Not new to pontoons, but this one is all mine

[umtigerz]

Hey, Jeff here in middle Tenn, just got my hands on a $510 1981 Riveria Cruiser 24ft. With a 1991 Johnson 88!!
Guy bought it off of craigslist for $2500
Put new carpet on it, (bad job, I'll be re-doing after summer)
New Battery
Spotlight
4 new Jackets
New Cooler
$533 dollars worth of new stuff
so basically I got paid $23 to take a pontoon boat!

Short story goes like this, he's never owned a boat before, just wanted to fish on it, after putting on the new carpet, and a trip to walmart for all the other new stuff, he put a new fuel line on it and went out 4 or 5 times and never could get it running right.

3 weeks ago he offered it to me for $1500 cause he was frustrated and done with it. I declined the offer.

2 weeks ago he went out to try it again and after dropping the boat in the water, he pulls up the ramp and the drivers side wheel falls off the trailer, he puts it back on to park the thing and it falls off again, he then proceeds to drag the trailer on the axle 7.5 miles and dumps it in his parents front yard! Destroyed the axle,.. now he's got no trailer to get the thing off the water!

Boat wouldn't run right for him again, and he's got no way to get it out of the lake, it sits tied up for 5 days next to the ramp! He calls me back lat Sat night, 9 days ago, and ask me to make an offer, I set up to go look at it on Sun AM, we go for a ride and I find the new fuel line running between the back bench seat top, so every time you sit on the seat to pump the bulb it gets pinched off and starves for fuel. No prob, I can fix that, and the guy just want to get rid of the boat, cause I also found the motor pod aluminum bracket is cracked all to heck, and won't last long.

We got to the dock, and I say so how much, he says $600, I say I got $510 on me , he says SOLD!!

Spent a solid 5 days getting stuff fixed and making her look a little better, and had a fun weekend camping and boat riding.
Will be learning a lot more from here hopefully!

Gotta replace the throttle cable, the housing is shot.
Plan on going with completely new deck furniture this fall, and underlining.
Gonna replace the axle and get the trailer on the road, for now I have access for the whole summer to a friends trailer.

Anybody think that 88 is too big for that boat, it seems to kick up alot of water in the back??

Also, the trailer is the old style, single axle, whats good, whats bad about it, and can I change/convert it to the new style? or just fix it sell and upgrade??

Thanks!
Jeff

[HandymanHerb]

Welcome, nice looking toon, glad to have you with us and can't wait to see the pictures of you all having fun on it.

[lakerunner696]

Whats good is it's yours and whats bad is it isn't mine.

Really you got a hell of a deal

[Ron Burgundy]

Good deal! 88 HP isn't too much. Toon's just seem to throw up a lot of water out back. Even my 50 HP does.

[Bamaman]

That's great. My aunt had a 20' version of the same boat, and the Johnson 88 pushed it very well.

Unless you're going to tow it very far, I wouldn't re-engineer the trailer and put tandem axles. You're in the boat right, but putting big $ into a trailer is probably a waste of money.

Now, if you're going to pull it 50 or 100 miles to the lake, it's a different thing. I've used single axle trailers before, and the second axle is for safety as much as anything. If you're going to stay single, be sure to have good axle, spindles, bearing buddys, etc. And, put really good, new tires on it.

[spurhunter]

Sweet deal! 88 HP too much?? Heck no, Id put a 150 on that sucker in a heartbeat!
One thing I would do if you are going to stip it all down for new carpet is to extend the deck all the way back over the back of the logs. Lots of wasted deck space the way its setup now.