Now the proud owners of a 1986 Sea Ray 300 DA

OK, so here goes nothing. the admiral thinks that she has taught me how to put pictures on here, so with her looking over my shoulder I'm gonna try it. Keep in mind that things have advanced since these were taken.

BTW, We fired up the 350's (one in the shop and the other in the engine bay) and they will do just fine :-)!

http://s606.photobucket.com/albums/tt144/pokettoos/
 
Looks like a good project! I like updated look you gave the cabin by getting rid of all the dark fake teak. Did you do the cushions yourself? Rebed your bow rail stantions, they were known to leak and appears you have some signs of water intrusion in the v-berth area celing. Also check the hatchs and rebed if needed. Looks like you will have her bristol in no time!
Keep us updated with pics as you go along.
 
I like the look without the teak trim inside. Is it painted or does it have the vinyl over it? Looks a whole lot newer on the inside that mine does! I may have to consider a change like that!

Thanks for posting! It's a great boat and you will LOVE it when it's finished and running!
 
The vinyl and internal teak was painted by the guy who started the restore on the boat. I am not totally thrilled with how it was done (I used to have a painting business so I am REALLY picky when it comes to paint jobs), but the admiral likes it so it stays. I am intending to remove the paint on the rails and deck teak areas though and restore it to a high gloss varnish finish (I do not like teak oil nor the unfinished feel of the wood without a varnish).
 
Ok, so we FINALLY launched yesterday! Here comes the initial problem list:

1) There is a small leak down behind the right engine (which I believe is from a swim platform screw hole) not a huge deal by itself, but a must fix right now.

2) The entire 12V system EXCEPT the ignition will NOT work despite the fact that all works on shore power flawlessly. This is an especially large concern in regards to the bilge pumps and blowers when off the dock power. Any thoughts here would be greatly appreciated as I am NOT an electrical expert. I am thinking that it is related to the combiner/switch/charger end of the system as all the fuses look good and everything obviously works fine when powered by the other side of the system.

3) The port engine exhaust hose (from the elbow to the top of the riser) is too short and was blowing water everywhere. Actually a pretty easy fix - going to west marine this morning to get a longer piece of 4" hose and replace it - just a muscle (and PITA) job with everything in place.

4) Despite the enormous effort I made to get all the water out of the fuel system, the starboard tank defied me and I still have to get it completely clear. I am going to dump in some Iso-heet (on mechanics advice) today to try to make the remaining water burnable and clear the system. Pretty frustrating after all the tests went fine to know that when I filled her up yesterday with 120 more gallons of Chevron gas (wanted GOOD gas to start off!) it just pushed water in the fuel system again!

Other stuff is mostly reassembly of panels and cleaning/detail work until I can start of the water/waste systems to see what kind of shape they are in!
 
Some answers (hopefully)
1. Fix that screw leak so it doesn't rot your transom. Some epoxy to fill the hole then re-drill and install screw with 4200.
2. I'm confused here, when you say all works well with the shore power hooked up do you mean the 12V stuff works or the 120v stuff works? If you mean that you can blow the horn, run the wipers and start the engine then I'd check the condition of the batteries and their connections. Also try other positions of the battery switches. Sounds like you are running off the charger while on shorepower and your batteries are flat. OK I just reread what you posted, you can start the engines on or off shore power but all the 12v accessories only work while on shore power. That sounds like a battery connection/switch issue. Are all the large plugs on the back of the engines attached and clean? Have you put a volt meter on the fuse panel main feed wire to see what, if any, voltage is present while disconnected from shore power? How old are your batteries? Is the electrolite up to proper level? Does your boat have a generator? If so, there could be a problem with the transfer switch. I'm not much help here, my boat doesn't have a generator.
3. Put some liquid dish soap on the inside of the new hose to lube it up so it will slip on the elbow more easily. Also remove any rust/scale before installing new hose. If its hard to remove the old hoses, just cut them in half with a hack saw and work them off in two sections.
4. Do you have ethanol gas in your area? If so, be careful about how much dry gas you add to the tank. If you have the same type fuel we have on the east coast(10% ethanol) you could already have a phase seperation issue occuring. Alcohol can absorb its own weight in water, then it saturates and seperates into non burnable solution that can be a bear to get rid of. More on that after you see what the dry gas does. How is the water getting into the tanks? If you haven't yet done it, replace your deck fill o-rings, they dry out and can allow rain and wash water to leak into the tanks. Does your boat have the fuel cross over valves on the bulkhead in front of the engines? Is only one tank affected? Have you drained your seperators? I mean the ones up under the deck near the fuel tanks? I was told by a mechanic that sometimes they don't even put filters in there until the water is drained out. It holds more volume with no element. This presupposes you have the Merc spin on filters on the front of the engines to catch any crud before it makes it to the carb filters.

