All good answers, and I appreciate them very much. This is the kind of feedback I was looking for. I understand that the price I'm willing to pay is heavily influenced by how much work I am willing to do. Tearing down an engine and rebuilding is something I am confident I can accomplish. I also know that I'm not capable of doing over a 3-day weekend. It will probably take me many weekends to complete. My wife is understanding and supportive, but she has her limits :) I've started developing a "wife acceptance factor" to measure these things.
The dollar amount others would be willing to pay, based on my best effort to accurately describe it, help me a lot. It's not so much a question of being able to afford it, but more like (a) I really don't have much experience with what a fair value is and (b) for a first boat that the wife will also skipper, I want to keep the costs "reasonable" as defined in my own little world. I just have to adjust my views of what's reasonable to the reality (however, I have found people often ask unreasonable amounts of money for their stuff, and this phenomenon seems to get worse with anything boat related)
BTW, I'm in Wilmington, NC. I'll update my profile. Meanwhile I have some thinking to do.
Thanks for all the advice and opinions.
P.S. - where would one find that $1000 engine that was mentioned on the 2nd page?
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