oh i forgot to mention the other things wrong:

**Wiring. Everything is electrical-taped, etc. all using house wire
**The gauges. There are "Trim Gauges", that aren't hooked up to anything. Even my Scarb had working drive trim indicators.
**The Tach's are unreliable below 1000 rpm, sometimes they go to 0, tapping them makes them work
**The throttles - are rough. On my scarab, the throttles glided easy. These throttles are really firm.
**Temp gauges - The temp gauges never really move, so I can't tell you anything. sometimes they will rise a few degrees, but not always.
**Fuel gauge - varies by up to 1/2 a tank within a few minutes.
**Battery cables and lugs - are all corroded.
**The engines - have external rust and corrosion on them.


All that with stress cracks on the deck and dash, I don't want to be pushing this boat any farthur. I also don't want to re-do a boat that isn't capable of anything over 65-70 safely (have been told that would be an upper maximum, if I switched to bravo's). Long story short - it has to be sold.

~Paul

Depends on whether Stinson is in front of or behind Treadwell at the time.

:D:D

BTW Happy New Year

I have thrown no less than 10 people out of my Mastercraft. Yea I used to be a wild ass in that thing. Full throttle and yank the wheel , never let off until we hit 180 degrees. The inboards guy's know what I mean and you can't flip one! BH

I rolled a Correct Craft inboard (1967 16' fiberglass Barracuda with 318 4 barrel Chrysler straight inboard).

Took some awfully strange water conditions and one too many WOT spins (bastage rolled, self and friend never came out - stopped right side up, swamped and ready to sink - not sure if she went all the way around for a 360 or if she rolled back up the same direction she came from.. - friend freaked, but I cranked and she fired right up so we gassed it and sloshed a zillion gallons out the back before the ignition got wet and she stalled. Got enough water out that we could pump the rest out without worrying that a gunnel would drop and sink us. Battery went dead bout halfway thru pumping and we got a tow home later: lake was whitecapping and choppy and it was a Tuesday with nobody else on the water). They WILL roll, so respect them.

Paul - picture shows nice looking "straight vee" 26' Chris.

Your weird electrical nightmare involving accessories running when other stuff is turned on is due to a bad ground to the accessory block. Gauge problems are probebly tied to the same gremlin.

Stress cracks are normal for a boat of that age and are in the gelcoat, most likely NOT in the glass. The gelcoat is only for looks and provides NO structural benefit. Your boat is "probably" very sound structurally.

Your stiff cables are in need of being lubed properly - this may involve removing the inner wire and injecting the correct lube into them - or replacing the inexpensive cables (sometimes it is easier to pull out the rods and lube them in place due to them being hard to get to).

You may need to replace not only your exhaust risers, but the entire manifolds (there are very affordable ones out there).

I assume that you have power steering on your boat. If it is hard to steer, you may have a dry cable from the helm to the transom assy, your power steering relief valve may be defective, or you may need to adjust your steering valve. No big deal either way.

Water in the motor? May be directly related to your corroding exhaust situation. Address that first.

Idling? Of course a boat needs clean fuel filters, properly set float heights, and working fuel pumps - all pumping fresh non-water-infested gasoline. You can't gripe about your idle if you haven't even gone thru the necessary steps to freshen your fuel supply.

You seem to be hot to sell your Chris. You don't seem to realize that with its current list of issues, that NOBODY will pay anything for it. You will be much farther ahead if you fix the inexpensive nags you have in the boat, then use it a bit, and then sell it (most boats sell better when they are being used and enjoyed).

As far as scary wake encounters. You need to spend some time learning to "read" water and experience in how to address such situations.

My feeling about approaching (from behind) two side by side vessels throwing large wakes in a narrow river channel?

