Nitro - Not right. I have a boat (which is getting painted and having a new drive put in so I am boatless on the 4th). I am lined up to buy a 272 but repairs on it that were due in may may not be done till end of season so I am looking around (owner of the 272 is aware). Maybe it was in bad judgement on my part, but I went the "story" route on this thread because, rational or not, I did not want my find (boat with transom concerns) "poached" from underneath me until after I saw the boat. As mentioned, I have never seen the boat, but i did speak with someone who knew the boat well several years ago, so that and the make of the boat led me to call it "nice." True, I guess you could say I am leveraging info coming from a prior survey, pretty much in the same way I leverage info coming from OSO, but I am not using this to paint a rosy picture only to get burned later, quite the opposite. Generally speaking when someone sees damage it is a lot easier to believe this than if they give it a clean bill of health. Of course I still need time to climb around in the boat and make my own assessment. No, I did not pull meteorological records, I trusted the word of someone involved at the time.

Reading back over this thread, among the distractions (for which i'll take blame) there is some really good info here. Thank-you for that.

Now I know why I am at the computer on the biggest boating holiday (boatless today), why is anyone else?

Wait






What am I missing here?




Glass Dave is from Ohio and he has a thing for U of M, 2 strikes in my book,and the Wellcraft thing he is into is still up in the Air.



Why is this Clown well respected?

this coming from a DEEE - troit'er . . . . or is it Duh-troit . . . lol

we have a summer home in Monroe . . . . and its a double wide to . . .just rolled a new roof on it and fresh Tyvek siding . ..


true dat . . . back o my buildin IS the MI/OH state line

Guys thanks for all the advice and feedback. I just bought a boat that some surveyor flagged with a soft transom. I went into the deal knowing it would need to be corrected. Boat i went with is 1996 Active Thunder - Thunder 32. has 2 merc blue 450's & B1's w/o props. There are minor blemishes here and there but otherwise it is really clean. I personally saw or felt no issue with the transom, but I admit I am not an expert. I plan to use the boat in a relatively gentle manner until I get the transom issue resolved and I will be keeping an eye out looking for any sign of flex from the drives. I know, useless thread w/o pics, so here goes;

[ATTACH=CONFIG]556950[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]556951[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]556952[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]556953[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]556954[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]556955[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]556956[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]556957[/ATTACH]

One thing I need to address quickly is getting a set of props, someone stole them while the boat was in storage, anybody know what props should be use in this config?

Thanks in advance.

Looks like a pretty solid start.
Good for you man!
Keep asking your questions and have some thick skin. You'll be fine.

If I was a stirrer (which I'm not) I'd suggest renaming the boat to "Transom Off".

Looks pretty tidy and you're prepared for the worst case scenario if necessary. Good luck, hope you get many seasons of enjoyment in your AT.

RR

I used my moisture meter app on my Ipad and according to it the transom was wet in the pics of your boat that I scanned.

But I dont trust it since it was like 92% humidity here today.

But the compression app detected a bad cylinder in the starboard motor.

RR - absolutely prepared and this contingency was baked into my offer. I don't if it means much, but we had some big guys on the swim platform at the same time and since it is bolted to the transom might that be a good sign? I suspect those aren't the areas that go soft first.

What are thoughts on the blue merc 450? Are these pretty stable engines (built from a BBC 454?)? any further tricks to get some cheap hp out of these? what rpm do these top out at, around 52-55K ?

If the exhaust has not started the rot than most likely any rot starts down by the drain plug. Good thing about having twins is they are mounted higher and spread away from ground zero of rot.

Trim the drives down and step on the cavitation plates and bounce on them while a buddy watches or videos it.

If they move at all it's the start of the problem.

The parasail boat I referenced earlier is spinning a Bravo 2 pulling a parasail that is equal to 4000 pounds of pull sometimes, so a Lot of pressure is put on the transom .

You will burn up the couplers before you will sink the boat from a rotten transom.