Any Boat Buying Tips For Me?

[Martoch]

Hello everyone!
I am taking my future boat for a test drive tomorrow and was wondering if any of you can give me tips/ideas on what to look for while we're cruising the waters. I'm taking a friend of mine who is very proficient in boating "know-how", but it never hurts to take advice from my friends at TechIMO.
The boat is a 20 ft 1995 Maxum 2000SR open bow with a 5.0 Liter V8 Inboard/Outboard engine. It's seats 8 and has a little sundeck to soak in the rays. Here is a pic of the entire boat with my son inside...my next post will be the inside of the boat.
The NADA average retail is $10,300 and thanks to a rich guy selling the boat, he's only asking $6,000 from me!
What do ya think? Advice on what to look for?
Thank you!!!

Mike

[Martoch]

Here's a shot of the interior...
If I like the boat enough, it will be mine by the end of the day! Just in time to start my 4-day weekend off right!

[Knothead]

Absolutely. Good buy. You need to buy this boat.

Then I'll need to fly over there. We'll take it out, and I will be MOST happy to render my opinion. At the end of a 40' tow rope.

Oh, Martoch? Be sure to get some skis....

And a tow rope.

[daveleau]

Make sure it floats.

Nice boat. My wife worked for a boating supply store as tehir art director. I asked her if she ahd any insight and she didn't have any so...

[Epidemic]

check for rust stains on the manifolds and around freeze out plugs.

Check the gimble housing boot around the gimble bearing aka that big rubber thing that keeps the water out of the boat and attaches to the outdrive. Check it for splitting(dryrot)

check for cracks in the hull along the keel. also check for rotting decks and seats. the boat can look brand new but still have rotting wood deck and chairs. so poke around under the seats and bounce around the floor all around the **** pit. looking for unreasonable flex.

run it and after your test drive look at the oil if it looks milky it may have a leak into the crank case.

Look for any fractures in the transome they may indicate rot in the wooden sub structure or an impact.

finally make sure the outdrive gear lube looks nice and has little or now filings in it and the hydrolics work nice and smooth. that out drive will kill ya when you check the price out on it you want a good out drive.

Oh yea if you do take it out for a test drive carefully feel the manifolds after a healthy warm up period they should not be exceeding like 180 degrees on the main portion if they do you may have a water flow problem in cooling system.

[Martoch]

Originally posted by daveleau
Make sure it floats.

Oh Thanks dave, I had forgotten about that one! Seriously though, the obvious things are usually the overlooked ones.
I'll take ANY and ALL suggestions...and approvals--thanks Knothead!
I'm liking that new avatar dave!

[cadetstimp]

You should be able to idle indefinately in the same spot (after warm up) without developing any temperature problems (sign of a heathy motor)

[NeoStarO1]

I don't know much about boats but one thought comes to mind, check the bottom side of the boat on the trailer and look for any tell tale running around. Also check the prop to make sure there are no heavy nicks in the blade which would suggest that the blade has hit upon rocks or other things somewhere along the line.

If it runs good it might not hurt to have a qualified boat machinic to check out the engine just to be on the safe side before forking over lots of dollars for the boat only to find out later why the guy was selling it so cheap.

[Epidemic]

Oh yea the most important thing next to dont get caught in the fanbelts checking the engine.

Is to put in the drain plug.

Oh you laugh!!!

I have seen several thousands of dollars go down the drain because of this one.

[Martoch]

Originally posted by Epidemic
check for rust stains on the manifolds and around freeze out plugs.

Check the gimble housing boot around the gimble bearing aka that big rubber thing that keeps the water out of the boat and attaches to the outdrive. Check it for splitting(dryrot)

check for cracks in the hull along the keel. also check for rotting decks and seats. the boat can look brand new but still have rotting wood deck and chairs. so poke around under the seats and bounce around the floor all around the **** pit. looking for unreasonable flex.

run it and after your test drive look at the oil if it looks milky it may have a leak into the crank case.

Look for any fractures in the transome they may indicate rot in the wooden sub structure or an impact.

finally make sure the outdrive gear lube looks nice and has little or now filings in it and the hydrolics work nice and smooth. that out drive will kill ya when you check the price out on it you want a good out drive.

Oh yea if you do take it out for a test drive carefully feel the manifolds after a healthy warm up period they should not be exceeding like 180 degrees on the main portion if they do you may have a water flow problem in cooling system.

Oh brother! I liked "make sure it floats" a lot better, much easier! LOL, thanks a million for all of your advice...I'm printing this out for my mate to look at...oh my, I'm speaking with boating terms already.
I pray that all of the above are just fine, this boat is soooooo sweet!