As many of you may know by now a 1986 Wellcraft 250 Sportsman followed me home recently. While she isn't a basket case by any means she does show signs of neglect and could use a fair amount of TLC before she is something to be proud of. I'm not talkin' about a showpiece, just a nice clean boat that I can safely bring my family and friends out to sea in.
The motor runs but hasn't been sea trialed so that's still a big unknown. The trailer on the other hand obviously needs work, and a lot of new parts. Expensive new parts.
BTW, It is my intention to keep track of my total cost to get this "bargain" boat up and running so I'm going tp keep a loose running total of my expenditures. But, just in case the Admiral ever finds this forum I'm forced to use a little creative accounting. For instance, when I went to test the motor I noticed that the fuel connector was totally shot. Figures, OMC connectors that I already have don't fit. So the next day at work I ran out to West Marine during lunch and paid $12.99 for a Tempo Yamaha Fuel Connector. So using my accounting method here is the tally so far...
Engine Parts ........ $1.29
Get it? Just divide by 10 and drop anything after the second decimal place. It's fairly accurate and Admiral safe.
While I was at West I also picked up a few cleaners and some varnish and some Yamaha Ring Free and a new Racor fuel filter element.
Tally
Engine Parts 4.78
Misc Supplies 6.00
Gas & Oil -180.00
Total -169.22
That Gas & Oil is a negative because so far I have pumped 60 gallons of gas out of the boat's tank and have been burning it in my cars. At 3.00 a gallon that works out to a $180 windfall profit!
My short term goal is to get on the water by the 4th O' July so with the long Memorial Day weekend here we went right at it.
The first weekend we brought the boat home we did an overall cleaning and assesment of potential problems. This weekend I dug a little deeper to make sure there were no hidden major catastrophes that would kill the project. I wanted to do this before I made any major cash outlays. The transom seems solid, I test drilled the stringers and they look good so...
A look at the trailer. The frame is in great shape and very solid. Everything else, on the other hand...
The brakes. Or should I say lack of brakes. Someone either removed all the guts or they just disintegrated.
Don't have a socket to fit these nuts.
So drill the heads off the bolts.
Hey, where did my helper go?
Here is whats left of the backing plate.
The spindle and axle cleaned up good though.
Looks like I'll have to spring for some new suspension pieces.
BTW, the above photo shows why I hate Home Depot. Every tuba fore I've ever bought there is crap.
Meanwhile, my daughter wanted to see if she could bring the wood trim back to life so she started on a few test pieces. I wasn't so sure but...
I hope she sticks with it and gets the thing done!
When I first looked at the boat I could tell there were some repairs at the bow and along the port chine but they did not appear to be serious. After a little probing the chine looked like it could be a disaster. I couldn't really tell what was going on. There was what looked like chunks of gel coat coming of and patches and bondo. I started to think that this boat had been wrecked run over some rocks. It looked like the whole chine could be split...
Going slowly here is what I found as i sanded away layers of bondo and glass tape, some applied right over old bottom paint.
These are fairly common defects. They happen when the person laying up the glass in the mold doesn't get it to lay in the sharp corner of the chine properly, leaving a void behind the gel coat. The other chine has no defects. Must have been a different worker doing each side. In an effort to "fix" these blemishes someone had made a real mess but the bottom paint hides a lot.
The same thing at the bow where the hull takes a lot of abuse from beaching.
The cure was worse than the disease. I'm going to remove the bottom paint and I know it a long messy job so if anyone has any tips or wants to help, step right up.
As I said at the begining of the post I need to order some trailer parts, brakes being the big ticket item. Right now here is what I am leaning toward:
http://www.championtrailers.com/TIED...BRAKE_KITS.HTM
Thats $43.99 for the 1st axle with a new coulpler and $24.99 forthe second axle. I like the idea of stainless because I hate watching brakes tun into a ball of rust after a couple of seasons but I have no experience with them. Are they worth it? Any downsides? What else should I be looking at?
That's all for now.
Steve P.