I was about to post this as a reply to the post here about a lot of seized motors but figured I'd best start a new thread as this is going to take a bit of explaining here.
Saturday I answered an ad on CL, about 50 miles from me here. The ad said "Several old antique outboards, make offer".
I sent an email, with my phone number figuring it would get a fast reply. About an hour later I got a call from a woman who said if I'm interested I better hurry up, she's moving on Monday and
'All this junk has to go'. After trying to get an explanation as to what all was there I didn't get any real description of what she had. Only that her '******* husband' died and left her a mess.
It took about an hour to get there. I almost took my 12ft trailer but figured if its a bust I'd only be dragging it around for nothing. 50 miles is enough gas in a one ton truck.
I get there and there's a Sold sign on the lawn, and the garage door is open and there's a row of Johnson and Evinrude outboards about 20 foot long against one wall.
I walked around front, and before I even got to press the doorbell, a woman hollers are you the guy for the motors? I holler back 'Maybe', and she pops her head out an upstairs windows and says "If you want you can take that boat outback too, I have the title in my car."
This is when I realize not taking my trailer was a good decision..... I walk behind the garage and there's a 16ft Starcraft SF 16, a bit rough but decent on a galvanized trailer.
She come around back and tells me if I take the boat I can have the rest for free.
I said if its got a title, I'll take it away right away. I never saw an old woman move so fast, she ran back to her car, came right back with the signed title, and a notarized receipt from her husband's estate attorney. I rolled the boat around to the driveway, and started laying motors in the boat. 22 in all ranging from 6 to 25hp.
She even brought me a box full of old quilts to use as padding, and a bundle of cardboard boxes. Then she hands me the registration for the trailer and tells me "Its still valid for 25 more days, Just toss the tag when your done, he's not going to need it anymore."
After I got done overloading the boat and trailer, she tells me not to forget the tackle boxes and fishing rods, the rods and reels were nothing special, all pretty beat up but the price was right.
It made for a slow ride home, figure if each motor weighs in the 65 to 110lb range, there was at least 1,500 lbs in the boat plus the weight of the hull and trailer behind my truck. I stopped at a gas station and topped off the tires so they didn't explode on the way home. All I kept thinking about was losing a tire or wheel bearing with all that weight.
It made it back though but it took twice as long to unload it all into my shed outback.
The boat is decent, but has a 6x6" patch plate in the middle, and I found a broken live well drain port laying in the back of the boat so my guess is the last owner eliminated the plastic thru-hull fitting when it got brittle. For the price, I can't complain.
Now, after all that, while sitting here thinking about it all, what bugs me the most is that that ad was on there for four weeks, and I guess in four weeks, no one bothered to go look or email about it? The boat was a surprise, and the ad had only a pic of two old 50's motors laying in the grass, but it really pays to send off an email and go look.
When I found it, it was two pages down listed under 'Boat Parts' and although I saw it was an old ad, it doesn't cost anything to reply and ask.
The condition of each motor is yet to be determined but all of them look pretty clean, and the 25hp, which I set aside figuring if it runs, it's going on the boat, is a 1975 Johnson short shaft tiller with what feels like strong compression. The one older 18hp, (FD11), also looks pretty clean and has a ton of compression. (There's also an Evinrude 25 too that looks good but that one is a long shaft and a few years older). The only one that looked suspect is an older 18hp that was apart with a bag of parts tied to it, probably a 59-60 model),
The whole lot seems to be a collection of pairs, one Johnson, and one Evinrude in each model or year. The oldest is an earlier 25hp Johnson, maybe 52-53 or so. The newest is an 80's model 9.9hp Johnson, and a matching, Evinrude..
How no one found this stuff before I did is beyond me. Either guys aren't looking on CL anymore or they just aren't looking for boats or motors anymore.
I didn't need another boat but for free, I'm game every time.. To be fair, the boat is what should have been listed and then give the motors away but for all I know she may have had an ad up for the boat too, maybe elsewhere, but I didn't see it.
This morning I stuck a plug in it and tied a rope to the bow and took it down to a pond here and gave it a leak test, and I didn't see anything at all.
The inside is painted gray and it looks like someone shot the whole inside with a spray can, the outside has about 10 coats of heavy paint, so much so its likely adding weight, the sides feel thick with paint.
The bottom of the boat is sprayed with bed liner. It don't leak so for now I call that a win.
The trailer did good too, its nothing special just a bare minimum bunk trailer with 12" wheels ad crappy incandescent lights with pieced together harness and two cracked lenses. The transom looks good, no rot, and its got 6 heavy rod holders on custom welded aluminum brackets on the bow that I may swap over to my other boat, but I'm not sure how much use rod holder would get on the bow like that. Its missing the very forward fourth bench seat, but that's only about 24" long or so and like in mine, not of much use. I removed mine too about 12 years ago because it got in the way. It also came with two 7ft wood oars with attached oar locks, which look well used so someone was likely rowing it at some point.
I went there with several hundred bucks in my pocket but despite the ad saying make an offer, she jumped right to FREE right away. I never said a word about price. I'm glad I didn't
All I can figure is that someone told her its all junk so she didn't value it.
I was hoping that there would be at least one promising motor there, but its likely that I have 20 plus now.
I didn't stick around long either, just in case she changed her mine too.
I also considered she 'sold' them for how much he told her he paid too.
I only wish I had found a deal like this about 20 years ago when I got my current 16ft, I'd have saved myself $600 at the time. Now to decide if this will replace my 14ft or just get put out back as a spare. My Mirrocraft isn't going anywhere, I spent too long getting that the way I want it and although its older by 14 years it a cleaner hull overall.
