The 2 main issues I have is
1) he didn't check the oil after run
2) he informed me that the clock didn't advance till the day after I was home with the boat.

yep I agree , and that is the only leg you have to stand on.I would get back with him and the owners about the hour issue . and ask them how many hours are really on the engines.

Both would be an issue for me but more so #2.

I can't imagine him not getting you a full detailed report prior to delivery of the boat. That is bad on his part.

Off to another subject a second. Drew did you perform the leak down or did you hire someone to do it. How do the engines run other than smoking ?

98-502 merc efi engines correct?
all you have to do is scan the ecu and that will give you the true hours,,I am sure your inspector at least hooked up a scanner,if not take it to any Merc dealer and they can scan it ,,all it takes is a couple of minutes

They only smoked on start up. I figured it was valve guides and tried using that for better negotiation. The seller told me it was impossible he just rebuilt the heads. I didn't think about that statement until the day after when I was told the hour clock was not accurate. That should've been my first indication that there was more than 138 hours on the boat. The boat runs okay I can only turn 4600 rpm's with a 28 for blade propeller. I should be around 52 5300 rpm's. I had my guy do the leak down to see exactly where we're at. The surveyor will not even email me back anymore nor will the broker.

if the surveyor will not call you back,,,,,,,then call him out on this board.bet that will get there attention.

oK I think the old fuel could be contributing to your smoking.So the only indication of the motors not running well is they are not turning up the full RPMs. I just can't see both motors being worn out at the same time.Does the smoking clear up after initial startup or do you see it continuously?

I will tell you a little something about 3 year old gas I had some I put in my truck to get rid of that was sitting in cans on a big boat I took care of. I poured 5 gallons in my tank the truck would not even run dump another 15 on it still barely ran, put a can of seafoam octane booster it ran a little better. Every 3 gallons i burned i topped off the tank again I went thru 30 gallons before the truck ran right again.

I had 7 cans left so we used it for saturday night fires at the house. It would barely ignite in a fire it was like diesel the way it burned.

I would pump out every last drop of fuel and put some new fuel in it and run it but before I took it out i would have your guy put a camera down all the holes and make sure there is not already detonation damage

There not both bad motors. One is at 60% and the milk dud one is at 40 in the best hole

Does your guy have a scan tool to check the hours.? Have you ran them on the hose and do they smoke the whole time?

Also has the milkshake returned ? How many oil changes did you do on it?

They are not fuel injected....

Not original engines? I could be wrong but I thought you have merc 502s,,if that is correct then they are not original,,only EFI back in 1998

I think in 1999. All the others I looked at were carbs also

I dont know about that,we have a 98 32 with 502s and a 98 35 with 502s in our lake and both are EFI,
just did a quick search at a couple of 98s and both are EFI as well,I thought 1995 was when they switched to EFI,

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1998...s#.VFLFyzTF_To

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1998...s#.VFLGETTF_To

i kind of skipped to the end here and didn't read the hole deal BUT i would not be concerned if the oil at the bottom of the pan or on the bottom of the dip stick is good (golden, no milk) then you are pretty much in the clear. almost every boat gets camel cum in the top end or on the valve train in these conditions. it is extremely cold out with 40 something water temps, that equals camel cum in the top end. pull your plugs and look for traces of water, if non in the cylinder then you are looking pretty good. that's not to say you're in the clear but i would stop losing sleep over it. if your compression test and leak down look good then i wouldn't go any further. i've had camel cum in the top ends of every motor that i've owned (i don't run thermostats), never really had a problem that stemmed from that.

Id run the $hit out of it, maybe its not as bad as you think. If theres carbon build up on the valves leakdown isn`t going to be great. The goo could be condensation like Cig94 said

Those are not the 500hps.

