jhonster

Picked up this 21' Marlin mini cubby. Anybody know anything about these things? I bought it for $400. Needed a bunch of work. I guess the guy I got it from sunk 2 or 3 grand in parts into it. Replaced the exhaust manifolds, seats, carb, pulled the fuel tank, fuel pump, and a bunch of other misc things. He said he took it out to the pier and it drove a few hundred feet. Outdrive started grinding and had to reverse it back to the landing. I've replaced the shift cable, input shaft (was twisted!!), u joints, gimble bearing, water pump, trim sensor, and a bunch of other things. Have to fix some of the electrical, lights and a few other things. All in all, I don't think its a bad deal. I still need to remove the prop shaft & either have it straightened or replace it. Not looking forward to doing that job. At either rate. Does anybody know anything about these hulls? I did some research on Marlins and found out there was a California Marlin boats, an Oregon Marlin and I guess another Marlin in Florida. This ones got a 305 Chevy and an OMC Cobra outdrive. I didn't get much in the way of info from the guy I bought it from. He said he scored it from the original owner. So I'm pretty sure it's a California Marlin product. Thanks for any info.

jhonster

bajaholic

It's been a long time but from what I remember...

Marlin Boats were popular in the 80's. They were made in White City, Oregon. In 91 (?) the company was bought out by Cal Custom and broke apart and sold off. At that time some of the molds went a company in California but to my knowledge they never actually produced a boat and the mold's were sold again. I am not sure where the regular molds ended up but the Ceareo Molds went to Magic and then to Eliminator. The Marlin Ceareo was their performance line (They made 18 of those) and the rest were open and closed bow "family boats".

I am guessing if you are located in California, Nevada or Arizona? most likely it was purchased from Holiday Marine in Bullhead City AZ. They carried Marlin and Advantage Boats. I think they also carried Glastron.

They were well built heavy boats with Mercury drives and motors. Hard to kill.....

jhonster

Hey Bajaholic. Thanks for the reply. I guess after spending a bunch of time on the net, I found a few of these things out there. I picked this one up for $400. The guy was disgusted with it. Had dumped a bunch of money & labor into it (carb, refloored over the old floor, exhaust, new seats, etc). He said $2500. At either rate, I guess he got it into the water finally and got into forward once or twice and that was it. Had to back up all the way to the dock. Put it on the trailer and sold it. I've since then put a bunch of time, parts and labor into it. The original OMC cobra drive was trashed. Must have hit something pretty hard because the input shaft at the ujoints was twisted. Yes. I said twisted. The propshaft was bent. The shift cable had a ton of corrosion in the pocket where the idler would shift the outdrive into forward. So. I got a used outdrive. Fixed the leak at the bottom of the oil pan. Had to steam clean the whole hull under the floor to the front. LOADED with oil. I guess the original owner just left the thing out in the weather so thats the reason why the original interior is mostly missing and the floor got rotted. All in all, not bad though. Finally water tested it about two weeks ago. The carb they put on it was missing the secondary pickup tubes, so I found another carb to overhaul and put it on. Got the thing idling around 550 rpm smooth as glass. The ESA system isnt working, which is why I'm idling it so low. But just found a used ESA module. Will try it out this week. Going to play with the timing curve a bit. The thing wide open throttle was going 35mph. I thought that was a little lacking. Going to bump the timing up from 4btdc to around 11. The factory specs went that high using 92 octane. Try to keep the total timing around 32 BTDC. Anywho. Thanks for the info. If you hear of anybody junking one of these things, let me know. I'd like to find the full original interior for it. I don't care what kind of shape. I can always recover everything myself. I'd just like the original cards to be able to reupholster. Thanks again! John

jhonster

jhonster