Let us know how things are going and we'll try to help troubleshoot.
 
Is the 50 amp breaker on the bilge breaker panel tripped? Is the selector switch for the generator set to "ship" position?
 
Chris,
Thanks for the various tips. OK, as of right now I have:

The exhaust leak fixed (new section of hose installed - loads of fun but done properly!).

The gas issue resolved (flushed out the system from tank out to engine and added four bottles of Iso-heet to each side to metabolize the water in the gas).

Attacking the other two problems today. One thing that I have noted is that my actuation light on the combiner does not light at all. I am pretty sure that the combineer is shot so I am going to replace it today and see if that helps resolve things (as the batteries are NOT charging off the charger - even though the charger is perfectly functional).

I do have a 4.0 Onan generator, but it is not yet running because I have carb issues that I need to resolve. The switch APPEARS to work correctly, but without being able to fire the genny I cannot be sure.
 
OK next update.

Genny is running but I need to still pull the carb because I think the float needs replacing and I can't get the idle to adjust up manually. It DOES respond to load however and that is a good sign.

I re-ran a bunch of the battery lines and I now have the pumps working off of DC, but still not the blowers. I am giving that some thought away from the problem so that I can clear my mind (from the aggravation) and diagnose it properly. I am still not sure that the combiner is working properly, but I am going to have to pick one up online since West Marine here doesn't carry a three bank unit in stock and the one they have in catalog/onliine is not what I am looking for.

The leak turns out to be at the bottom outer (rb2@gr5t 5 o'clock) on the right drive. I am going to try putting on my wetsuit and doing an underwater epoxy to avoid hauling it back out, but if that doesn't work I'll have my buddy bring the trailer back to the launch ramp and pull it out to set the epoxy and overseal it with 5200. It isn't the big deal that it was when I couldn't get the pumps going on battery, but it still must be fixed soon.

All the breakers and fuses appear to be fine and test with current, but I am going to replace them anyway since I do not know when the last time that was done was.
 
I confused again. You say that the blowers work on shore power but not off the batteries. The blowers are 12Volt DCand will not run off 110 AC other than thru an inverter or charger. So even when you are hooked up to 110 shore power, the blower is still drawing 12 DC directly from the batteries. The combiner or charger could be your problem but I'm not so sure anymore. Are the two main breakers above the ignition keys testing ok? Are all the breakers in the bilge on the bulkhead panel set and OK? I know there are bilge pump breakers there as well as a 50 main breaker that feeds a subpanel under the dash. What about ground wires? My boat has a ground bus under the dash that all the grounds from the dash switches and instruments are connected to. If there is anything loose or corroded there, you could have high resistance that would be masked while putting more juice into the bats from the charger while on shore power. Taking some blind stabs here but it sounds like some kind of connection issue. Are all the bats hooked up and properly connected to each other and their respective battery switches?

Which battery wires did you replace to get the pumps working?
 
So an update on what has suddenly become a very touchy situation.

I have finally reached the point with the guy that I bought the boat from that I just plain didn't trust him at all. The put offs and BS answers and plain not having any idea wore thin (as many know I was of course balancing being patient as all older boats have SOME issues with Admiral and crew who are new to it and haven't learned this yet), and I had a couple of scares with the leak issue because my float switch had gotten stuck on the primary bilge pump (fixed by adjusting where I laid the hose).