Boatnt. look at the one from Finland . Same setup I have

I look at it this way. The boat sat..... Maybe sat... Who knows. Either way valve springs are shot. I had not valve cover milk, but milky oil. I did change oil twice after heat cycle. Oil was clear after a good ass whooping. Good news guess. But leak down sucks. I did run the **** out of it and leak down came after beating. I didn't pressurize motor or pipes. But I think I might as well freshen this ***** up anyway. It's only money :)

16 year old 500 hp's, I would have been banking on a top end job regardless. The bottom ends are pretty damn tough on these things, I doubt what you have going on is catastrophic.

I think you right. First things first. I'm going to pull the heads and see what he got. Pressure test exhaust magnaflux heads.

Another thing, if you have a broken exhaust valve spring or even just a misfiring cylinder it will revert water, especially on the early style 500's with the short risers.

sorry I thought you have 502s,, so you got the 500hp ,that explains the carbs,,other than the valve spring issues they are great engines,install some ISKY springs ,new seals and new retainers and run it,,

Your driveway doesn't happen to go up does it ?

or the nose of the trailer lower than the rear - how it sat at that present time ?

I thought about that myself. But my driveway is only pitched about 3" over 70' plus the trailer was jacked all the way up.

Great minds. It's already in the works hahaa! Worst case after rebuilding heads do another leak down and see what I got.

Well that little tidbit of info would have been helpful at the beginning of the thread . Still would pump out all the fuel and start over.

idk about you but Jamie services most of the boats north of New York. I think I'd beleive him more than some surveyor. reason why I had him check out my gun before I made the purchase. and why I'm a repeat customer for top end motor rebuilds. just my 0.02

So you did your homework and research prior to hiring someone you're telling me?

That's all I was pointing out. In the end you are taking a strangers opinion be it survey or mech. Do your homework on who you hire.

There are just as many Bad and shady mechanics as there are survey. That does not mean they all are is what I am saying.

I didn't knock his work cause I don't know it. I knocked his statement about all surveyors being a joke or ripoff. That is just not true, that same statement can be made about him as well and his field of work, which is all not true. Just need to know who you are hiring and what you are getting for what you pay.

Unless the hour meter froze up while in storage for 3 years, the owner had to know that it wasn't working. That would lead me to believe that he probably wasn't straight forward about other things.

Even though you didn't have the full survey in writing yet, did you not at least call the surveyor up and ask if he had any concerns before signing on the dotted line? If not, you are at least partly to blame here. Why even get a survey done if you're going to buy the boat before you get the results??

It went like this. Surveyor went to land survey Thursday . I had the money in escrow for a sat sea trial WITH the surveyor. At the end he said it's all good. It's a good boat . So I signed papers and took the boat home from New Jersey to Long Island New York . The following night is when he informed me that the hour clock didn't advance. A little late. So I took a look at the clock and it was unplugged on one lug. This couldn't have come off itself. It was actually hard to put back on. So with this info a day late and a seller who was straight up fucing me I can tell you I got fuced again and I'm not happy about it.

Strange that nobody on this board knows anything about this boat or any history.

None of our local certified surveyors do mechanical inspections. If a buyer wants a mechanical inspections too (leak down/compression/drives checked out), we refer them to one of several local marina's that handle them if we are selling the boat.

Put up a picture or two of it.

Good point. This boat was at Trenton marine in New Jersey . Owners first name was Dorne. If anyone has any history on the boat I would love to hear it

In Trenton, or Toms River?

I don't know how to put up pictures. BUT if you want to see the boat just go to POP YACHTS and put in 1998 35' fountain. It's still listed but says sold on the pic

Did it come with any service records? If so check with who serviced the boat. Maybe go to the marina where it was stored and ask around, dockmaster, mechanics, other boat owners at the marina, spend the day be friendly and do some undercover investigating. The truth is out there.
Sorry to hear your news and good luck.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, but, as has been mentioned by a few others already, the next thing I'd do is dump all of the old gas out. It's garbage!
Then, the first mechanical thing I'd deal with is the valve springs. They are critical to engine RPM's. In our drag cars, which can sit for up to 4-6 months through our lengthy Upstate NY winters, we ALWAYS back off the adjusters and relieve the spring pressure. Even so, we routinely replace valve springs, before we experience failure or fatigue.

is this the boat?