First post to the group! I have not owned a boat before and I am
looking at purchasing a 1988 Four Winns 160 Freedom from a co-worker.
They are the second owners and have had the boat for about 7 years. It
has a 3.0 Mercruiser and a OMC outdrive. The floor appears to be solid
and they say they haven't had any problems with the floor. The
interior is in great condition, no rips or tears in the seats. The
hull appears to be in good shape, minimal marks, no gouges. They are
selling because they don't use it much anymore and there is a problem
with the outdrive. What they are telling me is they had some work done
on the upper gear case and it wasn't filled properly with oil at that
time. They ran it once on the local lake for about 10 minutes and put
it back on trailer. They said they knew something was wrong because it
sounded different. That was Father's day weekend. It has been in
their garage since then. I have an appointment to have the outdrive
looked at next week by the only local shop that works on OMC outdrives.
This scares me a bit. Don't know anything about any type of outdrive,
but why is only one shop willing to work on them? The shop gave me an
estimate of anywhere from $500 to $3,000 depending on what it needs, I
wasn't expecting any different, as they haven't seen it yet.

Thay are asking $1,000 obo for the boat as is and includes the trailer.
Seems to me that if the outdrive can be fixed for $500 to $1,000, this
might be a nice way to get into boating.

Thoughts? - Positive or negative welcomed - Thanks!

Rob

It looks like I may have stated the engine incorrectly. It may or may
not be a Mercruiser. I do know it is a 3.0 though. Thanks!

Rob

In article . com, isu_cyclones
says...

It looks like I may have stated the engine incorrectly. It may or may
not be a Mercruiser. I do know it is a 3.0 though. Thanks!

Rob

I pretended to have one of those once, it was nice.

Lunch was nice;


Spoiled fox hymen with banana marinade sizzled inside tainted bed bug
nostril, served in a turbid cup chock full of medium-rare banana pepper,
chewy pieces of bologna, anchovy and bone, artichoke broth, a side of chips
and a keg of pus.

Rob wrote:
It looks like I may have stated the engine incorrectly. It may or may
not be a Mercruiser. I do know it is a 3.0 though. Thanks!
Rob
==================================
It is most likely an OMC since Four Winns and OMC had a working
agreement. Most, if not all Four Winns of that vintage were delivered
with OMC outdrives. I have an OMC with 230 HP Chev engine. I"ve had
very few problems with it, but be aware that this outdrive is no longer
in production and parts could be very hard to find.. I think you can
still get parts for it, but you'll pay more for them than you would with
a Merc. Good luck.
Norm