After dreaming of a boat for years, I finally found myself in a situation where a boat was practical. I browsed Craigslist, until I found this little guy for sale.
The story goes, a guy bought it, wasn't able to get it running, so it sat in his garage for 10 years. He gets an offer for a different job across the country, decides to sell the boat, trailer, boat cover, and the 2 spare engines he has for it for $400 (non running)
I check it out, find out it isn't seized up, feels like it has decent compression, so I go ahead and buy it. I cross my fingers, and load up the Lincoln for the longish drive home, 2 80hp outboards safely nestled into the trunk, and the little boat sitting on the class 3 hitch. First realization is, tail lights don't work. Oh well, I'll just go fast and pray the decade of sitting around hasn't ruined the bearings or wheels. I make it back with out any other issues.
The following weekend, I start the troubleshooting, no spark, no fuel, but we have squish and suck. A quick rebuild of the carb, and we've got fuel, a jar of liquid electrical tape applied to the cracked and shorted ignition wires, and we've got spark! I put the decade old premixed gas into my other car, and fill it up with ethanol free gas. Boom I've got a running boat!!
(Tow ***** and the ShaDynasty)
A quick test drive proves everything works (gear shift backwards, but whaterver). She gets a fresh change of lower unit oil, and a very thurough washing. Did I mention in the decade of sitting around in the garage, it was home to several families of cats and mice, before they removed the cover to let the bird poo coat it?
Take my coworker out fishing, when suddenly she starts running like ****. The carb is leaking gas, stuck float? I dig it open, and turns out my float has sunk. A few minutes cleaning the gas out, and I'm ready to solder this thing shut, well, use soldering iron to melt chunks of plastic into the worn out seam on the float that is.
Runs again! I promptly take it back out and find a lightly submerged tree or rock.
I get this welded back up at the local shop, and I'm back out on the water!
**** like that makes it all worth it. After getting it back on the trailer, I find out I put the tilt lock on wrong, so it's stuck in the down position in neutral. I'll have to tear the lower off soon and figure out how that's supposed to go.
Just wanted to share my happiness with my first boat!
The story goes, a guy bought it, wasn't able to get it running, so it sat in his garage for 10 years. He gets an offer for a different job across the country, decides to sell the boat, trailer, boat cover, and the 2 spare engines he has for it for $400 (non running)
I check it out, find out it isn't seized up, feels like it has decent compression, so I go ahead and buy it. I cross my fingers, and load up the Lincoln for the longish drive home, 2 80hp outboards safely nestled into the trunk, and the little boat sitting on the class 3 hitch. First realization is, tail lights don't work. Oh well, I'll just go fast and pray the decade of sitting around hasn't ruined the bearings or wheels. I make it back with out any other issues.
The following weekend, I start the troubleshooting, no spark, no fuel, but we have squish and suck. A quick rebuild of the carb, and we've got fuel, a jar of liquid electrical tape applied to the cracked and shorted ignition wires, and we've got spark! I put the decade old premixed gas into my other car, and fill it up with ethanol free gas. Boom I've got a running boat!!
(Tow ***** and the ShaDynasty)
A quick test drive proves everything works (gear shift backwards, but whaterver). She gets a fresh change of lower unit oil, and a very thurough washing. Did I mention in the decade of sitting around in the garage, it was home to several families of cats and mice, before they removed the cover to let the bird poo coat it?
Take my coworker out fishing, when suddenly she starts running like ****. The carb is leaking gas, stuck float? I dig it open, and turns out my float has sunk. A few minutes cleaning the gas out, and I'm ready to solder this thing shut, well, use soldering iron to melt chunks of plastic into the worn out seam on the float that is.
Runs again! I promptly take it back out and find a lightly submerged tree or rock.
I get this welded back up at the local shop, and I'm back out on the water!
**** like that makes it all worth it. After getting it back on the trailer, I find out I put the tilt lock on wrong, so it's stuck in the down position in neutral. I'll have to tear the lower off soon and figure out how that's supposed to go.
Just wanted to share my happiness with my first boat!