So yesterday I got in touch with a friend's mechanic who is a reputable and reliable guy and he was nice enough to come by on his off day with his snooper camera to see if we could find where the leak is coming from. What we discovered is that it is coming from a hole in the bottom of the Y pipe on the starboard engine. As you all can imagine, I was devastated at this news as the fix will involve hauling the boat and pulling the engine and drive to replace the pipe (rb2@gr5t $1100.00 in labor alone). In addition, when I told the mechanic who I had purchased the boat from and what the original agreement had been, he was very straightforward about the fact that he often sees this kind of sloopy work coming from the shop where I purchased and to expect a LOT more problems when he actually got the engine out. At this point I am angry but trying to be rational. I wrote the contract to the specific of having "working engines and drives", but we can't even get to this point and they really DON'T work properly. I am going to file complaint (I think that boats fall under the California BAR but it may just be regular consumer affairs), and contact a couple of friends who are lawyers and initiate suit against this guy.

As always, I am still pretty new at dealing with this kind of situation, so any advice from anyone who has had the experience of dealing with the sleaze side of the boating industry would be welcome. I have already warned my marina's staff that if the guy comes anywhere around the boat to call the cops (yes, I saw some things in almost four months working in his yard that make me believe that ANYTHING is possible). I will also probably file for a restraining order. The question is, do I have to allow him any more opportunity to make things right (I have informed him numerous times by phone and in person about the problems I am having, and he hasn't made ANY effort to try to come fix things, just keeps hinting at me paying him more money for service that should have been included originally and has NO service write-up for it and parts bought by me), or am I at a point of just going ahead with suit and getting my loss out of it. I don't want him getting away with this any more (the mechanic who came out yesterday commented "this guy has just got to go away and stop doing this to people"), and I am not going to dump my problem on some poor schmuck so they can get screwed too. I would still like to get the boat to working condition as she has plenty of potential, but there is obviously going to be quite a bit more time and money involved in that and it may not be this summer.
 
Take a deep breath. Take another. Look you bot a 23 year old boat in an obvious state of disrepair. That's a buyer beware situation. Price appears to be $6,500 for a boat that generally would list and/or sell for $15,000 to $20,000+. Should of, would of, could of, made the deal subject to the previous owner putting everything back together and subject to a marine survey and sea trial. Don't close until all issues are resolved. Lesson learned.

You have a cost estimate for $1100 to pull and fix the engine. That will buy you about three hours of legal time. Your best bet will be a good mechanic rather than a good lawyer. The good news is you bot the boat cheap enough that you can put some money it without going over its full reasonable value. Good luck.
 
I have been operating under that assumption for a while now and have actually just been of the mind that I just wanted to get clear of the guy and any association with him and that I would deal with/fix any other issues that came up. The thing is, this is not the only thing going on that relates to the running condition of the boat. Maybe what it just comes down to is what do you define as "good running condition"? I would take this that - insofar as daily operating goes - I can expect to go to the marina where my boat is plugged in to shore power and has charged batteries, turn on my blowers to clear the bilge, start the motors, engage the drives and be able to cautiously exit the marina to a day of normal boating aafter which I re-enter the marina and am able to carefully dock the boat using forward and reverse throttle and a little steer. Right now, I can't do this and it has nothing to do with the leak but rather the other items that are wrong: 1) the motors stall under load even though he assured me that all the throttle adjustments were correct; 2) there is no discernable reverse at this point; 3) he didn't bother telling me that the trim pumps were shot until it came time to go into the water - then he told me that I didn't really need them on a boat this size (after I made clear that I wasn't paying him more money to do other work); 4) he had his guys just cut off the trim sensors on the drives and told me that they were uneccessary on this boat (this was some time before he let me know about #3).

These are just SOME of the examples of things that have gone on and the fellow yesterday let me know that this is a common practice of this guy and that the problem is that nobody has followed through on calling him on it and it is driving people out of boating around here.
 
look at the positive things, work towards the future not the past
you still got a great boat cheap

yes you may have to spend $$ but it will be better then spending 15k to 20 k on a 86 with someone saying this and that are new
at least this way in the end you will have a better boat
 
I don't get you guys - unless you are dealers/mechanics.

