I have put the boat in the water from Louisiana, Nevada and now in Oregon..I really prefer fresh water! My boat has on and off been in storage for lengthy periods over the last 12 years and right (sat undercover for pretty much 2 years in Reno) now I am reconditioning and repairing what some neglect has caused...I just spent the weekend overhauling the carburetors (what a chore, you should have seen the gunk that was in there amazing the boat ran as well as it did!) and cleaned up the RAVE valves (uhhhh should have done this earlier!) By the way, storing anything in Reno is the best place to do it as long as you keep it out of the sun! The dry air is pretty easy on all but wood. I know I should drain all the gas out, it was stored with STABLE in it, just can't figure out how and what to do with 30+ gallon of old gas!
I brought the boat to Oregon because it just was not getting used. It took me part of a weekend to get it running. (Actually it started up with little problems, didn't even have to change the spark plugs), Though I installed a DC fuel pump with remote activation, a button up on the dash, as years ago I have removed the choke circuits for manual primer pumps, and they were all dried out and not working, so rather than try to find new ones I installed the mini DC powered pump which works great! It is a a "dry" type accessory fuel pump) a lot of the weekend was spent crawling around on the ground rewiring the trailer lights...(man!! They never seem to last more than a season).
Over all I have to say this boat, these engines have amazed me with their reliability and durability...they have always started and ran, ran, ran...and do not use all that much oil (unlike my Yamaha owing friends). The boat itself has been pretty good to, I had problems throwing drive shafts early on, and some other relative minor issues, but the quality of the boat construction has pretty much stood up to what some would call abuse, but I call hard fun use...WOT all day long!!
I took the boat the the local lake where it ran pretty well except the port engine would bog trying to reach high RPM (this was BEFORE I overhauled the carbs & RAVE valves)...I have not had it back to the lake since the rebuild/cleaning. Gotta get to the lake again before it gets too cold here (not that, that will really stop me).
I am looking for some help. Years ago I modified the exhaust (but kept all the old parts) and now want to put the exhaust baffles back in and return it to stock configuration...I am looking for the rubber hoses that made the connections between the baffle pieces from the water boxes to the baffles then to the exhaust outlets...Any Suggestions?
Biggest pain in the butt so far....all to many of the fasteners have had to be drilled out and retapped as the SS bolts fused to the aluminum treads...I reassembled with never-seize, but don't really have a answer to this problem, it is going to happen with dissimilar metals and the wet environment.
Hope to hear from you and benefit from your experience. of course I will pass on what I have learned about this boat too..
Thanks!!
hrdtduck
