It always amazed me on the 220 (and other boats with the same thing) where they put the fuel tank(s) RIGHT NEXT TO THE ENGINE!

Pulled the cuddy wall panels and carpet. Wood looks better. Some delamination at the entry.
Pulled the mats out and all the screws on both wall panels

carpet was surprisingly dry up front

Wood looks ok up front, hope for the best

some delamination on the left wall side, we'll see how far we have to go.

Wall panels in fairly good shape. Small pane a bit soft on the bottom.

Cleaned up some of the old rotten floor and someone actually nailled the plywood down to the stringers! Some of the nails were so rusty I pulled the head right off trying to pull them. Then went after the fuel tanks and blower hose to get a better look at motor mounts.

Wow, someone actually though using carbon nails was a good idea?!?!?! I guess the good news is that the ones that came out pulled out hard!

Finally got the sending unit wire off!

Right tank out

Left tank out

Rotton blower hoses out

Will pull these another day.

It's not too late to stop. Not trying to deter you from your project, but just be aware that you are going to spend hundreds of man hours and many thousands of dollars to turn this back into a useable boat and it will never be worth over 5K when you are done. Something to consider. You could take the 20K that is going to be eaten by this Baja and buy a boat that you can use next weekend instead of 2 years from now.

I really do like seeing these old boats getting some love. That being said if the engine is truly locked up and can’t be saved is assume the out drive needs work. At that point before you continue make sure you love that boat. You will definitely have 4:1 in the boat then what’s it’s worth. You can always get a vortex 350 from a bone yard use your engine parts to make it marine on the cheap side and buy a new alpha drive for cheap. As long as you can do all the work and will use the boat for years to come. While our topgun was u dad the knife for last few years we bought a new yahama 22 jet boat and let me tell you best money I have ever spent. We have gotten more use out of that boat than all previous ones put together. But I’d you have the will the want and the way to do it go for it !

If you have the means, the desire, and skill to do it, go for it! You are not doing this to flip it, but to use it, so thumbs up from me.

as they say, Time with grand kids....... priceless.

Got the rest of the floor out and boat down to the shop to get the motor out of the way to really inspect the stringer / motor mount area. Got the motor out and tore down for inspection on why it would not spin all the way around. Come to find out, the oil pan was pushed up into the crank preventing it from turning. The motor was never run in this condition so someone did some work and never fired it back up. There were broken motor mount bolts on one side, so I'm thinking someone used a lever or jack to try and lift one side of the motor to repair the mount, pushed the oil pan up into the crank path, and never tried to start it after that. It definitely would have taken at least the windage tray out.

A check with the calipers shows the block has been bored at least .020" and I'll get a better measurement later to see where we are. I was hoping it might have been a 383 stuck in there, but the crank appears to be a 350. The heads are not 2.02's and I haven't checked the cam yet. All of the pulleys are pitted from rust so we'll see what our options are there to try and clean up or just replace. One thing I definitely noticed is the weight of the exhaust manifolds and risers, they weigh more than the heads do!!!!! Need to learn more about this to see what we can do to reduce some weight. I recall somewhere that marine headers are extremely expensive so need more education on this.

Pulling motor apart

Had the crew on scrubbing duty to get the last years of grime off the deck. We'll have them finish up next week when the weather warms back up and we get the hull pulled outside. Motor mount lags unscrewed from the stringers, but sticking a screw driver down in the holes just found a bunch of mush so we started taking measurements and formulating a plan on repair. Tapping on the transom all sounded OK but we'll have the boat guy take a look and give his opinion. I did find that the local lumber yard had exterior plywood available. Started the process of researching what materials to re-glassing the stringers back in so we can start getting materials together.

Scrubbing off the last 5 yrs....

and the saga continues.....

It's cleaning up nicely!
Did you have any issues taking the exhaust manifolds off? All too often one or more of the studs/bolts will break off in the block...not a fun day after that...

No problem on the exhaust manifolds. The water neck has two very long bolts and one is rusted into the riser portion. Got that soaking. The 4 middle intake bolts were rusted undersize so we sacrificed a 1/2" socket to swage on there to get them off, but they came out!!!!!

Had to break from the Baja to get another job knocked out. Doing some more research on stringer / floor repair and getting a plan for the motor rebuild. Would like to cut some weight of the stock exhaust manifolds, risers, cast iron intake, etc so looking at alternatives that will get me to a lighter, solid 350+ hp motor.

Hope to get back at it late next week and get the rest of the floor opened up and get a plan for repairs and get materials coming.
H