Soon to be boat owner looking for advice

[Slide]

Hey folks! Lifetime part fish from Cincinnati, spent my adolescence boating with my dad on the mighty Ohio River and Caesars Creek lake. He has moved on to bigger and nicer boats, but recently I got the chance to purchase his old boat that I grew up on!

It's an 85 21' Larson cuddy that was my Dads hot rod project; running a 352 small block and a Bravo drive he claims it would once upon a time run 65. I'm picking it up for 3k, about the value of the motor on its own.

My dad will of course be my biggest resource on this boat but I'm looking for any and all advice on its upkeep. I know these motors can be very finicky considering the number of times I've seen it winched up. I have plenty of mechanical aptitude but I am new to boat maintenance, and I want to do as much preventative maintenance as possible to avoid ending up like Dad cursing at it in the middle of the lake.

Every bit of advice helps. Thanks a ton!

 

[maharg]

Re: Soon to be boat owner looking for advice

Take it to washington marine if you need service done, its by river downs. They do good work for less than other shops.

 

[The Famous Grouse]

Re: Soon to be boat owner looking for advice

Advice? How about keep shopping?

Seriously. If it's proved to be unreliable, skip it and use your 3K to buy something that is reliable. Sorry, your dad may have loved to hot rod the boat, but if he's constantly pulling the engine than his enthusiasm was high, but his aptitude was obviously low if he was stranding himself in the middle of lakes.

Your mechanical aptitude only comes into play if you actually enjoy working on boats. If you'd rather use it instead of wrench on it, I'd say move on. The price won't make up for the hassle if things go wrong and if you end up paying for parts and someone else to work on it, that $3000 price will seem like a huge ripoff just as soon as something major goes wrong.

I've seem a lot of boats like this, I call them Grandpa's Tinker Toy. Most of them have a lot of work that was done on them, little of which was done well.

Grouse