Here's the thing - I knew what kind of a guy he was when I walked in to do business with him. That's why I had him sign a LEGAL CONTRACT with provision that his responsibility was to refurbish the engines, drives and generator as well as all associated items in the engine room. At this time there are visible violations of these provisions that exceed the value paid for the boat and the contract delineates both the responsibility to have it in working condition (it is NOT now nor is it nearly so - $1100 is just the labor to pull the engine/drive and replace the "Y" pipe and does not include ANYTHING ELSE). In addition, there are several others in the area have had the same experience and have documentation to prove it and put this guy out of business.

Personally I just want my boat to operate in a normal safe condition. He has had numerous opportunities to put things right, but has not done so. Now the consequences will be what they will be, but the contractual obligation WILL be fulfilled.
 
I will give you some advice attorney friends or not it will cost you more in legal fees and take 3 years to get to court get over it you got what you paid for an old boat that needs work. You probably didn't even get a survey when you purchased the boat did you? For $6500.00 you got a great deal even with the minor problems you have had. Go back to spending your time fixing the boat. Boats are expensive to maintain I have an older boat I know. I didn't want to have problems so I replaced almost every part on the boat, engines, drives, transmissions, all hoses, AC units, bilge pumps and switches, all the wiring, chargers well I will stop there. We have a member on the board that bought a brand new Regal and lost his shaft bolts after 2 hours of cruising the manufacture and the dealer say it is not their fault. The member is getting the boat fixed it is costing him $10k and then he is going to file a lawsuit, otherwise his boat would be on blocks for 3 years until it got to court. Just a lesson about THE court SYSTEM 1st you have to file and then it will take time to be assigned to a judge. The Judge will want you to go to non binding arbitration if both parties can not come to a amicable conslusion then 6 months later you may end up in court with a Judge that will make the 2 attorneys go out in the hall and settle it. Take it from someone who has sued twice I spent more money on attorneys than I recovered even though in both cases I was 100% in the right. This might seem like hard medicine but it is reality.
One other important note you violated the contract by taking the boat before it was finished, that is what his attorney will say. He will say that you are not a certified marine mechanic and you caused the damage or it was normal wear and tear on a boat that age. I will bet you the price of your boat you will not recover a dime.
Bill
 
I read the entire thread and it appears you are new to boats. As far as your carb issues people told you not to add the additive but you did anyway. Did you know if you run Ethanol you may need to replace all the fuel hoses in your boat? If the hoses are original they will deteriorate and you will end up destroying your carbs. If the Ethanol was left sitting in the tank and with the additives you added you will have phase seperation and possible damage to the engines at a minimum you will constantly clog filters? You will never get the engines or generator running properly until you have the fuel tanks evacuated and all hoses brought up to the type 1A/ ISO7840A1 CE rated fuel lines needed to run Ethanol? You better also delete most of your posts because it is fairly obvious you are not a marine mechanic and if the dealer has a friend or he reads this board you have already incriminated yourself.
Bill
 
I hate to say it, but I think what Bill has said is probablly right, you will spend more time and money taking the guy to court than you will just getting the boat fixed. I know that stinks and its not the way it should be but, as a friend of mine always says, "life just isn't fair".

If you want to fix her there are lots of people here, myself included, who will be happy to help you thru the process, at least from a tech point of view. You can do most of the things yourself, but some things you will have to pay somebody else to do, like that generator issue. Get a pro to look at it, its a safety issue. You said there are many things that need doen, could you post a list? That would help nail down what you need to do and maybe in what order. Some things sound wores than they are and other things sound simple and are actually complicated. On a boat your age that has been sitting, a good carb rebuild would be a good start. Its not expensive to have them done at a carb shop if you pull them and take them to the shop.

Bill, I'm not sure he doesn't already have alcohol resistant fuel hoses on his boat. 1986 wasn't that long after Carter started the "gasohol" thing and I know my old 1982 Sea Ray had hoses made to be caopatable with ethanol. I'm not saying he doesn't need to replace the hoses. Even if they are the proper rating, they are now over two decades old and should be replaced as a safety issue. I'm going to replace all mine on my '89 Sundancer this spring.

My boat has some unusual (at least to me) looking fuel lines that run from the tank to the seperator and from there to the main engine filter. They are a light tan color rubber with fitted ends with female threded fittings attached. Obviously I will have to take them to a hose shop and have suitable repalcements made, but I'm wondering why they didn't use barbs and clamps like the rest of the fuel system has.
 
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