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I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 20th, 2015, 1:00 am
by anothernewb
In my 32 years of life I have been smart enough to rent or borrow other peoples boats despite being a certified marine mechanic... until now.

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The guy that surveyed my fathers 37' Marine trader turned me onto this boat. It was part of an estate of a gentleman who passed away 4 years ago. The family is still struggling with the loss but after all this time have received permission from the attorneys to start liquidating assets to close out the estate. I was fortunate enough to have talked to them before they just handed the title over to the marina for the balance owed for storage.

I stole this thing for $1,500. Now before everyone starts bringing out the pitch forks, it came with a healthy slew of problems, mostly mechanical and a lot of mold/mildew inside, mostly in the stateroom.

At some point before it was hauled out of the water the sea lift it was kept on broke and allowed the starboard aft corner to drop into the water. I have not yet heard the motors run. I do know that the port side will turn over with a breaker bar on the crank bolt so it should be savable. The starboard motor is frozen. There is no water in the oil so I'm hoping I can pull the plugs, find the rusty one and dump some penetrating oil into it and work it back loose. Worst comes to worse, I'm looking at a remand long block. I'm really really really hoping the genny is okay but right now the motors are my priority.

Both alternators and both water pumps are froze up and I have not yet checked the starters.

Its a shame really because the hour meters on the motors only show 31hrs and 41hrs. It is my understanding that these are not the original motors though and tonight while cleaning out all the moldy bedding and trash in the cabinets I did find 2 hour meters showing only 350 hours, give or take. From what the family has told me, the father kept really good care of his boat and had both engines and both V-drives replaced and I have no reason to doubt them though I am curious why with so little run time.

Along with the boat I received all the paper work they had, even a receipt for a new Garmin 4212 GPS and radar module.

This damn thing is 100% complete, right down to the Carver embroidered pillow cases. Every piece of paper it came with from the factory is still on the boat as well as manuals for any upgrades installed. All the canvas and framework is there but some of the clear plastic windows have a few cracks. The upholstery is 7/10 with only 1 seat, the one forward of the cockpit, needing redone.

Really my only other concerns are the pumps under the floor. Tonight I pumped out probably 50 gallons of water and there is no telling how long the pumps and motor for the bow thruster have been submerged luckily it is fresh/rain water. Did I mention it has what is claimed to be a brand new bow thruster?

I'm expecting to dump about $10k into it in the next couple months. I'm sure thats only 2/3 what I'll really spend but even then, I'm still way under book value.

My goals are to make it tip top and live on it in one of the marinas here is Port Canaveral for a year or two and trade it towards a nice blue water sail boat.

Anyways, thanks for having me here. I'm sure that the wealth of knowledge will benefit me greatly and I look forward to getting to know you guys.


edit: For anyone interested in the condition it is/was (I cleaned the junk out of it tonight) here is an IMGUR album of the pictures I took. http://imgur.com/a/BJ0wL
http://imgur.com/a/RCwTx

Re: I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 20th, 2015, 1:07 am
by RGrew176
Good luck with the project. Being a 2000 model I think it is possible that you will come out ahead and when done you will have a boat worth more than what you have into it.

You will be able to start creating your boating memories once the boat is up and running.

Re: I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 20th, 2015, 2:12 am
by anothernewb
Thanks! I know I'm in it right. As long as I don't get too meticulous I should come out pretty well.


That's not something you hear very often :-D
you will have a boat worth more than what you have into it.

Re: I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 20th, 2015, 10:57 am
by Lyndon670
Wow - I think you just made yourself a pile of money. I would have snapped that deal up super fast...good for you!

Re: I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 20th, 2015, 12:09 pm
by waybomb
We picked up our 1987 3697 for little more than you picked that up. I didn't have to do much engine work though.
The boat sat outside uncovered for 10 years. Like yours mold, etc

Total we have in it now is about 25k. Replaced all carpets, installed all granite countertops, wife sewed up all new sunbrella, curtains, cushions, etc.

The engines had about 240 hours on them. Rebuilt the carbs, new hoses, fluids, filters. Bought some used electronics and two very good sound systems.

The boat is like new, and paid for.

If you can do everything yourself, you'll learn all about the boat, save a ton of money, and have a boat for cash.
Can't beat it.

Re: I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 20th, 2015, 2:15 pm
by feeez
You could spend double what you mentioned and still win on this deal.

I just love our 2001. Good for you in given a neglected boat a new chance at more years on the water.
Keep us posted on the project and good luck

Fraser

Re: I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 20th, 2015, 3:05 pm
by anothernewb
Thank you all for the words of encouragement!

I plan on doing most of the work myself along with my dad. It's not the first boat we've done together. His current boat is a 37' Marine Trader trawler and 2 years ago we redid a Pearson P26 sailboat so this is nothing new to us.

The albums I posted links for make the interior look much worse than it is with exception to the stateroom. The carpet from what I've seen is perfectly savable and the cabinets are fine. I don't think the water ever made it out of the forward bilge to the interior.

Tonight I'm going to put some time in getting power to everything and do some system checks. If there's time I'll climb into the engine room and start working towards getting the port motor running and trying to free up the starboard on.

Re: I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 21st, 2015, 7:02 am
by Dewmyster
What a shame! Great find and best of luck to you. Lots of wrenches and elbow grease will make her new again!

Re: I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 23rd, 2015, 8:23 pm
by anothernewb
Welp, pulled the starters and alternators last night, they were all toast. New ones are ordered.

Started pulling spark plugs on the motor thats frozen and found barnacles growing on one of the plugs :-O Needless to say, its done for. I'll be pulling it tomorrow and popping the heads off to see if I need a short or long block. Its really a shame for a motor with only 41 hours on it.

Good news is the motor needed to come out anyways to pull the starboard fuel tank to have it repaired. Oddly enough, it was replaced in 2007 by a company almost next door to my office. Wonder why it keeps eating fuel tanks? I was told it has a leak and there isn't a drop of fuel in it so I have no reason to doubt the previous owners.

Still don't have any 12v power inside the cabin, it might have something to do with the 3 cables that corroded off of the battery selector. So far I have figured out which ones run to the motors and generator. Speaking of generator, hooked power to it and cranked it over tonight, turned over without effort. I couldn't find a dipstick on it anywhere to check the oil level but I did peak inside the rocker covers and everything looked great. Coolant inside it looked brand new as well so with any luck all it needs is serviced and the carb rebuilt.


Now, whats the deal with the search function on this forum? Do I really have to wait a minute in between searches? Any way to stop that? This is the first forum I've been on that discourages searching before posting.

Re: I've either made a horrible decision or a great investment

Posted: November 24th, 2015, 6:08 am
by CYO Admin
We are on a shared server with limited resources so search is modified a bit to reserve those resources. It keeps people/bots/etc. from crashing the database server, and in turn, the site.

I have reduced it to 10 sec between searches and will see how it goes :captain2: