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Speed Boat

We finally got a speed boat

	Here's Carol and Mike cleaning up our latest toy. Yup we got a boat.So in the middle of July,2001 I finally gave in and we got a speed boat. A Chaparral 187 XL, it seems nice, maybe kinda big.18.5 feet wow!
It is in really nice shape for a 1987. So far the only thing it needs is a few rubber bellows in the I/O The dealer said about $1,000 bucks for them to fix, I think (read 'hope') it might be around a $100 bucks or so.
	It hasn't been used in 3 or 4 years so it was really dirty It didn't show very well but we took it out on the lake for a sea test. It really goes good.
It has a big 4 cylinder GM engine I think it was around 165 HP that should pull some potatoes (tubers....) Looks cool can't wait to get her on the water Stay tuned!
	Carol really got into cleaning the whole boat. scrubbing the carpet, seats and refinishing the teak trim. We found a section of trim that was bad.
Here we have the outdrive removed and starting to rebuild it. so far only about $350 buck, and we have done more than the $1,000 job. 3 new bellows, new gimbal bearing, new input and prop seals, new shift cable, new water pump, and plenty of O-rings
	A nice shot of Carol working on the many pieces of teak "bright work". Its a three step process, a lot of scrubbing and wiping but the result are well worth it! (easy for me to say)
We finally got the outdrive finished! Now on to the bad piece of trim. We cut a new backing from plywood and reused the old foam and vinyl covering.
	Almost done! Just a few more things to do......maybe
Hey it works! We took it out on Belleville lake. Our first sea trial went smooth. We got it up to about 37 MpH. The engine temp gauge is the only inoperative item left. The engine crank is a little slow, maybe some new starter cables will do. All we need now is a name! any suggestions?
back to the top Okay, okay, I'll consider a speed boat. So I looked on "Boat Trader Online" to find a few. We found one that sounded good, it was on a lake about 40 miles away. So we all piled in the car to look at this beauty! Well what an eye opener! it was JUNK, even by our standards it was trash! The boat was tied to the dock on only one side, so it was bashing against the dock! and had been doing that it's whole life! The engine was tired, and would hardly get on plane. Not for me, just what I need is a project like that. So while in the area, we decided to go to a few local marinas and see what they had to offer us, "not to buy, just for a look" Fine, lets go! At the first marina the saleman showed us some real clunkers too. One has dark brown interior that was too hot to even touch! Then we spied a boat in the corner of the yard that had a ripped cover and tree branches laying on it. We asked about that one? "It might be a bit much for you, but make us an offer anyway?". So Carol shot them a low offer and they accepted it, but they wanted a $1,000 to fix the leak, leak? fix? yea! So I told them to take a grand off of the price and we'll take it! We took it out for a sea trial and it ran great. After a few hours it was ours, and we took the boat home, so much for "just a look". It towed good, So now we have to fix it, like everything we buy, it's broken. So we ordered the parts and a manual, and ripped into the outdrive to repair the leaks. We replaced all 3 bellows and the water pump while we where in there. The shift cable was rotten so that went too, while we had it open we changed some seals and a bearing too. All of the vinyl look great, except for one piece that had dryrot in the wood panel. We carefully pulled the staples and cut a new panel following the outline of the old one. We pulled the seats to scrub the carpet under them. Mildew was everywhere, but we cleaned it up fine. Carol pulled all of the teak brightwork, she scrubbed and oiled all of it. We waxed the hull and installed all of the teak the boat looks like new! We bought a new cover for it too. The engine runs great, and at 165 HP we pull skiers at 30+ MPH. It a great boat for us.

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