Jeff B wrote:
My Dad has an opportunity to buy an older Ranger bass boat that is seemingly
in "perfect condition" for what he feels is a very good price. It is a one
owner boat and my Dad knows the owner and his meticulous nature so he really
wants to buy it. However, he is a bit concerned about the motor itself just
based on its age (it currently runs flawlessly). He has asked me to try to
figure out how difficult it would be to work on this particular motor
if/when it needs repair down the road. I have a lot of experience with
4-stroke car engines (I work with them for a living actually, building
turbo/efi race motors) but I have literally zero experience with anything
related to boats, 2-stroke motors, or even carbs. So in a nutshell, for
somebody that has a wide selection of tools, and lots of mechanical
experience, are there enough resources out there (service manuals, etc.)
that a person could jump in a succesfully repair this type of motor?

On another topic, is there any particular part of this boat that we should
knit pick before buying? Every single thing on this boat "looks" perfect.
The paint, the carpet, even the upholstery, but we have never owned any kind
of boat and buying anything this old is a bit scary.

Thanks for taking the time to read!

Jeff




If it's well maintained I personally wouldn't worry about the age, '86
is not really that old, there's still lots of them running around and
the technology of a carbureted 2 stroke has not really changed much in
the last 50 years. Perhaps more importantly, any idea how many hours are
on it? Some have an hour meter, some don't. Pick up a service manual and
familiarize yourself with the basic maintenance, I'm new to outboards
myself too but so far I've found them to be relatively simple to work
on. Pull off the cowl and everything is right there with no frame or
body parts in the way.

Also relating to age, I recently picked up a tired old boat for
practically nothing, it needs transom and stringer work but I look at it
as an opportunity to learn something. The motor is a '69 Johnson V-115
which had sat outside in the rainy Northwest not run for over 4 years,
yet a half hour of fiddling and it rumbled to life and runs great, it
was really a cool feeling to hear that thing light up. 37 years old and
you'd never know, old is not always tired or bad.