Re: Mako 258 water in Bow foam
Ok, on closer inspection of your pics on the mako site, I am kinda changing my mind on this. The boat if it can be had for what I said before, 3K. I think it would be a pretty good deal. There is alot of boat there for that kind of money.
Reason I say this is because some things do look prety good. For one, it is blocked properly, the rear deck looks pretty good. The hull looks to be in good shape on the exterior and the bottom has been protected with bottom paint that looks to be sound. So some care was taken on the boat. The helm area doesn't look to bad for that old a boat and could be cleaned up easily. The wiring atleast had some shrink connectors on them in the pics.
The areas to check before buying are definately the transom. some of these makos had a drain line from the anchor locker that basically went no where. This could be the issue with the foam being wet up forward. also looks like the water is very close to the lowest part of the hull. This is probably the case in most boats out there and many people just don't know that it is there. The cap can be a culprit but so can alot of other areas like the anchor locker, rod holders etc etc etc.
Pull some screws in the stern to see if water weeps out. The mess of caulking on the stern can really deter people when buying a boat but atleast it was sealed.
would really like to see the full listing on this boat to give you a better opinion. You can usually tell alot about the boat in the way the owner has listed it.
Get the survey done for sure and have a marine mechanic get you compression numbers on the motor. Good motor by the way, but a gas hog. Just thiinking out loud here. One thing about the water in the bow foam, is it looks to be clean water. This could indicate that it hasn't been in there for a long time.
Just foood for thought. When I purchased my boat, I asked myself what a new replacement would cost for the same set-up in todays market. Though I have invested a total of about 12 to 14K in my boat, the same boat today equipped the way I equipped it and the features the boat has, would be 100k plus. But you want a boat that is worth restoring. Old makos are usually worth it, because they were very well built hulls.