1985 26' ChrisCraft Stinger ??
 

Any Chris Craft Stinger owners or anyone at all know anything about this year Stinger? It has twin engine smallblocks and I'd be looking at it as a "progect boat" to mess with and refurbish so I'm looking for a little input as to hull performance, traits, and so on. In other words is it a well enough respected older performance boat to drop some coin and sweat into for a couple years?
Always have wanted to get down and dirty refurbishing a boat and thought this may be a start.
Am I nuts or just looney? :rolleyes: :D

Around that time CC had a problem with hull seperation at the keel on some of the Stingers. There was a CG investigation but the laws about recalls didn't have as much teeth as they do now.
We had a club member that had a 39 open up like a landing craft at about 35 MPH-very bad day. You will need to check very carefully for unusual stress cracks along the keel and/or chines-these seem to be the areas of concern. Unless it is a smoking good deal you might want to pass. Resale could be iffy at best.

I had an 88 260 Stinger that I bought new in 89. t-260's, alphas. I ran the daylights out of that boat for 4 years.

The pluses were that I could run the throttles at the stops all day long and the SB chevy's performed well without drinking a whole bunch of fuel. The boat handled well at speed, and topped out at 60mph with 23p Mirage props. Lake Erie was it's favorite place.

On the negative side, during the second year, the fuel tank baffles "beer-canned" a hole in the bottom of the tank and the dealer had to split the boat at the deck to replace the tank. The cause was determined to be a poor foam job around the tank during manufacturing. While they were in there, they noticed that I had cracked the stringers loose from the hull, so they reattached them to industrial-strength spec. They held well after that.

Overall, as Ted points out, Chriscraft was in bad shape as a company during that era. OMC bought them, then Genmar, and cost-cutting was apparent with the lack of quality in building them.

Since the boat you're looking at has been around for a while, and chances are that it's been reworked a time or two, it's important to get some history of what's been done.

Hire a decent surveyor and have him take a good look at moisture content in the hull and stringers. Take a look for stress cracks around the companionway door, as well as the corners of the engine compartment.

I had a great time with my stinger, as it was my first real go-fast boat. I beat it up and it showed, but for the cost of what you'd pick one up for today, it's a reasonably priced way to get out on the water. Just be prepared to wrench on it pretty often.

I've got a bigger Fountain these days, and really, not much has changed. Other than the speed and amount of fuel she drinks. ;^) There certainly is a BIG difference in quality, tho.

Good luck,
Brian

Thanks gentlemen, I got the scoop on said boat and it has already been pretty much gone thru. I'm gonna pass on even checking it out.

Jay, how's the river doing? Have you been out on the water yet?

Hope to see you guys this Summer :)

Jeff