The title says its a 1993.
Saturday I answered an ad on CL, about 50 miles from me here. The ad said "Several old antique outboards, make offer".
I sent an email, with my phone number figuring it would get a fast reply. About an hour later I got a call from a woman who said if I'm interested I better hurry up, she's moving on Monday and
'All this junk has to go'. After trying to get an explanation as to what all was there I didn't get any real description of what she had. Only that her '******* husband' died and left her a mess.
It took about an hour to get there. I almost took my 12ft trailer but figured if its a bust I'd only be dragging it around for nothing. 50 miles is enough gas in a one ton truck.
I get there and there's a Sold sign on the lawn, and the garage door is open and there's a row of Johnson and Evinrude outboards about 20 foot long against one wall.
I walked around front, and before I even got to press the doorbell, a woman hollers are you the guy for the motors? I holler back 'Maybe', and she pops her head out an upstairs windows and says "If you want you can take that boat outback too, I have the title in my car."
This is when I realize not taking my trailer was a good decision..... I walk behind the garage and there's a 16ft Starcraft SF 16, a bit rough but decent on a galvanized trailer.
She come around back and tells me if I take the boat I can have the rest for free.
I said if its got a title, I'll take it away right away. I never saw an old woman move so fast, she ran back to her car, came right back with the signed title, and a notarized receipt from her husband's estate attorney. I rolled the boat around to the driveway, and started laying motors in the boat. 22 in all ranging from 6 to 25hp.
She even brought me a box full of old quilts to use as padding, and a bundle of cardboard boxes. Then she hands me the registration for the trailer and tells me "Its still valid for 25 more days, Just toss the tag when your done, he's not going to need it anymore."
After I got done overloading the boat and trailer, she tells me not to forget the tackle boxes and fishing rods, the rods and reels were nothing special, all pretty beat up but the price was right.
It made for a slow ride home, figure if each motor weighs in the 65 to 110lb range, there was at least 1,500 lbs in the boat plus the weight of the hull and trailer behind my truck. I stopped at a gas station and topped off the tires so they didn't explode on the way home. All I kept thinking about was losing a tire or wheel bearing with all that weight.
It made it back though but it took twice as long to unload it all into my shed outback.
The boat is decent, but has a 6x6" patch plate in the middle, and I found a broken live well drain port laying in the back of the boat so my guess is the last owner eliminated the plastic thru-hull fitting when it got brittle. For the price, I can't complain.
Now, after all that, while sitting here thinking about it all, what bugs me the most is that that ad was on there for four weeks, and I guess in four weeks, no one bothered to go look or email about it? The boat was a surprise, and the ad had only a pic of two old 50's motors laying in the grass, but it really pays to send off an email and go look.
When I found it, it was two pages down listed under 'Boat Parts' and although I saw it was an old ad, it doesn't cost anything to reply and ask.
The condition of each motor is yet to be determined but all of them look pretty clean, and the 25hp, which I set aside figuring if it runs, it's going on the boat, is a 1975 Johnson short shaft tiller with what feels like strong compression. The one older 18hp, (FD11), also looks pretty clean and has a ton of compression. (There's also an Evinrude 25 too that looks good but that one is a long shaft and a few years older). The only one that looked suspect is an older 18hp that was apart with a bag of parts tied to it, probably a 59-60 model),
The whole lot seems to be a collection of pairs, one Johnson, and one Evinrude in each model or year. The oldest is an earlier 25hp Johnson, maybe 52-53 or so. The newest is an 80's model 9.9hp Johnson, and a matching, Evinrude..
How no one found this stuff before I did is beyond me. Either guys aren't looking on CL anymore or they just aren't looking for boats or motors anymore.
I didn't need another boat but for free, I'm game every time.. To be fair, the boat is what should have been listed and then give the motors away but for all I know she may have had an ad up for the boat too, maybe elsewhere, but I didn't see it.
This morning I stuck a plug in it and tied a rope to the bow and took it down to a pond here and gave it a leak test, and I didn't see anything at all.
The inside is painted gray and it looks like someone shot the whole inside with a spray can, the outside has about 10 coats of heavy paint, so much so its likely adding weight, the sides feel thick with paint.
The bottom of the boat is sprayed with bed liner. It don't leak so for now I call that a win.
The trailer did good too, its nothing special just a bare minimum bunk trailer with 12" wheels ad crappy incandescent lights with pieced together harness and two cracked lenses. The transom looks good, no rot, and its got 6 heavy rod holders on custom welded aluminum brackets on the bow that I may swap over to my other boat, but I'm not sure how much use rod holder would get on the bow like that. Its missing the very forward fourth bench seat, but that's only about 24" long or so and like in mine, not of much use. I removed mine too about 12 years ago because it got in the way. It also came with two 7ft wood oars with attached oar locks, which look well used so someone was likely rowing it at some point.
I went there with several hundred bucks in my pocket but despite the ad saying make an offer, she jumped right to FREE right away. I never said a word about price. I'm glad I didn't
All I can figure is that someone told her its all junk so she didn't value it.
I was hoping that there would be at least one promising motor there, but its likely that I have 20 plus now.
I didn't stick around long either, just in case she changed her mine too.
I also considered she 'sold' them for how much he told her he paid too.
I only wish I had found a deal like this about 20 years ago when I got my current 16ft, I'd have saved myself $600 at the time. Now to decide if this will replace my 14ft or just get put out back as a spare. My Mirrocraft isn't going anywhere, I spent too long getting that the way I want it and although its older by 14 years it a cleaner hull overall.
The title says its a 1993.
