Well found a great donor boat. It has well surpassed its prime. A 1980's Somerset 17'6" ski boat. It came with a decent trailer that has new tires and newer wheels. That was the main purchase of the boat. Also had a nice aluminum 21 gallon gas tank that may work in the new build. Has a really nice swim platform ladder that I could see paying 150 for easily.
I also may be able to salvage the entire Mercruiser 165 with pre-alpha out drive. Not sure if I will be able to use that in the Roustabout... waiting to pull it out and check the weight on it. The Somerset had used a lot of flotation foam in the aft I presume to help keep the aft end afloat under the weight of that engine. Our plans for the Roustabout don't mention the use of floatation foam and I wonder if that would counteract enough to bridge the weight of the 165 in case it comes in over the 650 pound limit.
Today I spent a few hours pulling parts off the donor. First pulled the gas tank. Will end up pulling the pump out of it and sending the tank out for a good cleaning inside and outside. The pump will be replaced as well as the hoses, cutoffs, and air venting tubes. Still need to get the filler and air vent out of the donor. Not sure if I will reuse those but we shall see.
I pulled the foot off the outdrive. Thanks to Matt (previous owner) for giving it a proper greasing before I bought it! Well. I did find some excess milky puddle in the drive bellow. Definitely lube from the foot in the milky mixture. Well I knew that was going to have to be torn down anyway to go ahead and replace the water pump impeller. I may have a leaky seal in there somewhere. Exhaust and drive bellow looks ok, but shifter bellow does have a rip in it. The whole foot has been store in the up position for over a year by means of a ratchet strap, so I had already planned on pulling the bellows and replacing them anyway. Shifter cable and shift mech in the housing has a good bit of rust and corrosion on it so that too will have to get replaced. And I wasn't sure about an opening on the bottom of the gimbel housing. It looks like it was made there for the exhaust to exit but will have to research a bit further to make sure that it is supposed to be there. It seems to be in an odd place but I presume the pressure from the exhaust would keep water from coming into the exhaust system. Also found the pin for attaching the trim pistons; prior owner didn't know where it was (found in the glove box). Can't say anything about him since I pried open the glove box assuming it was locked, only to have my neighbor show me the push button that actually opens the box!
Other miscellaneous items salvaged were: a bilge pump, the full set of gauges, a few tools left by previous owners, some wooden step protectors, and a pretty nice anchor. I pulled the electrical panel, not sure if I will use it since it is pretty outdated. The bilge switch only is on/off, I plan for having an auto selection as well. But the Nav Lights switch did offer a three switch. May find some use in the new boat for some of it.
Not salvageable that I had hoped might have been: the steering system and the single arm throttle/gear shifter. I found that the steering cable was just locked up somewhere. I presume that it would be a sound investment to replace that anyway. I will take the steering column gear set and the aft steering system and see if I can locate the replacement cable before scrapping the whole system. Also I have seen where a fare bit of boaters prefer the two arm throttle/gear shifter versus the single arm. Some say it makes it a bit easier for docking and backing as well as maintenance since less parts to have failure. I also know this engine will require a little throttle to keep it going in a cold start. So I'm not too terribly dismayed about not being able to salvage these two items.
The donor boat cost a whole $150 bucks. Not bad considering I just was interested in the trailer.
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