Come from the rear at cruise speed (35). Fall in directly behind the vessel that is "more in front" of the other one (Let's say that in this case that the starboard vessel is 40 yards ahead of the other one). Approach from the rear, coming up on the starboard side of his wake cone. Trim to neutral, and keep the hull flat, not nose-down, just flat. Approach at cruise speed, negotiate the rollers from the other vessel at an angle that favors your hull length (you'll be turning left into them and you want two or three easy hops, but not any pounding - if you are pounding, you didn't turn into them ENOUGH). As soon as you have negotiated the rearmost wake (still at 30-ish) you will be at the port edge of the front boat's wake cone. Turn right to shalow out the angle and take two more hops out to clean water. The closer to the big boat you are, the more manageable his wake is cause you have only a primary and secondary roller - not fifty of them.

Pulling back and getting caught in the crosswaves will make anyone vomit.

I still say you need additional seat time - your current boat is a great platform to teach you all you need to know.

If you are worried about it breaking, pay somebody $250 to survey the hull. If it isn't rotted, it will serve you well.

It's your money, and if you had rather give the Chris away and buy another boat, I advise you to buy one that runs NOW, not a bare hull or a project boat.

Thanks for the advice
I have neither the time or the money (that I am willing to spend) to fix the electrical, So other than minor fixes, it's pretty much staying the same. About the only thing that isn't corroded in that boat is the fiberglass. All of the cracks I have notices are on the inside of the boat, in the flooring, the engine area (near the bottom, on the sides), and the dash area. I never really paid much attention to them till I really started to give the boat any sort of a beating. I may take some pictures later, all are real fine cracks, almost invisible, there are only like two or three. I will have it inspected prior to selling or making any major changes either way; I would rather sell it as a collection of junk for $1000 then have the boat crack in half after I sell it.

I bought the chris for $13,500 - and between taxes / insurance / etc. I have over $20,000 Invested in the boat. I have no problem investing money, but I can't help but think that the current quest is futile. Power steering is now fine; ever since the old actuator rusted through and filled my bilge with all my power steering fluid. Getting home that day was real fun :). So was the cleanup. If I sold it now, I would probabily get $8-10k, hopefully the work you suggested will bring more.

I plan to inspect the fuel system the next time I have some days off, I don't have any spare filters on hand so removing them the day I had my problem would be pointless. The problem DID start right after I refilled the tank, (rom almost empty to full) but it is also happening only on port. Starbord runs fine, even with that little water in oil.

How weary should I be with that little water in the engine ? I pumped out the old oil and refilled the engine and ran it, up to about 4200 under load. The pressure was fine, along with the temp :) (never can tell with my gauges). When I inspected the oil on the dipstick, it looked completely normal, but there was still a little bit of froth in the valvecovers. Hopefully it's something transient (those problems are cheaper).

I am not willing to make any serious changes to the current boat, like rewiring, replacing transmissions for counter-rotation, or new engines (unless, god forbid, one blows). Too much work for too little, as I see it.

Biggest problem is the throttles. The other thing I don't like is that to have them wide-wide open, they are touching the dash. In my scarab I had enough room for my fingers. It's also like pushing lead. I will try lubricating the cables first. Never lubed a cable before - what do they use ? I am asuming grease, but heavyweight oil or some special "magic fluid" wouldn't surprise me these days.

Could you include a photo of a stepped V? I was sure I had one, guess I was wrong there. I can't remember any details about my old scarab, never really paid close attention to the hull design. Back in those days it was a couple the mechanics at the boatyard racing giving me advice - they had a 25' or so, "A-4", they had a few sponsors, I can remember Gardetto's as one. Nothing even remotely close to the technical complexity that things are discussed at on here - "it's a boat, in the water, and it goes fast".

I am decent (probabily more correctly "was decent") at reading moderate waves, was nav on the boatyard's boat for several practice runs, but never a race (long story). But again, that was a few times 10 years ago - in both the raceboat and while driving my scarab (But it's not my first time). The congestion on the river is my biggest problem (until I see bigger seas, that is), in my scarab I would frequently leave at 4 or 5 AM or 10 or 11 at night simply to avoid the traffic and get a few fast runs (bringing much joy to my neighbors - nothing like two 454's being cranked in the early morning). Thanks for the suggestion, the problem was the distance was less than 40 yards, probabily more like 20 feet. They were probabily 50 feet apart, with another 40 feet on either side before you went into shallow water (the river itself is 2/3 a mile wide the whole way through, but in this part there are several shallow areas. don't want to risk it) . They were probabily doing 20 (river has a technical speed limit of 25 due to manatees, people who can break it usually do). I am bairly on plain at 20. I've included a rough sketch, but I would factor in up to a 20% margin of error, since I was busy doing things like driving. I approached this whole mess doing around 30.

