Now here are some additional questions for you:
- Out of curiosity, do you prefer wooden boats for some reason?
- I ask because they generally need more maintenance, and they are also generally heavier and will require more fuel to operate.
- Judging from your other previous threads you have experience working on wooden boats, and you are confident you can make the repairs to the soft spots in the wood. So it sounds like most of your questions are centering around the cost or difficulty of the mechanical work that needs done?
- What is the intended use for the boat? I assume fishing or cruising?
- Also, out of curiosity, did you simply happen to come across this boat by luck, or were you specifically looking for this model for some reason?
- In my case I specifically wanted a larger aluminum hull vessel, so I spent some time tracking one down that I could get for an affordable price. So by the time I got my boat I was already committed to restoring it because it was specifically what I wanted. A boat that didn't need restoration was not in my budget. Additionally I have the mechanic skills, so the labor cost was not a concern for me. I did not however expect the tools to be so difficult to find, and that has held up the project quite a bit. As I think I mentioned on your other thread there were instances where I could not find the tools and I had to pay an older boat mechanic who had the tools for some very small pieces of work, simply because he had the tools. In my case the boat mechanic has a minimum charge of one hour, and charges $165.00/ hour. Most of the boat mechanics that I contacted laughed and said, "we don't work on those older OMCs anymore" or "we don't do small piece work. We can rebuild the whole outdrive for you but we are not interested in doing the one small part of the job that you need." Then they would recommend a couple of other boat mechanics I could call. In the end there was only one mechanic in my area that was willing to do the work I needed; if I hadn't been able to find them I probably would have needed to ship the outdrive somewhere out of state for service.
- You said you have receipts for some work that was done? Out of curiosity what was done? When was it done? And how many hours have been clocked since the service was performed?
- Is this Carver a "Monterey" model?
- You said on the other thread that the trailer is in great condition? Out of curiosity if you decided to get rid of this boat is there a way you can keep the trailer?
I really agree with Droid here. Expect this to take MUCH longer than you think. You will spend a lot of time waiting for parts and tools when you order them. Also research on the process will eat up time as well. If you intend to drop this off with a boat mechanic you may have to wait for them to have space in their yard, or time. In my area the boat mechanics are insanely busy. If you need something small they will take it and give it back to you next day; however, if you want to drop your boat off for larger jobs they will put you on a waiting list, and then it will take them days if not weeks. Then consider that life happens and when life happens the boat project gets put on the back burner. In my case I had a lot of "life" happen. I had to put my project on ice for 3 years. Your case may be different, especially if you are retired.
I also agree with Droid on cost. I'm currently at 4 times the amount of money I had thought the boat might need to get her seaworthy and that amount is still going up.
I also agree with Droid that unless you have the space and time to work on this yourself I doubt it will be worth it for you. If you need to pay someone to do a lot of the work then I would guess that you will be spending more on the boat than the value of the boat will be when you finish. So if you plan on having the work done by a boat mechanic you may be better off getting something that is already seaworthy. Additionally I recommend you search around for a boat mechanic that will work on this for you. Even if you don't initially plan to pay a mechanic, you may get stuck and need help so it is a good idea to know what your options are, and what the cost might be if that happens. I see that you have some used units you can scavenge parts from; keep in mind that some boat mechanics either don't want to install used parts, or if they do install used parts they might say there is no warranty on the labor.
You said in the other thread that you have the manual. Read through the sections for the mechanical issues that you need to address and make a list of the tools and parts needed. Then start searching online to find the parts and tools to see if they are available and add up the cost of parts & tools.
I agree with Droid, only you can answer the question as to whether it is worth it to get this thing seaworthy. You will need to do some research and we are here to help with that, but the answer comes down to your personal desire and budget at the end of the day. That said, I can share with you my personal experience: If I could go back in time on my boat project I would have pulled out all of the OMC stuff and sold it online. Then I would have taken the money from selling that stuff and rebuilt the transom to close up the outdrive hole, add an outboard motor bracket and get one used large outboard, and one used small outboard (less than 20hp). The smaller outboard being a backup for emergencies or for efficiency when trolling at low speed. Not being familiar with carver boats I don't know if that's possible for a boat of that size and weight or how hard it would be, but that's what I would have done for my situation. Hopefully someone else who knows carvers can tell you if that's a bad idea. My guess is that you would need 2 larger outboards with how heavy that boat is. If I had gone with an outboard my boat would be on the water already, for roughly the same amount of investment.
Now some more information about your drives that may help inform your decision. I didn't include this before because I assumed you may have already known but I will share here now just in case. OMC designed the ball drive to get around the patents on the U-joint design and while it worked it also came with flaws. The ball drive gears were known to wear out early. They were negatively affected by shifting too fast, shifting into gear with too high of RPM, or running the outdrive while tilted up. Many of the ball gears did not last more than 300hrs especially when paired with larger engine sizes. The clutch springs were also known to break. OMC made changes to improve these units over time including getting rid of the E-shift in 1977 but by 1986 they discontinued the ball drives altogether and released the completely re-designed Cobra. Long story short the ball drive units did not last nearly as long as the engineers had thought they would and as a result they eventually had to scrap the ball drives and completely redesign the OMC lineup. So, if you have a ton of parts and the tools on hand already, staying with the ball gear might get you on the water FOR NOW. But if I were putting this boat together and wanted to keep it for the long term, I would personally want to consider something that will be more of a "long term" solution. Newer drive systems will have better availability of parts & tools, and more mechanics will be willing to work on them. Additionally newer drive systems were engineered better and will likely have a longer lifespan. If you start looking into an upgrade you may want to consider something with a cone clutch.
If you need more information about upgrading the carver to different drive systems then you may want to post that in the "Boat Hull, Deck, and Transom Repair" section of the forum. That can be found under the "Boat Repair and Maintenance" section. I dropped a link below to help you find it. Make sure to include the length and model type!
https://www.marineengine.com/boat-forum/forums/boat-hull-deck-and-transom-repair.1021/
I hope this helps Gus!
