Offshoreonly.com - Still some goodguys in the marine Biz(BAM, TomFTM,and Wazzup)

About a year ago my Friend Jay wanted to get out of his fishboat, and into something with a little more performance. I found hin a 1988 23 Wellcraft Concept with a 454 and a Bravo for a steal locally on Ebay.

Well it ran good(at the time) and seemed solid, so for the price we didnt get a survey(our bad). We took the boat out a few times, and it didnt seem to get enough RPM, but was still faster than his fishboat, so he was happy. When we bought it, we had seen some rust on the oilpan, but no leaks. A few months into ownership he replaced the waterpump, and when he rubbed the line up against the pan, he saw it was about to let go, so before blowing it up, we pulled the motor. At this point in time Jays Business(remodeling) was starting to tank, so we needed to get this done as inexpensive as possible while still doing it the right way, so we contacted several engine builders, and Anthony from Wazzup gave us the best price for what we were looking for, just a slightly moddedCam Headwoirk, and Intake) stock 454 and was local at the time. Anthony went out of his way to come to Jays House to get the motor, tore it down, found a bad piston, got us a used one, did everything he said he was going to, stuck to his price, and even delivered it back to Jays House. We will be firing the motor this weekend, so I will let y'all know how it goes.

I needed to get a Stock Oil Pan, and some nice Valve covers for the motor, TomFTM and I were working on some outboard parts deals that I had from my old 2.4 at the time, and we ended up making a few transactions that all went VERY smooth.

While the motor was out, we went about cleaning up the bilge, and found some rot in the stringers, so we tore them out and replaced. At this point, Jay is just about Broke, and scrounging for pennies to buy the final rigging parts(Belts, hoses, motor mounts, Gimbal Bearing etc.) Jay had just about given up, so I took him for a ride on the Pantera to Lake Boca one day where we met up with Tanner in his Gun, and the Superman Gun, and also a friend in a 46 SeaRay. This got him pumped enough to get back to working on his boat.

I sent him to Marc at BAM for a few things, and we had a few technical questions for Marc, but in no way did I ever expect the level of service he got from Bam. Marc spent a LOT of his Busy time with Jay explaining things, gave him a better deal than I expected on parts, and loaned us his Alignment tool, he even loaned us his custom one for getting the alignment close. When we were having trouble aligning it, and had just about given up and were going to bring the boat to BAM to do it for us, Jay went to see Marc for a few more parts, and to get a price for doing the work, Marc gave us a few pointers, a Pep Talk, and reminded us of something I forgot(the gimbal bearing pivots:cool:DUH).

So I just wanted to thank everyone for all the help, hopefully Friday this thing will be running:drink:

Rick