Kinda started rambling, but I had a lot to say. Thanks again for your continued responses.
Paul.

Electrical ground problem will end up being easy to fix if you spend an hour isolating it.

No counterrotating Alphas.

Go to your local motorcycle shop and buy a cable lube kit. Have them show you how to use it.

On the boat, you will need to remove the "ends" of the cables to get the lube squirted into them. Once you remove one end, you can use sandpaper to smooth out the place where the set screw put a snag on the cable rod, and then pull the inner liner all the way out of the jacket fro the other end. Then you squirt WD40 thru the jacket from one end to the other, and follow it with some light oil (non parrafin base, like turbine oil or air tool oil).

If you have single lever controls, the controls may need lubed. Pull the binnacle cover off and take a peek. Sounds like you have some corrosion issues and it is not out of the norm for the controls to have some corrosion in them as well..

Here is a pic of a model boat hull. It is a good example of a step vee (if a bit exaggerated).

Decided on my course of action. Since there's less than three inches between the exaust manifolds and risers, I am probabily gong to pull both engines. While they're out, I am going to repaint the blocks, replace the manifolds and risers, and rewire. The batteries have been falling to less than 9 volts on cranking, and starting has been very challenging. Figure between new manifolds / risers, wire, batteries, lugs, paint, having engines pulled at boatyard, etc. I estomate it will run me about $2000. While I might be able to remove those inside manifolds without pulling, It'd be really hard to paint them without pulling them. Replaced the port riser on the port engine, about 20 hours of running ago. Kept it identical to the other three, not worth getting any performance exaust. I can't help but feel I won't get that $2k back on sale, but who knows.

Edit: Here's a photo of the engines.
http://paulr.gotdns.com/Scorpion/IMAGE004.jpg

I have removed the covers and WD40'd them on the surface. The boat sat for two years before I purchased it, I figure that the water may have gotten as high as the top of the balancers on the engine at times (due to the amounts of rust, etc).

Asuming my hull is structurally sound, I should have no problem attempting much sharper & faster turns ? After my repairs I'll see what I can do in the 30-35 range.

Yeah. My boat doesn't have any steps like those :). Better put in an extra bilge pump or three just in case I end up in a situation like yours.

Thanks,
Paul.

If the boat has sat with the motors partially underwater, then you will need to get your starters redone. Any starter/alternator shop can do them.

As far as a rewire, you just need to inspect the cable ends and redo the ends on all of the main cables and the hot and ground leads going to your accessory panel(s).

I probably wouldn't pull the motors, but that's just me.
Pull the risers off and then you can make a good call as to whether the entire manifolds need replaced or not. The manifolds may be in surprisingly good condition. Replace the risers for sure.

Kodiak, and some other mfr. make exhaust manifolds that are a good bit cheaper than stock Mercs...

Thanks for the suggestion. I seriously doubt I could change the starters without pulling the engines. Risers - no problem, manifolds, maybe. All the ends of the wires have obvious corossion on them, which is probabily adding a lot of resistance, and is probabily one of the sources of my starting problems.

I am not obese or even fat, but I am 6'1", 220 lbs, so working in small cramped spaces isn't the easiest. One my old mechanic friends is a lot smaller, I might be able to give him a ring (he's like 5'5").

oh - found this photo of the riser & manifold I pulled. any idea why it was getting water in my oil ? heh.
http://paulr.gotdns.com/images/boat_Etc/IMG_0009.JPG


Ah yes, the accessory panel. Never pulled the top off (for fear of more shorts, etc). But since it has at least two hots and six grounds going to it, the wiring should be "interesting" to say the least. Have monday off, so once I finish the honey-do list, I will pull off the panel and have a look. maby I'll pull of a riser or two while i'm at it.

Any other advice for me regarding the actual operation of the boat ?

Thanks,
Paul