Stringer I'd be all about restoring it, because its such a cool boat, but without a reliable drive train I just can't justify spending what looks to be 15k+ to have a reliable boat, especially when there's boats in better condition with better outboards for sale right now in my area. Heck, there's an 89 Supra Conbrio for sale for a little under 6k, right in my city! I appreciate you guys helping me avoid what I feel was about to be a very very costly mistake.

 

[Scott Danforth]

part of your restoration will be redoing the transom. the difference in work between what you need to do to put the OMG and Stringer back in and to swap in another drive is about 1 hours' worth of work in the end.

keep in mind, fiberglass boats have a design life of 15 years. that is when they are anticipated by the manufacturer to need to be replaced. some people may get a longer service life, however dont count on it.

looking at boats from the late 80's is the equivalent of looking at cars from the late 80's. you dont go shopping for a rusty Chevette or clapped out citation for a car